WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Banking Committee, made the following statement today regarding the announcement that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., will introduce his own bill on Monday.
“For the past month Chairman Dodd and I have worked together, along with our colleagues, to craft a bipartisan financial regulatory reform bill,” said Corker. “I believe the past month has been very constructive. Many members of the committee, from both sides of the aisle, have made their imprints on the legislation, and the bill Chairman Dodd will introduce on Monday will be closer to a consensus package because of our efforts.
“Despite the work of the past several weeks, the bill that will be introduced on Monday will unfortunately not be done so in bipartisan way. Sadly, I fear that in order to pass their health care bill, this administration is willing to crowd out every other important issue our country faces and financial regulatory reform bill may be the latest casualty.
“My efforts over the past month have been about producing a good bill and that is still my goal. I believe our country needs a bipartisan bill that will provide certainty to the financial industry, create jobs and make our economic system more secure, so I will continue working with Chairman Dodd and other members of the committee in hopes that what comes out of the committee will be a strong bipartisan package that can receive broad support from the full Senate.
“This is really a jobs bill. The longer there is uncertainty in the financial community about what comes next, the longer it will take to remove one of the impediments to restarting growth in our economy. Our capital markets from Wall Street to Main Street need certainty and should not have to calculate Washington rhetoric into their business decisions. And we must create a resolution regime that ends the idea of ‘too big to fail’ so the American people can have peace of mind that the federal government is not going to use taxpayer monies to bail out a company in the future.”
Corker joined the Banking Committee in January 2008, and has drawn upon his experience as a businessman, as Tennessee’s commissioner of finance, and as mayor of Chattanooga to help the committee work through some of the major issues facing our country. In March of 2009, in anticipation of regulatory reform, Corker joined with Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., to host a series of briefings for all senators, bringing in guest speakers from the fields of academia, government, finance and law to discuss various aspects of financial regulation. In November 2009, at a committee mark-up of Dodd’s regulatory reform proposal, Corker urged the chairman to put his bill aside and pursue bipartisan negotiations. Dodd agreed, and tasked bipartisan teams with four different aspects of regulatory reform. Corker and Warner were assigned systemic risk and resolution authority. Last month, Corker agreed to work with Chairman Dodd toward a bipartisan regulatory reform bill.
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