The White House said President Barack Obama won’t abandon his desire to see a new consumer financial protection agency included in regulatory overhaul legislation, dousing speculation that the proposal may be watered down or eliminated.
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| President Barack Obama (Associated Press) |
“Financial reform has to include a consumer protection agency,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.
The Wall Street Journal had reported last week that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) may scrap the idea of creating a separate Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of a sweeping financial-sector overhaul bill. Dodd has approached Republicans about possibly beefing up consumer protections within an existing agency and ditching the idea of a new agency, which is fiercely opposed by the banking industry.
Gibbs said Obama won’t back down.
“People on Capitol Hill need to understand, that the president is not going to compromise because lobbyists tell somebody that we shouldn’t have an agency that protects consumers,” the spokesman said. “That’s something the president’s not willing to give up. ”
Speculation about the fate of the regulatory revamp intensified after Democrats lost their 60-seat super majority in the Senate on Tuesday, when Republican Scott Brown won a special election to replace the late Edward Kennedy.
Dodd and Obama met Tuesday at the White House. Gibbs said the president made his stance on the consumer agency clear.
“Clearly financial reform is going to take and play a bigger role in what happens legislatively in the next several months, ensuring that we have honest rules of the road going forward; that we’re not rewarding excessive risk; that we have an independent agency that protects and looks after consumers,” Gibbs said.