Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) on Thursday talked openly of the bipartisan compromise he nearly reached with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) over new financial regulations.
On consumer protection:
I think the consumer title that Chairman Dodd puts forth will be very much shaped by our discussions. My guess is hell probably veer it to a hair left to be candid but hopefully not. But where it was left, it was housed at the Fed, appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate.
One of the things about the Fed, and since I can come real clean now the thing about the Fed if you remember the President said that he wanted an independent source of funding. The way the Fed works, the Fed gives whatever surplus is left to the Treasury each year, and that was a way of solving that problem because in essence the consumer protection agency would have an independent source of funding.
Mr. Corker said the consumer division within the Fed wouldnt report to the chairman. It was a lot different than people thought. Heres where its been: Republicans, conservative Republicans I might add, have agreed to broad-scope rulemaking, and thats never happened. And were talking about rulemaking where the shadow industry has to live by the same rules that the regulated market has. If Im a consumer person, Im saying thats breaking ground. Where Republicans have drawn a line in the sand, and that line has been honored, we do not want (the consumer division) involved in enforcement. In other words, if consumer issues exist, we want the OCC to implement, or the Fed to implement, or the FTC to implement. We dont want rulemaking and enforcement combined.
There was a veto process. We made the first real offer on consumer a week ago Saturday. It was actually a real offer to try to get a deal done. There was a process through which rules would be made. Its consultative. There is a veto process if the safety and soundness of the financial system or systemic risk is created, theres a veto process by the regulators. We were down to issues that I promise you none of you ever dreamed of in your life. If theres a conflict and theres a judgment, then how does that all work out. It got down to judicial issues if you will. So thats the sort of fine-tuning that we had gotten to on consumer. But again, the major concepts, actually agreed to.
On rating agencies:
We have at present a pretty painful clause for rating agencies, if you are one of the large ones in there. I know the House basically wrote them out of the code, and Im not saying Im opposed to that I might add. But on the credit rating side, we had a pretty big liability burden that was going to be placed on credit rating agencies, and I think (would have) caused them to pay a lot more attention to what they are doing.
On derivatives:
The issue that has kept (Sens. Jack Reed and Judd Gregg) from coming to closure, although they are this close, has been how much of an end-user exclusion should exist. I have not seen their language, nor has Chairman Dodd seen their language, I might add, because it’s not ready yet. I give Chairman Dodd some additional slack because I think he knows that it’s going to take probably a couple weeks to be honest for them to resolve their differences. I probably felt a better way to do that is to leave that section out and add it as an amendment when it comes.