Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – December 3, 2011 – December 9, 2011.

“A team of consumer groups warned Tuesday that lobbying by Wall Street could weaken proposed regulations designed to guard against the kind of abusive investment practices that crushed the Bethlehem Area School District in recent years. Speaking at a teleconference, representatives of the Consumer Federation of America, the AFL-CIO, Americans for Financial Reform and Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner said well-financed lobbies are working to disarm regulations initially designed to rein them in.”

“…As expected, Republican senators blocked a vote Thursday on whether to approve President Obama’s nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. …A July poll sponsored by AARP, Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending found that about 63% of Americans favored more government oversight of financial companies, and 74% favored having a single agency focus on protecting consumers from financial organizations.”

View the agenda, watch video, and read supplemental materials from our conference “Executive Pay and the Dodd-Frank Act”

Before the vote, more than 200 organizations, led by Americans for Financial Reform, sent a letter to senators warning that the CFPB’s ability to regulate and protect consumers would be severely restricted without a director.

‘Some senators are taking the extreme step of demanding that the law be reopened and refusing to allow him an up or down vote,’ said Americans for Financial Reform Director Lisa Donner. ‘If they continue, we will urge the president to make a recess appointment.’