Spencer Bachus News

Nov. 10, 2009 - Military groups opposed to seeing credit unions assessed monies by FDIC for a systemic risk fund for the wind-down of large financial firms are making their views known on Capitol Hill.

H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Did Big Insurance get to them? From President Obama's address on health care to a joint session of Congress September 9, 2009 "So let me set the record straight here.

Senator Jon Kyl and Rep. Spencer Bachus co-signed a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last week opposing calls to delay the Dec.

Investment advisory groups, state regulators and consumer advocates last week cheered a pledge by the House Financial Services Committee's chairman to defeat a measure that could expand Finra's reach over advisers.

Republican opposition was nearly unanimous. The 220-215 vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

Investment advisers, state regulators and consumer advocates were astonished by the easy adoption of a key addition to the Investor Protection Act that would give Finra power to oversee any adviser associated with a registered broker-dealer, including about 500 dually registered Finra members.

A pair of House Republicans on Wednesday warned the Obama administration that Congress does not have the appetite for a bailout of the financially strapped Federal Housing Administration.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $75 million in penalties and forfeit $647 million in fees to settle an investigation of an "unlawA ful payment scheme" in Jefferson County sewer-financing deals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

The House passed a bill Wednesday to move up tough new rules for credit card lenders, lashing out at an industry that has been raising interest rates and fees at a furious pace since the rules were passed in May.

An article in The Birmingham News Tuesday reported my congressman, Artur Davis, will vote against the House's health care bill.

WASHINGTON Last week, The Washington Post managed to surreptitiously stumble across a document revealing that several members of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee are being investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

Legislation to permanently exempt smaller public corporations from outside audits of their internal controls over financial reporting, a requirement that dates from the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was set to be approved Tuesday by a congressional committee.

NAFCU witness Mark Colley, CEO of Tulsa Postal & Community FCU, said limits on overdraft fees and same-day notification pose operational problems.

Clashing once again with the Obama administration, Sheila C. Bair , a senior banking regulator, found fault on Thursday with central elements of the White House's latest plan for a new process to unwind large financial companies when their troubles imperil the financial system.

Lawmakers from both parties are attacking a White House proposal that would grant the federal government sweeping powers to wind down financial firms an authority one Democrat derided as "TARP on steroids." With Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner listening in a House hearing room, bailout-weary lawmakers are spending Thursday morning picking apart ...

Bank overdraft fees as high as $39 on debit-card transactions arena t a oefavorsa for consumers if they havena t asked for them, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.

Top U.S. regulators clashed in Washington in separate testimony on the same day concerning a major Treasury Department initiative to reshape future bailouts.

That's the splendid idea of - you'll be shocked to learn - Democrats Maxine Waters and Barney Frank.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday that giving the government the power to dismantle mammoth financial firms like Lehman Brothers will prevent future bailouts.

Yesterday it was a dry letter of protest, but today the bulk of the Alabama congressional delegation cranked up the volume on their complaint that the Air Force's rewritten request for bids on the new refueling tanker is unfair to the Northrop Grumman/EADS partnership.