The tentative time line for the House-Senate reconciliation conference committee covering the financial regulatory reform legislation is the following: begin to meet during the week of June 7, 2010, with the goal of having a final Bill ready for the President’s signature by the July 4 recess.
With that quick time line in mind, here is a quick up-date on:
- High-level comparisons of the House Bill and the Senate Bill
- The membership of the House-Senate Reconciliation reconciliation conference committee
- Last hope for inclusion of covered bonds in the final bill
Comparisons of the House Bill and the Senate Bill:
As you know, the two bills are very, very long. And I’m sure that some where in DC, Congressional staffers are preparing a detailed comparison of the two bills (as part of the reconciliation process). So, we’ll have that good comparison shortly. In the interim, here are high-level comparisons by the Associated Press and by PBS.
Membership on the Reconciliation Conference Committee:
Here is the list of the Senators on the conference committee (8 Democrats and 5 Republicans; eight members of the Banking Committee and five from the Agriculture Committee):
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
- Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Tom Harkin (D-VT)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Dick Shelby (R-AL)
- Bob Corker (R-TN)
- Michael Crapo (R-ID)
- Judd Gregg (R-NH)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
And here is the list of 8 Democratic Representatives proposed for inclusion on the committee by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) (I have not seen a list of the 5 Republicans to be named by him):
- Barney Frank (D-MA)
- Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
- Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
- Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
- Maxine Waters (D-CA)
- Melvin Watt (D-NC)
- Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
- Dennis Moore (D-KS)
No doubt, this list will be finalized in the next week.
Final Hope For Covered Bonds: As noted by the Covered Bond Investor and by CNBC, the U.S. Covered Bonds Act (introduced in the House by Scott Garrett [R-NJ] and co-sponsored by Spencer Bachus [R-Ala.] and Paul Kanjorski [D-Pa.]) did NOT make it into the financial reform bills passed by either the House or the Senate.
Both of these blogs note that the following is the only hope for covered bonds becoming part of the final financial reform bill:
- The appointment of Representative Garrett, Bachus and\or Kanjorski onto the House-Senate conference committee
- And then their ability to convince the committee to add the covered bond bill into the compromise bill adopted by the committee
So, with Representative Dodd’s appointment of Representative Kanjorski to the committee, covered bonds still might be part of a solution to the credit crisis, and a viable product in the U.S.— if he can convince the committee to add covered bonds into the final bill.
As I’ve noted before, my perspective is that covered bonds need to be included in the financial reform bill—simply because the new CMBS 2.0 will not be sufficient to meet the credit needs of the commercial real estate finance industry.
If you see it differently or have additional information, please post a comment below.