No Deal yet on Financial Rules as Test Vote Looms

[HughMoran]

Source: AP

By JIM KUHNHENN Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON April 25, 2010 (AP)


With no bipartisan deal on how to rein in Wall Street, Democrats stepped up their efforts Sunday to splinter unified Republican opposition to their sweeping regulatory overhaul.

In a move that could attract the support of at least two Republicans, Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, agreed to toughen his sweeping bill with rules on derivatives despite objections from the Obama administration, according to a Democratic official familiar with the negotiations.

Derivatives are the complex securities blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 Wall Street crisis.

The restrictions adopted by Dodd were written and approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week. They include a requirement that banks spin off their derivatives businesses into subsidiaries with separate sources of capital. Banks fiercely opposed the provision. The Obama administration has called for banks to end trading in speculative securities, but not to jettison operations that create derivatives markets for clients

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