Rules of the Game: Volcker Rule Prompts Lobbying – Eliza Newlin Carney (Roll Call)
December 19, 2011

“Buoyed by the Occupy Wall Street movement, average citizens have made an unusual push to contact federal regulators engaged in the arcane process of writing new rules to regulate big banks. But they may be drowned out by financial industry players who are spending record sums on lobbying. … Public interest groups such as Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen — and more recently activists from Occupy the SEC, an offshoot of the OWS movement — have been ginning up letters to federal agencies about the Volcker rule. … The draft rule is complex because financial services industry lobbyists have badgered regulators to write in loopholes, countered Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a public interest nonprofit focused on the financial services industry. ‘I think the regulators did a pretty good job of proposing a rule that gets close to reflecting the intent of the law,’ Kelleher said. ‘But it definitely needs improvement. And frankly, it reflects the intensive lobbying campaign of the industry to try to gut it, and water it down, and create exceptions.’ … ‘The forces arrayed on the sides of this battle are incredibly uneven, as they were also during the efforts to pass Dodd-Frank,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans For Financial Reform. But she added that the Dodd-Frank fight yielded key reforms, even against long odds: ‘The fight’s not done.’” Click here for more.