Dodd Strikes Back at Big Banks

One regulator to rule them all, one regulator to bring Dodd another win? In a move some think is calculated to stem populist rage against him in next year’s reelection campaign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd is preparing a bill that would radically change the regulation of American banks. His legislation—dramatically at odds with the preferred course of the president and the House—would create a single new agency in charge of bank supervision, stripping those powers away from the FDIC and the Federal Reserve. Dodd’s extreme position, according to The Wall Street Journal, would likely meet tough resistance from his fellow legislators as well as the banking industry, which Dodd has been criticized for being too close to. (For example, last year Dodd drew fire for allegedly receiving below-market mortgages because Countrywide considered him a “special” customer—rather inconvenient in an age of anti-Wall Street fury.)