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Dodd Financial Reform Bill Passed By Senate Banking Committee

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

From The Huffington Post

The Senate Banking Committee has approved Democratic legislation overhauling Wall Street regulations on a party-line vote. The bill now goes to the Senate, where its prospects remain in doubt.

The committee vote Monday was 13-10.

The bill was written by Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut. It would give the government unprecedented powers to split up firms considered a threat to the economy, put together a council of regulators to watch for risks in the financial system and create an independent consumer watchdog.

Sen. Richard Shelby, the committee’s top Republican, said Republicans decided not to seek changes to the bill in committee. He said such an effort would not have been productive.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans abandoned hope of altering Wall Street legislation in a key Senate committee Monday, clouding prospects for a bipartisan bill and leaving the fight for the full Senate.

Republicans had offered more than 300 amendments to legislation proposed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, but they withdrew them over the weekend. That cleared the way for a quick party-line committee vote on Dodd’s proposal late Monday or early Tuesday.

The surprise development did nothing to mend the partisan fissures over the legislation and adds even more uncertainty to Congress’ ability to pass a sweeping rewrite of financial regulations this year. The Senate would not take up the bill until April at the earliest.

From The Huffington Post

“You’ll have Easter recess, and that’s when, I guess, over the course of the next several weeks when the real negotiations will be taking place,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the committee who had held negotiations with Dodd. Corker spoke on CNBC.

Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/22/dodd-bill-passed-by-senat_0_n_508935.html

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Lobbyists Win: Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

March 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Sewell Chan, NY Times

Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders, people involved in the talks said. The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records show.

The Senate Banking Committee’s chairman, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed legislation in November that would give a new consumer protection agency the power to write and enforce rules governing payday lenders, debt collectors and other financial companies that are not part of banks.

Late last month, Mr. Corker pressed Mr. Dodd to scale back substantially the power that the consumer protection agency would have over such companies, according to three people involved in the talks.

Mr. Dodd went along, these people said, in an effort to reach a bipartisan deal with Mr. Corker after talks had broken down between Democrats and the committee’s top Republican, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama. The individuals, both Democrats and Republicans, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

Under the proposal agreed to by Mr. Dodd and Mr. Corker, the new consumer agency could write rules for nonbank financial companies like payday lenders. It could enforce such rules against nonbank mortgage companies, mainly loan originators or servicers, but it would have to petition a body of regulators for authority over payday lenders and other nonbank financial companies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/business/10regulate.html?hp

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Plan Advances to Bolster Fed’s Role in Consumer Protection

March 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Damien Paletta, Wall Street Journal

Key Senate lawmakers are close to a deal on a legislative package to overhaul financial regulations, people familiar with the matter said, driven in part by a near-agreement to create a new consumer protection division within an unlikely body–the Federal Reserve.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) were conferring with other members of the party in an effort to sell the agreement, Senate aides said.

This is the closest the bitterly divided Senate has come to an agreement on new financial rules, and Mr. Dodd will likely have to make a hard sell on any plan that would give the Fed new powers to police the way mortgages and other products are offered to consumers. He has been one of the Fed’s biggest critics and routinely blasted the central bank for failing to enforce the consumer-protection powers it already has.

“Senator Dodd is keeping members informed on how things are progressing as he has throughout this process,” his spokeswoman said. “We do not have an agreement yet. He hopes to have a consensus bill in the coming days.”

If lawmakers feel they have enough agreement, Mr. Dodd could introduce his bill later this week and potentially hold a vote in his committee later in the month. If other lawmakers balk at agreements between Messrs. Dodd and Corker, it could make it more difficult for them to pass legislation this year.

Democrats and Republicans have remained bitterly divided over how best to rework consumer-protection rules.

Read more here:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704761004575096170041767734.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter

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Banks Raise Army of Lobbyists To Storm The Steps Of Congress To Fight Reform

February 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Expenditures jumped 12% to $29.8 million last year among the eight financial firms that spent the most to influence legislation.

By Nathaniel Popper, LA Times

Even as the financial industry has sought to keep a low public profile, some of the country’s largest banks have ramped up their spending on lobbying to fight off some of the stiffest regulatory proposals pending in Congress.

Lobbying expenditures jumped 12% from 2008 to $29.8 million last year among the eight banks and private equity firms that spent the most to influence legislation, according to data compiled from disclosure forms filed with Congress.

The biggest spender was JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose lobbying budget rose 12% to $6.2 million, enough for the firm to have more than 30 lobbyists working for it. Among other banks, spending on lobbying rose 27% at Wells Fargo & Co. and 16% at Morgan Stanley.

“I have never seen such a scrum of bank lobbyists as I have in the last year — and I’ve worked on quite a few bank issues over the years,” said Ed Mierzwinski, a lobbyist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a coalition of state consumer organizations. “It seems like everybody is out of work except for bank lobbyists.”

Much of the increase in spending on lobbying in 2009 came in the final three months of the year as Congress voted on financial reform bills. Many Washington observers say industry lobbying has been even more intense this year, as President Obama has proposed a new tax on big banks, caps on their size, and curbs on their investment in often lucrative but risky hedge funds and private equity funds.

“This is a watershed moment,” said Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents about 100 of the largest financial firms. “The industry will be changed forever after this year.”

Bank lobbyists, however, are trying to limit just how much the industry has to change. They are fighting some provisions in the Obama administration’s broad industry-overhaul proposal, especially a plan to create a consumer protection agency to oversee financial services.

The House passed its version of the legislation in December. But its prospects are uncertain in the Senate, where talks between Republicans and Democrats on a compromise version recently broke down.

At a hearing this month, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has had a generally warm relationship with the financial community, lashed out at the “refusal of large firms to work constructively with Congress.”

“Too many people in the industry have decided to invest in an army of lobbyists, whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms that we are working so hard up here to try to achieve,” Dodd said.

Read more here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-lobbying16-2010feb16,0,1048819,print.story

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