–Sen. Dodd: Need ‘Good Competent Regulation’ For Reg Reform To Work
–Sen. Dodd: Hill Was Wise For Not Trying To Micromange Regulators
–Sen. Shelby: Dodd-Frank Bill Delegates Too Much Power To Bureaucrats
–Sen. Shelby: Reg Reform ‘Outsources’ Too Much Authority To Regulators

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd
said Thursday that the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform bill provides a
broad framework for a new financial regulatory regime while properly
deferring the details of implementing the new law to the nation’s
leading regulators.

In an opening statement at a Banking Committee hearing on the new
law, Dodd said that Congress did its job in creating a new financial
architecture. Now government regulators will go about the work of
drafting the key regulatory language to make sure the law accomplishes
its goals.

“The work is not done at all,” Dodd said, noting that no “Mission
Accomplished” sign is being brandished by those who wrote the law.

Dodd said the regulatory reform bill runs 848 pages of legislative
language and is far more detailed than other landmark financial reform
laws.

But he said that even with this level of detail, it was not
appropriate for Congress to try to provide a “detailed prescription” of
how each new regulation and requirement should be enforced.

He said “very good, competent regulation” will be needed.

Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the panel and a
sharp critic of the bill, said it provides “no specific guidance in any
number of areas.”

The Dodd-Frank bill, he said, “outsources this committee’s
responsibilities to unelected bureaucrats.”

Shelby said the decision to defer so much power to government
regulators will result in an “even more complex and dysfunctional”
regulatory system.

Despite their strikingly different views on the regulatory reform
law, Dodd and Shelby found a few areas of levity.

When Shelby asked jokingly if the new law will be called
“Dodd-Frank” or “Frank-Dodd,” Dodd couldn’t resist the perfect reply:
“It depends how it works.”

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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