Dodd-Frank Overhaul Unlikely Before Summer - Report

Josh O'Neill

4 April 2017

An overhaul of the 2010 Dodd-Frank act is unlikely to occur before summer, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a senior Republican, highlighting how the road to regulatory relief remains obstructed by other issues lawmakers are grappling with.

Patrick McHenry reportedly said financial regulatory policy could make it to the White House floor “when it is warm out... perhaps June, July would be my hope”. The vice chairman of the White House Financial Services Committee was speaking in an interview with with the Wall Street Journal.

“The whole year is shifted because we have taken longer on health care,” McHenery reportedly said. He added that he and other Republicans need to get used to passing “imperfect” legislation that can become law.

In February, this news service reported that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order designed to roll back the most wide-reaching financial regulatory system since the reform that followed the Great Depression.

The Dodd-Frank Act was enacted in 2010 in response to the financial tsunami of 2008. Designed to act as a safety net in the event of a financial meltdown, it drastically changed the landscape of the US financial regulatory environment and eclipsed almost every part of the US' financial services industry.

When Republicans do move toward voting on a financial regulatory bill, there is “no question” the White House can “pass a major change to financial services law,” McHenry reportedly said.

But aggressive steps to lessen regulatory burden are likely to face backlash from opposition Democrats, who claim that Trump is determined to unwind changes designed to protect the average investor through to the global banking system.

McHenry reportedly said Republicans are considering using changes in financial services law to pay for a tax overhaul. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that revoking a Dodd-Frank provision that currently empowers the government to take over and wind down failing financial firms could save around $15 billion over the next 10 years.

The Trump administration was reportedly talking about repealing the provision around the same time the president signed the executive order in February.

“Even in DC, that is real money,” McHenry reportedly said. “It is a large enough dollar amount where the threshold would make sense for the fight.”