The banking industry braced for big changes with the election of President Trump, but the financial reform law has proven its staying power over the past year.
The announcement Tuesday by Sen. Orrin Hatch that he will retire at the end of the year could have a ripple effect throughout the Senate, including the leadership of the Banking Committee.
Legislation advanced by the Senate banking panel has a good shot at passage, as long as lawmakers remain focused on helping community banks — not Wall Street.
Despite increasing bipartisan support to remove asset cutoffs for "systemically important financial institutions," Congress will likely settle for an asset threshold increase.
House bill would deregulate both domestic and foreign banks that control trillions of dollars of combined assets, reducing financial stability and tying the hands of regulators to reapply heightened standards in the future.
The 2010 law does very little to constrain regulatory power, explaining why Republicans pushed for reforms during the Obama presidency and why, under President Trump, Democrats are so vigorously opposing agency management changes.
The Senate Banking Committee's passage of a regulatory relief bill is fueling optimism about its advancement, but it still must clear a series of legislative hurdles before becoming law.
The ill will between Democrats and Republicans in the controversy over appointing an acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief adds a new wrinkle to bipartisan efforts to pass regulatory relief.
The former heads of the House and Senate banking committees argued Thursday that the Dodd-Frank Act clearly intended to allow the CFPB's deputy director to serve as acting director after the full-time head of the agency departed.
