Senate Delays Vote On Bill That Would Banish Financial Regulation To Cost-Benefit Analysis Hell

“Financial reformers have won a small battle in their fight with Wall Street over financial regulation, but they’re still at risk of losing the war.

It appears that heavy pressure from an unusual coalition of financial regulators and reform advocates has convinced the Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs to delay a vote on a controversial bill, the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act (S. 3468), that would give the White House unprecedented power to frustrate independent regulatory agencies trying to make new rules, including rules meant to prevent another financial crisis.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) reportedly had planned to push the bill out of committee on Thursday for a quick vote on the Senate floor. But it is not on the agenda now, according to a Lieberman spokeswoman. The bill is not dead, however; it has merely been delayed. And other, potentially more dangerous, bills designed to gut financial reform are still lurking in Congress.

“I would expect them to keep pushing it,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit advocacy group. “But there was a tactical victory won in pushing this timing back.”

The bipartisan IARAA, supported by the bank lobby and sponsored by Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), gives the president authority to force regulators to jump through 13 different analytical hoops when writing new rules. Regulations that might affect the economy by $100 million or more per year have to go through even more stringent analysis.”

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