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WSJ: Overhaul Grows and Slows

| Posted in In Case You Missed It

What is 20 times taller than the Statue of Liberty, 15 times longer than "Moby Dick" and would take the average reader more than a month to read, even if you hunkered down with it for 40 hours a week? The answer: The growing paper trail formed by the Dodd-Frank law, passed by Congress last year to give U.S. financial regulations their biggest overhaul since the Great Depression.…

H.R. 1062, the Burdensome Data Collection Relief Act

| Posted in Legislation

 A provision added to the Dodd-Frank Act without any debate requires publicly traded companies to disclose their median annual total compensation of all employees. Two months after the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law, the Financial Services Committee received testimony about the enormous burden and complexity this provision poses to publicly traded companies, with very little, if…

H.R. 1539, the Asset-Backed Market Stabilization Act

| Posted in Legislation

The Dodd-Frank Act included a liability provision for credit rating agencies if their ratings were determined to be inaccurate. Within days of the Dodd-Frank Act becoming law, this liability provision temporarily shut down the asset-backed securities market, forcing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to step in and issue a temporary no-action letter on July 22, 2010. On November…

H.R. 1082, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act

| Posted in Legislation

The Financial Services Committee has received testimony regarding the role private equity firms play in preserving existing jobs and creating new ones by providing capital to struggling and growing companies.  The Dodd-Frank Act requires most advisers to private investment funds to register with the SEC, including advisers to private equity funds. The Small Business Capital Access…

H.R. 1610, the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act

| Posted in Legislation

The Dodd-Frank Act requires derivatives transactions to be cleared through a registered clearing house, and exempts swaps and security based swaps from this clearing requirement if one of the counterparties is not a financial entity. The Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act exempts true derivatives end-users from having to post margin as required under…

H.R. 1573

| Posted in Legislation

Representatives Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Frank Lucas (R-OK), K. Michael Conaway (R-TX), and Scott Garrett (R-NJ) introduced H.R. 1573, which would extend the deadline by 18 months for implementing Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The bill gives the regulatory agencies more time to effectively meet the objectives of the derivatives title, to…

Chairman Bachus: Speed of Dodd-Frank Rules “No Excuse” to Limit Public Comment

| Posted in Press Releases

WASHINGTON-- Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus issued the following comment in response to Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin’s defense of the rapid pace of the Dodd-Frank Act rulemaking process.  In early March, all Republican members of the Committee wrote to regulators to express their concerns about the volume and pace of rulemakings under…

H.R. 1223, the GSE Credit Risk Equitable Treatment Act

| Posted in Legislation

The legislation, introduced by Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Scott Garrett, helps clarify the risk retention rules required under Section 941 of the Dodd-Frank Act to make clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be held to the same standards as any other secondary mortgage market participants.  A GSE loan purchase or asset-backed security issuance would not affect the…

H.R. 1221, the Equity In Government Compensation Act

| Posted in Legislation

The legislation, introduced by Chairman Bachus, suspends the compensation packages for executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and places all other employees on the General Schedule pay scale. Since September 2008 when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entered Federal conservatorships, the Federal Housing Finance Authority has approved multi-million dollar compensation packages for the GSEs’…