Amendment to gut consumer protection in Wall Street reform fails

Published: May 6th, 2010

Today the Senate soundly defeated (38-61) the dangerous amendment to the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau included in the Senate’s Wall Street reform bill.  Kudos to Senator Begich, who joined the bipartisan vote against this dangerous amendment.  Unfortunately, Senator Murkowski sided with Wall Street instead of Main Street, in supporting the amendment to bludgeon consumer protection– a cornerstone of real financial reform.  The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) was quite simple: the consumer agency would have been given no independence, no funding for enforcement, no enforcement over any banks and, consequently, no authority to protect consumers.

Nevertheless, we continue to watch for further pernicious amendments that will falsely masquerade as improvements to the consumer protection bureau. Make no mistake, amendments to carve-out car dealers who sell loans, private student lenders or other interests are not improvements.  Efforts to eliminate the authority of state attorneys general to protect their own state’s consumers are as serious a threat as the Shelby amendment.

We urge the Senate to reject all efforts to water down reform of the reckless Wall Street practices that cost Americans millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in home values and retirement income.

The Restoring America’s Financial Stability Act, S. 3217, should be strengthened, not weakened.  It must include a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it must allow states and their attorneys general to enforce the laws, must open the shadow markets where derivatives are traded, and must end, once and for all, Wall Street’s ability to rely on ‘too big to fail.’”

AKPIRG is scoring this and all important public interest amendments to the financial reform bill.  You can find the public interest amendment voting guide here.  A live ’scorecard’ tracking all amendment votes is available through our federal lobbying arm U.S.PIRG at http://www.uspirg.org/amendment-guide/scorecard.

In the News | Amendment to gut consumer protection in Wall Street reform fails

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Alaska Public Interest Research Group is a non-partisan, non-profit, citizen oriented statewide organization researching, educating and advocating on behalf of the public interest. AKPIRG exists to promote the public and consumer interests, especially when inconsistent with moneyed, powerful or other special interests.