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March 11, 2010 Thursday 04:11 PM EST
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Senate’s Financial Reform Bill Coming March 15; So Far Lacks Bipartisan Support
Jesse A Hamilton
WASHINGTON
Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate committee that is working on reforming the U.S. financial system, has worked for months to produce a bipartisan reform bill, but now said he’ll be unveiling a bill that doesn’t have full bipartisan support — even though it contains a number of points negotiated across the aisle. The reform bill proposal will be presented in his Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on March 15, he said. By March 22, he intends to have the committee start a week of amendment considerations on what’s expected to be a 1,200-page bill. Once that week is up, Dodd hopes to vote the bill through. Dodd said the release of this proposal is “not a reflection of something breaking down,” but rather a race against the calendar. “You need to move things forward,” he said. “You need to set proposals on the table.”It came as a disappointing surprise to Republicans, who had been negotiating the details of the bill with Dodd and the Democratic committee members for a month. The chief GOP negotiator, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, said the talks were days away from producing a bill. Corker said Dodd was squeezed by the Obama administration to move quickly, and the coming showdown over a health care bill factored in. “There’s no question that White House politics and health care have kept us from getting to the goal line. No question,” Corker said. The draft “does reflect a lot of the ideas that Bob Corker and others have brought to the table,” Dodd said. Details haven’t emerged yet on just what might impact insurers within the massive legislative proposal. It’s this package of reforms that’s expected to establish a systemic risk regulator that could include oversight and fees for some of the major insurers. It is also expected to include a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that could include some aspects of insurance and a national insurance office that would focus on nationwide insurance data and on international negotiations, not on industry regulation. Corker, who argues pushing a bill of this magnitude through the committee in a week would be a “travesty,” thinks Dodd was pressured to finish this financial bill before the Senate is forced to deal with a budget reconciliation vote on health care, which promises to be extremely contentious. “The elephant in the room is reconciliation, and trying to get a bill out of committee prior to that time,” Corker said. “I understand the pressure that he is under.”Dodd acknowledged the pressure of the clock, which he called the “101st senator.” Not only is he facing a session that is winding down toward a mid-term election in November, but he’s also facing the end of his own long Senate career, which concludes this year with his retirement. And the White House has been part of this pressure. “The administration cares deeply about this bill,” he said, explaining that White House officials have been in constant contact during the negotiations. “They want a bill.”“The bill that will be introduced Monday is not the bill that we would have completed,” said Corker, who thinks Dodd will bow to critics from the left and ease the bill more in that direction. But Corker still holds out hope the committee work can produce a bipartisan result. “We look forward to continuing to take a role and shape this in a bipartisan way. … I think we will get there, but I think it’s going to be far messier.” Either way, he thinks the bill Dodd will unveil — with its thoroughly negotiated provisions — will already be a better start than what the Connecticut senator started with months ago. In February, Dodd had announced he had reached an impasse in negotiations with the ranking Republican on his committee, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. So, he said Corker would replace Shelby in the talks so the committee could eventually present a bipartisan proposal (BestWire, Feb. 11, 2010). (Jesse A. Hamilton, Washington bureau manager: Jesse.Hamilton@ambest.com)
March 12, 2010
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