Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 6:23 p.m. 

Transcript:

James Rosen: After more than 50 hearings, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday unveiled an 1,100-page bill proposing an unprecedented overhaul of the banking and financial services sector.

Christopher Dodd: This is not about ego. It's about putting together an architecture that makes sense, and it's long overdue.

James Rosen: Dodd's bill would create a new consumer financial protection agency to shield borrowers from abusive practices like predatory lending and there would be a new agency for financial stability monitoring the entire financial system for early warnings of another credit crisis or global meltdown. And when a mammoth institution does collapse like Lehman Brothers did last year, a new resolution authority would govern how agencies contend with the failure and limit its ripple effects.

Rob Nichols: The idea of having a systemic supervisor is one where there’s a lot of agreement on. The idea of having resolution authority, something we're missing in the current financial supervisory architecture, is something there’s a lot of agreement on.

James Rosen: Most controversial is Dodd's plan to strip the Federal Reserve and FDIC of key powers over the nations top banks, invest that oversight authority in a new financial institutions regulatory authority. Here Dodd's vision runs counter to the House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who has already introduced his own legislation, and that of the White House, which prefers to see the Fed retain strong powers in this realm.

Christopher Dodd: I really want the Federal Reserve to get back to its core enterprises. We saw over the last number of years when they took on consumer protection responsibilities and regulation of bank holding companies. It was an abysmal failure.

Rob Nichols: They will still have the authority over the monetary supply, financial stability, monetary stability, so we think they should still have a role in overseeing some of the large financial institutions.

James Rosen: While Congressman Frank's bill is expected to see a floor vote before year's end, Senator Dodd's is not, and so the White House and Republican critics of the Dodd bill are digging in for several months of negotiations, which won't even begin in earnest until healthcare reform is settled first. Bret.

Bret Baier: James thank you.