Dodd Leans Toward One Agency for All Banks

[Dover]

Source: American Banker

WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd is actively considering a regulatory reform bill that would create a single federal regulator for financial institutions, stripping supervisory powers away from existing agencies, according to sources on Capitol Hill.

The bill — which, sources cautioned, remains a work in progress and could be derailed by several factors — also would likely create an interagency systemic risk council rather than give such oversight to the Federal Reserve Board, as the Obama administration has advocated.

Dodd's committee is working to finish a draft soon, with the hope of passing a bill this year, sources said.

But whether this version will survive hinges on whether Dodd decides to give up his Senate Banking chairmanship in order to run the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. A new banking chairman would probably tweak the bill and could even take a new approach. Though Dodd's final chairmanship decision is unknown, speculation has grown in recent days that he would move to the health panel.

Sen. Tim Johnson — the most likely candidate to succeed to the banking panel's chairmanship — is more moderate than Dodd on many issues and could opt to start over.

Still, the discussion now underway is the best picture to date of the status of reform in the Senate Banking Committee. Capitol Hill sources said the bill under discussion would differ from the Obama administration's reform plan in several areas.

For one, though the administration has recommended eliminating the Office of Thrift Supervision and merging it with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the committee's tentative plan would go much further, stripping supervisory powers from the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp..cont'd


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