President urges swift action at meeting on Wall Street rules

President Obama on Monday urged financial regulators to “expeditiously finish” work on the Wall Street reform law.

{mosads}Three years after the Dodd-Frank overhaul was enacted, regulators are still working to get some of its most significant, and contentious, pieces in place. The president gathered the nation’s top financial regulators for a White House meeting to underline the need to get the rules finished sooner rather than later.

“The president commended the regulators for their work but stressed the need to expeditiously finish implementing the critical remaining portions of Wall Street Reform to ensure we are able to prevent the type of financial harm that led to the Great Recession from ever happening again,” the White House said in a statement.

“The president also discussed the housing market including the need for a more simplified and certain housing finance system that better serves middle class families.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters earlier Monday that the president believes it is critical to get the rules in place and written in a way “that protects the long-term stability of our financial system and the financial interests of middle-class families.”

Earnest emphasized that regulators are independent by design and that there were no major regulatory developments to be announced in conjunction with the meeting. Rather, he said the president would urge regulators to hold firm against Wall Street efforts to dilute the new restrictions. Earnest noted big banks “wield significant influence over the political process.”

The president met in the Roosevelt Room with officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, along with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who has vowed to have most of Dodd-Frank wrapped up by the end of the year.

The meeting comes as regulators are working to put Dodd-Frank in place but still have many major rules still to implement. The law firm Davis Polk estimates that, as of July 15, the law’s three-year anniversary, just 40 percent of the law’s rules have been finalized.

Earnest said the White House is not disappointed with the pace of progress.

“We’re certainly pleased with the level of cooperation and coordination that’s taken place among these independent regulators, and the president wants to encourage them to capitalize on the momentum they’ve already built up to put this regulatory regime in place,” he said. “There’s [no] doubt that they have a tall order, but we’re pleased with the progress that they’ve made.”

Other topics of conversation included improving interagency coordination, with a particular focus on the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council. Led by Lew, the panel is charged with identifying excessive risks to the U.S. financial system.

Participants in the meeting also discussed the challenges of finishing major regulatory efforts after the budget cuts from sequestration, according to the White House.

Republicans responded to the meeting by criticizing Dodd-Frank, which they said has stifled the economy with burdensome regulations.

“Dodd-Frank is an incomprehensively complex piece of legislation that is harmful to our floundering economy and in dire need of repeal,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said in a statement. “Its regulations generally fall into two categories: those that create economic uncertainty and those that create certain economic harm.”

Earnest pointed to the recent confirmation of Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB as a sign of progress on the Dodd-Frank front. Republicans had blocked Cordray’s nomination for years, as they demanded structural changes to the bureau, which was created by Dodd-Frank.

But a July deal to move several stalled nominees put Cordray in place officially, after he had led the bureau via a contentious recess appointment since the beginning of 2012.

— This story was first published at 4:02 p.m. and has been updated.