Dodd Backing Away from Consumer Protection Agency?

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., appears to be backing away from the Obama administration's proposal to create an independent consumer financial protection agency. With it increasingly likely that a bipartisan reform bill in the Senate would not include an independent CFPA, lawmakers are now exploring alternatives. Sen. Dodd and the panel's ranking Republican, Richard Shelby, though far from a deal, are considering creating a consumer-protection division within the federal banking agency envisioned by the legislation. That would be a long way from the Obama administration's plan for a separate, independent agency with blanket consumer protection rule-writing and enforcement power over financial providers. "I'm confident that the administration proposal won't be what we end up with," Douglas Elliot, a fellow at the Brookings Institution told American Banker. "There will be some significant compromise," he said.