Clash Looms on Banks

By DAMIAN PALETTA
WSJ

WASHINGTON -- A key Senate lawmaker is readying legislation that would dramatically redraw how the financial system is regulated, setting the chamber on a collision course with both the House of Representatives and the Obama administration, which have championed markedly different approaches.

The bill, which is being readied by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), would strip almost all bank-supervision powers from the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. In their place, the bill would create a new agency in charge of supervising all banks and bank-holding companies, even the country's largest and most complex institutions.

Mr. Dodd's proposal also would create a powerful council of regulators, overseen by an independent White House appointee, charged with monitoring risks to the financial system.

Senate aides say the legislative plan could still be adjusted in coming days. In its current form, it has the potential to disrupt progress of the financial-regulation overhaul, one of the legislative priorities of the administration. Administration officials have billed the revamp as central to their effort to prevent a recurrence of last year's financial meltdown.

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