On Wednesday the House passed H.R. 37, the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act.  Erika Eichelberger provides a top-level summary.  The law would:

• Delay the Volcker rule. The Volcker rule—one of the most important bits of Dodd-Frank—generally forbids the high-risk trading by commercial banks that helped cause the financial crisis. One high-risk product banks are supposed to stop trading are collateralized loan obligations, which are bundles of loans that are broken into pieces and sold to investors. In December, the Federal Reserve extended banks’ deadline to stop trading CLOs from 2015 to 2017. The Fitzpatrick bill would extend that deadline to 2019.
• Water down rules on private equity firms. Private equity firms are required to register as brokers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) if they get paid for providing investment banking services such as merger advice. Brokers are subject to additional rules and more regulatory oversight. The bill would exempt some private equity firms from having to register as brokers.
• Loosen regs on derivatives. Derivatives are financial instruments with values based on underlying numbers, such as crop prices or interest rates. The Fitzpatrick bill would allow Wall Street firms that own commercial businesses such as oil or gas operations to trade derivatives privately instead of in central clearinghouses, which are subject to more oversight. The bill would also forbid regulators from requiring that banks take collateral from companies that buy derivatives. Collateral can help offset losses if one of the parties involved in the transaction defaults.
• Weaken transparency rules. The bill exempts about 60 percent of publicly traded companies from certain rules regarding how those companies must file financial statements with the SEC. The measure would also allow certain smaller companies to omit historical financial data in their financial statements. “This allows firms to choose a convenient history as they promote their securities,” the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen noted last week.

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From Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA):

On Tuesday the House considered H.R. 185, the Regulatory Accountability Act. This legislation is described by supporters as an effort to reduce regulatory burdens when in reality it does the exact opposite. H.R. 185 adds dozens of new regulatory requirements across numerous agencies. It significantly expands the scope of the cost-benefit analysis required on all administrative rulemaking and applies that cost-benefit analysis to every single rule, not just those with economic significance. H.R. 185 would apply cost-benefit analysis requirements to more than 3,000 rules every year. You can imagine how much more this will cost taxpayers. The Administration has stated that the President will veto this bill. I voted NO. H.R. 185 passed and the entire vote is recorded below:

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