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Dodd unveils banking regulation bill

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Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd unveiled a discussion draft of his sweeping plan for financial regulatory reform on Tuesday. Banking groups quickly criticized the plan, saying it would impose significant burdens on community banks that “had nothing to do with creating the financial crisis.”

The 1,136-page draft measure would combine all federal banking regulation under a single regulator known as the Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration. It would also create other financial regulatory agencies, among them an Office of National Insurance and a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. A new Agency for Fiscal Stability would be responsible for addressing systemic risk of the financial system, rather than the Federal Reserve.

Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he wants to “replace the myriad government agencies that failed to rein in risky schemes with a single, accountable federal banking regulator.”

“For firms who play by the rules, this single prudential regulator will provide clarity, cut red tape and make it easier to compete,” Dodd said. “But those institutions that would undermine the security of our economy will no longer be able to shop for the weakest regulator.”

The American Bankers Association (ABA) issued a statement criticizing this part of Dodd’s reform plan, as well as his proposal to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Dodd’s plan “would tear apart the existing regulatory structure only to create a new one that would produce conflicts among regulators, undermine the state-chartered banking system, and impose extensive new regulatory burdens on those banks that had nothing to do with creating the financial crisis,” ABA president and CEO Edward Yingling said. “ABA supports comprehensive reform, but not this reform.”

Yingling said Great Britain tried Dodd’s approach and it “failed miserably.” Community banks would suffer if they were regulated by the same agency that regulates big banks, he said.

Republican leaders said they think it’s unlikely the bill will make it out of the Senate before the end of the year.