On Wednesday, July 23, 2014, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Assessing the Impact of the Dodd-Frank Act Four Years Later.” The hearing will explore a variety of specific provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Pub. L. No. 111-203)—such as the Volcker Rule, the Orderly Liquidation Authority, and consumer financial protection provisions—and the cumulative effect that the legislation has had on the American financial services industry and the economy more generally over the four years since President Obama signed it into law. Most notably, the witness list includes former Congressman Barney Frank, who formerly chaired the Committee and for whom the Act is named (together with former Senator Chris Dodd).
The other witnesses scheduled to appear are:
Anthony J. Carfang, Partner, Treasury Strategies, Inc.
Thomas C. Deas, Vice President & Treasurer, FMC Corporation, on behalf of the Coalition for Derivatives End-Users
Paul H. Kupiec, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Dale K. Wilson, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, First State Bank
Background
On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010” into law (Pub. L. No. 111-203). Drafted in response to the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, in which the federal government bailed out a number of large financial firms at taxpayer expense, the Dodd-Frank Act is a sprawling piece of legislation, numbering over 2,300 pages in length and requiring federal regulators to embark on some 400 rule-makings. The Dodd-Frank Act represents the most ambitious change in the regulation of financial institutions since the Great Depression, and its reach extends not only to every financial institution in the United States, but to virtually every corner of the U.S. economy as well.
