House Financial Services Chair Spencer Bachus has responded to recent remarks by Assistant Treasury Secretary Neil Wolin that the pace of the rulemaking under Dodd-Frank is appropriate. Chairman Bachus said that the pace, with many comment periods open only 30 days, does not give the public adequate time to provide meaningful and substantive input to the SEC, CFTC and the banking regulators charged with adopting regulations to implement Dodd-Frank. Earlier this year, Chairman Bachus wrote to the SEC and CFTC specifically urging the SEC and the CFTC to move more deliberately with regulations implementing the derivatives provisions of Dodd-Frank.
Recently, Chairman Bachus has become increasingly concerned that the Dodd-Frank derivatives regulations may not be globally consistent, particularly with the EU, which is moving forward with derivatives legislation this year. This concern is shared by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK). Partly out of this arbitrage fear, the two Chairs introduced legislation delaying the effective date of most of the derivative provisions of Dodd-Frank until the end of 2012.