House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling said he’s willing to tweak his plan to overhaul the Dodd-Frank Act before reintroducing it to Congress early next year, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The committee is “interested in working on a 2.0 version,” Hensarling said. “Advice and counsel is welcome.” The Texas Republican’s comments come amid speculation that his Choice Act could serve as a blueprint for how Donald Trump overhauls financial reforms enacted after the 2008 economic crisis. During the event, Hensarling said that the committee has been in “fairly constant dialogue” with Trump’s transition team about his legislation, but it hasn’t been explicitly endorsed by the president-elect. Last week Trump’s transition team reiterated the campaign promise to scrap Dodd-Frank. A financial policy team is working on crafting measures that would dismantle the 2010 law and replace it with new policies that encourage economic growth and job creation, according to a statement on the transition team’s website. Read more.
In related news, key Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee said this week they are willing to work with the incoming Trump administration and the Republican Congress on potential changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, but only to a small extent, MorningConsult.com reported today. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the panel’s ranking member, and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said they would be OK with discussing scaled-back regulations on community banks, for example. “If he’s talking about giving some reg relief to those community banks, I’ll work with him,” Tester said. “If he’s talking about giving reg relief to Wall Street, then we’ve got a problem because, frankly, that’s where the risk of a financial meltdown comes from.” Read more.
