That was quick. A legislative procedure that some thought might take five days took about 30 minutes yesterday.
The Senate Banking Committee, voting along party lines-13-10-passed Chairman Christopher Dodd's (D-Conn.) bill for revamping the way financial services are regulated and sent it to the full chamber.
Although several hundred amendments had been submitted, only 20-mostly technical in nature-were offered and approved by the committee. Many of the other amendments will either be the subject of additional negotiations before the bill reaches the full Senate or will be presented as amendments during debate. No timetable has been set for the Senate to take up the bill. If it passes that chamber, it must be reconciled with a similar measure passed by the House last December.
Dodd's bill, which creates a new regulator of consumer financial products as an agency headed by a presidential appointee housed inside the Federal Reserve, has been criticized by CUNA and NAFCU, which fear parts of it would add to the regulatory burden of credit unions and would divide credit unions by size.
Those concerns weren't addressed by the committee yesterday but could be dealt with later on in the process.
