House Republicans released the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017. The bill is an update of the CHOICE Act of 2016. The new version represents a major overhaul of the current financial services regulatory regime including a partial repeal of Dodd-Frank.

In September 2016, the House Financial Services Committee approved the initial version of the CHOICE Act by a vote of 30 to 26. At a hearing scheduled for April 26, 2017, the Committee will discuss the updated version of the bill. Proposed changes to the current financial regulatory regime include, among other things: 

  1. an opt-out of many regulatory requirements for banks and other financial institutions if they maintain a 10% leverage ratio (among other conditions);
  2. subjecting the federal banking agencies to greater congressional oversight and tighter budgetary control;
  3. materially reducing the authority of the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the establishment of a new process of identifying financial institutions as "systemically important";
  4. a repeal of the Orderly Liquidation Authority and the creation of a new bankruptcy process for banks;
  5. reforms in bank stress tests;
  6. a restructuring of the CFPB, FHFA, OCC, and FDIC into bipartisan commissions appointed by the President;
  7. the elimination of the CFPB supervisory and examination authority;
  8. a repeal of the Volcker Rule; and
  9. facilitated capital raising by small companies, including through crowd-funding.

The Committee released a summary of changes.

Regarding derivatives, the new legislation exempts certain inter-affiliate swaps from nearly all Title VII requirements (except reporting), and otherwise removes a number of changes to Title VII that were previously included (it is suggested that this is because such provisions would be addressed in CFTC reauthorization legislation).

Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) called the bill a solution that "grows our economy from Main Street up." He asserted that the CHOICE Act is premised on the principles that all banks need to be well-capitalized and that community banks and credit unions deserve relief from the "crushing burden of over-regulation."

Commentary / Steven Lofchie

Changes that the bill would make in the regulatory process are genuinely significant. These are largely in Title III of the proposal (see page 104).

Under the terms of the bill, the various financial regulators (including the banking regulators, the CFTC and the SEC) would be prohibited from issuing a "regulation" (which term would be broadly defined) unless the regulator first issued a statement (i) stating the need for the regulation, (ii) explaining why the private market could not address the problem, (iii) analyzing the adverse impacts of the regulation, and (iv) attempting to quantify the costs and benefits of the regulation, including its effects on economic activity, the basis for its determinations, and, most significantly, "an explanation of predicted changes" that will be brought about by the regulation. A final rulemaking would be required to include "regulatory impact metrics selected by the [regulator's] chief economist."

Adherence to this process would make the tasks of the regulator materially more difficult, or at least it would make it more difficult for the regulators to pass rules. Of course, there is a significant amount of good in that. Regulators should be subject to a reasonably high burden of consideration in adopting rules that may cost market participants, in the aggregate, millions of dollars in compliance costs or that have negative effects on the economy generally.

One of the most interesting provisions of the bill is the requirement that regulators should provide an explanation of predicted changes that will result from the rule. Doubtless, in many cases, the predictions will turn out to be wrong. But that is ok. It is unreasonable to expect that regulators will be always, or even that consistently, correct in their predictions. The new standard may be hard to assess, but the attempt is still worthwhile.

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