Wall Street Gears Up Its Stealth Attack

[Triana]

Lobbyists are flocking to Capitol Hill, seeking to further weaken financial regulation through spending bill riders.

It’s appropriations season again on Capitol Hill, and that means the halls of Congress are crowded with Wall Street lobbyists looking for regulatory relief in the form of legislative “riders” attached to must-pass spending bills.

“Once again, it’s like ringing the dinner gong for the lobbyists,” declared Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “They are swarming this place. Because they have all kinds of goodies that they want to slip into the legislation.”

Financial services industry lobbyists aren’t the only ones pressing lawmakers to attach policy riders to the fiscal 2017 appropriations bills now under consideration on Capitol Hill. Riders promoted by corporate or conservative interests would weaken a broad range of worker safety, environmental and women’s health protections, say progressive activists who organized the May 18 call to urge Congress to pass a “clean” budget free from ideological riders.

But Wall Street interests historically have been among the most aggressive and successful in persuading Congress to deliver policy fixes favorable to their industry via spending bill riders — provisions that would invariably trigger public outcry if debated out in the open via the normal legislative process, but that stand a better chance when tacked onto spending bills in the dead of night.

THE REST:

http://billmoyers.com/story/wall-street-gears-stealth-attack/

[pmorlan1]

1. Hillary's Donors

out in force.

[pampango]

2. "The most obvious example is the rider attached to a spending bill in late 2014 that repealed a key

provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed after the 2008 fiscal crisis. That rider tossed out the so-called swaps pushout provision of Dodd-Frank, which had required bank holding companies to sequester risky derivatives trades in segregated accounts to protect consumers from hazard.

Not all of Wall Street’s wish list has fared so well. Last year, lawmakers set out to attach hundreds of riders to omnibus spending legislation, including dozens aimed at rolling back financial services protections at the heart of Dodd-Frank. These included a GOP bid (ultimately thwarted) to remove the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s independent funding stream, which is guaranteed through the Federal Reserve, and put congressional appropriators hostile to the agency in charge of the CFPB’s purse strings.

Another rider last year sought to block the CFPB from issuing a rule aimed at ending so-called forced arbitration, which requires consumers to waive their right to sue as a condition of doing business with a bank or other entity, or merely having a bank-issued credit card. That rider was ultimately defeated, and the CFPB has now proposed a rule to ban forced arbitration in class actions. But consumer advocates fully expect Republicans to introduce another rider this year aimed at blocking the CFPB’s forced arbitration curbs. A rider to cut off the agency’s independent funding is also expected to resurface.

Yet another hard-won consumer protection that GOP lawmakers are expected to try to undo with an appropriations rider is the Obama Labor Department’s recent “fiduciary duty” rule to protect consumers against retirement investment advice that may benefit the financial adviser at the expense of the consumer. The rule, which has been estimated to cost consumers $17 billion a year, requires such advisers to act in the best interests of the consumer."

Wall Street certainly seems go be going after many of Obama's reforms via Dod-Frank, the CFPB and Labor Department regulations that will disappear if the GOP or Trump get their way.