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The House Rules Committee yesterday cleared for a vote on the House floor a Republican effort to strip much of the Dodd-Frank Act, The Hill reported today. The panel cleared the Financial CHOICE Act 9-4 along party lines and with few amendments. The full House is scheduled to vote on the bill by Friday morning, and it is expected to pass it without Democratic support. The CHOICE Act is an effort to roll back Dodd-Frank, long panned by Republicans as a burden on the U.S. economy and businesses. The bill, sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), passed that panel earlier this month with unanimous Republican support and unified Democratic opposition. Rules Committee members approved few changes to the bill beyond an updated version introduced by Hensarling. The amendment removed a provision to scrap a controversial cap on fees charged to retailers by credit card companies, placed the National Credit Union Administration under the congressional appropriations process, and mandated greater classified information sharing between federal financial regulators and Congress.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) have reintroduced legislation that corrects a Supreme Court ruling (Hall v. United States) that they said made it harder for family farmers to reorganize their finances when falling on hard times, according to a press release on Friday. Grassley and Franken’s “Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act of 2017” remedies the May 2012 Supreme Court ruling that said amendments made to the Bankruptcy Code in 2005, which restricted the Internal Revenues Service’s veto power over a family farmer’s ability to reorganize in bankruptcy in certain situations, unfortunately failed to achieve Congress’s express goal of helping family farmers. The Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act clarifies that bankrupt family farmers reorganizing their debts are able to treat capital gains taxes owed to a governmental unit, arising from the sale of farm assets during a bankruptcy, as general unsecured claims. It also removes the Internal Revenue Service’s veto power over a bankruptcy reorganization plan’s confirmation, giving the family farmer a chance to reorganize successfully.

The Republican author of a bill to roll back Obama-era financial regulations has agreed to remove a controversial provision concerning debit-card swipe fees that had divided GOP lawmakers and threatened to derail passage of the sweeping legislation next month, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, agreed to remove a provision that repealed a cap on debit-card transaction fees known as the Durbin amendment — an issue that pits retailers and banks against each other and was bitterly fought as the legislation progressed to the House floor. “We won’t let this one provision hinder passage of an important priority bill,” Hensarling said. While the Choice Act is now expected to pass the House along party lines in early June, it faces dim prospects in the Senate, where Republicans are writing their own legislation to ease financial regulations.