Senate panel advances bill with Dodd-Frank overhaul

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced a $20.6 billion bill containing legislation that would impose a sweeping overhaul of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street financial reform law.

Appropriators approved the bill, which funds Financial Services and General Government services, in a party-line 16-14 vote.

It marks the 12th and final bill the panel has marked up during this cycle.

{mosads}The attached measure is the text of an authorization bill that the Senate Banking Committee advanced in a party-line vote in May. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Banking panel and an appropriator, sponsors the measure.

Shelby’s portion of the bill would allow for more regional and community banks to be exempt from regulations imposed by Dodd-Frank, in an effort to provide regulatory relief to businesses.

“Certain changes to current law are needed,” Shelby said Thursday, arguing that some banks and credit unions have been “subject to a one-size-fits-all regulatory framework.”

Democrats, however, are staunchly opposed to language that would roll back portions of Dodd-Frank.

“History is about to be made here,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said about the provision, which he said is longer than the spending bill’s base language.

“I’ve never seen the committee pass a full bill of more than 200 pages on an appropriations bill,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said it would “set a terrible precedent.”

Shelby, however, said he is ready to negotiate with Democrats.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) offered an amendment, rejected by Republicans, that would have removed Shelby’s language and other policy riders that focused on campaign finance coordination and would block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing net neutrality.

Republicans also rejected amendments that would boost funding to the Office of Personnel Management to beef up cybersecurity in the wake of major breaches, boost funding to other programs and remove a provision on campaign finance coordination with the national political parties.

The GOP-led panel, however, adopted in an 18-12 vote an amendment that would lift the Treasury Department’s travel ban on Cuba, and therefore, would allow Americans to travel there.

The panel also adopted two other Cuba-related amendments, which would end a delay for ships that dock in Cuban ports and allow the private financing of sales of agricultural commodities to Cuba.

In a 16-14 vote, the committee adopted an amendment that would prohibit financial insitutitons from using federal funds to prohibit or penalize legal marijuana businesses from accessing financial services.