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A House Financial Services Subcommittee hearing titled "The Dodd-Frank Act and Regulatory Overreach" is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13.
The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will convene on that day to discuss the controversial piece of legislation, which was enacted in 2010 in response to the financial crisis.
The Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Representative Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin), has been an outspoken critic of Dodd-Frank. In 2011, one year after its passage, Duffy told the Washington Times that the full name of the act – the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act – is "misleading" because it "stimulated nothing but more government debt" and "fails to actually reform Wall Street or protect consumers," citing the cost in both labor hours and money as evidence that he believed the pendulum had swung too far the other way.
Representative Al Green (D-Texas), Ranking Member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, defended Dodd-Frank in 2013 by saying that "With reference to Dodd-Frank, Dodd-Frank provides a better way. Prior to Dodd-Frank, we had in essence two means by which we could deal with a systemic crisis – a crisis that involved exigent circumstances. These two ways were one, bankruptcy. Bankruptcy works, but it did not work for Lehman (the investment firm that filed for bankruptcy in 2008, the largest filing in the nation's history); and two, bailouts. Bailouts are not the preferred choice because the public thinks somehow, and I agree, tax dollars ought not be utilized to bail out these large institutions."
Duffy has also made repeated attempts to reform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was created in 2011 out of the passage of Dodd Frank. Last month, a Duffy-sponsored bill passed by a 401 to 2 vote in the House. H.R. 1265, known as the Bureau Advisory Commission Transparency Act, calls for each advisory committee and subcommittee of the CFPB to be subject to the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, making the proceedings of those committees open to the public.
Other Duffy-sponsored legislation attempting to reform the CFPB is currently pending. Duffy introduced several other bills in early March as part of a comprehensive reform proposal.
