Conference Report on H.R. 4173, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

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Mr. MEEKS of New York. I thank the chairman for yielding.

Today is truly a historic day largely because of the great, magnificent job of our chairman, BARNEY FRANK, who we are so proud of. Very few people could have marshaled this bill in the way that he did. And because of him and that leadership, today we end too big to fail. We implement unprecedented consumer protections, and we issue rules that will prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for the irresponsible behavior of others while still--because I'm a New Yorker--maintain New York's standing as the world's financial capital.

As Chairman Frank is fond of noting, this bill has death panels for the greedy financial institutions. If you are an institution that is causing systemic risk, this bill allows regulators to resolve you and dissolve you without recourse to any taxpayer money. I repeat. Let me emphasize, taxpayers will bear no cost for liquidating risky interconnected financial firms.

This bill includes strong investor protections and transparency mechanisms. Through the use of stress tests, which Representative DENNIS MOORE and I advocated for and the results of which will be published, it will increase transparency for investors and increase the amount of information available for investors to make wise decisions with their hard-earned savings.

Most importantly for my constituents, this bill establishes a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to police lenders to ensure that the predatory lending that Mr. Watt was talking about that ensnared so many unsuspecting Americans will be halted. Led by an independent director, this office will be able to act swiftly so consumers will not need to wait for an act of Congress for years and years and years to receive protection from unscrupulous behavior.

As to interchange, we have placed explicit language in the bill to prohibit intrabrand price discriminations which would have put credit unions and community banks at a disadvantage. To address the concerns to the State treasurers and prepaid card providers for the underbanked, we explicitly exempt them from interchange fee regulation. And finally, by fixing concerns the Federal Government had, we potentially save the taxpayer $40 million per year, according to Treasury estimates.

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Mr. MEEKS of New York. We need this bill. It is the right bill. Without lending from Wall Street, there could be no Main Street. This bill responsibly regulates the former to ensure the vitality of the latter.

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