Officials at federal agencies scrambling to translate the Dodd-Frank Act into regulations can breathe a little easier if they fall behind, as many of them have.
Hundreds of provisions in the measure must be implemented by July 21, the one-year anniversary of its enactment. But one of the law's authors, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said last week that no deadline in the law is actually drop-dead.
“There is no penalty for not meeting the deadline,” he said during a webinar sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Association.
“There's no gun at their heads. Nobody gets fired,” Mr. Frank said.
Mr. Frank, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, indicated that he is comfortable with agencies' pushing back implementation of some provisions if they need more time to sift through comments and draft rules.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which is responsible for implementing more than 100 Dodd-Frank provisions, is likely to delay until the first quarter next year a rule that would require investment advisers with $25 million to $100 million in assets under management to switch their registration from the SEC to their states.
That switch was to happen by July 21. Last month, however, the SEC said that it wouldn't have the Investment Advisor Registration Depository system ready to accept transition filings in time.
The SEC anticipates having the regulation governing the switch ready by July 21. But advisers will have a grace period until 2012 to sign up with state regulators before withdrawing their SEC registration.
Although Mr. Frank didn't address the adviser switch in his remarks, this is the type of timeline adjustment that he would accommodate.
But he opposes a bill recently introduced by Republicans on the Financial Services Committee that would delay implementation of Dodd-Frank derivatives provisions until December 2012.
The GOP members said the legislation would give regulators more time to meet the objectives of the derivatives title and consider its costs, benefits and effects on the market.
Mr. Frank said that the Republicans are trying to stall the provisions until after the 2012 election in the hope that a GOP president and Senate majority would scuttle them.
“I think they're making a political and economic mistake,” said Mr. Frank, who touted the transparency that the law would bring to derivatives. “We think it forces changes that are overwhelmingly constructive.”
Republicans assert that the entire law — not just the derivatives section — is being implemented too quickly.
“At the current breakneck pace, it is difficult for individual firms — especially small businesses — and the public at large to meaningfully participate and offer their insights and observations,” Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement last month.
E-mail Mark Schoeff Jr. at [email protected].
