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Banks and retailers are preparing to battle over billions of dollars in debit-card fee revenue that the government transferred to merchants from banks as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Now, inspired by a Republican sweep in the 2016 U.S. election, banks and other card companies are fighting to get those fees back. Before the Dodd-Frank changes, debit-card “interchange” fees were set by the card networks, including Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., that counted the banks as both customers and shareholders. Merchants pay the fees to card issuers whenever a consumer uses a debit card to purchase something. After the financial crisis, Dodd-Frank’s Durbin amendment capped those fees. But if House Republicans propose doing away with the Durbin amendment, named for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), retailer groups “will be putting up a big fight,” said Laura Knapp Chadwick, director of commerce and entrepreneurship policy for the National Restaurant Association. “We’re hoping it doesn’t get ugly on the House floor, but we are preparing to go down that route.” Many expect a repeal of the Durbin amendment will be part of Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s Financial Choice Act that aims to revamp the federal government’s approach to regulating banks. The idea was included in the original version of the proposed legislation that last year passed the House Financial Services committee, which Hensarling (R-Texas) chairs.

More than a dozen Republican senators are backing a bill to give Congress greater control and oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), The Hill reported today. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) will introduce a bill yesterday to let Congress control the CFPB’s budget. Titled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Accountability Act of 2017, the bill would place the CFPB under the congressional appropriations process, letting lawmakers control its budget. That would give Congress the ability to drastically limit the scope and size of the bureau, regardless of who controls it. The CFPB, opened in 2011 per a section of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law mandating its creation, is currently independently funded by the Federal Reserve. The bill is co-sponsored by Republican Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Kennedy (La.), Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.).

Republican promises to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul may prove good news for many financial firms. The bad news for Wall Street: A top target is a provision big banks would rather retain, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary today. “Orderly liquidation authority” (OLA) was an answer to the 2008 bailouts of Wall Street firms during the financial crisis. It empowers the federal government to take over and wind down a failing financial firm. Conservatives have sought for years to repeal OLA. Now Trump administration officials are talking about doing so, providing new momentum. OLA is a particularly ripe target with partisan tensions boiling on Capitol Hill, according to the commentary. That is the result of quirks in congressional budget rules, which say that because OLA repeal has an impact on the federal budget, it could be passed with a simple majority vote and clear the Senate with only GOP votes. In contrast, other Republican-favored changes to Dodd-Frank, such as stripping the government of powers to extend more stringent oversight to big nonbank firms, would require some Democratic support to clear a higher vote hurdle. “We are going to probably at some point talk about whether OLA works and whether OLA should ever be triggered, because no one thinks that we really solved ‘too big to fail,’” commented White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn. He said that the administration was contemplating an unspecified executive action related to the policy.