Deadlines Slip, But Barney Frank Isn't Worried

Deadlines for many of the rulemakings mandated by last summer’s financial reform legislation have slipped, leaving the implementation dates for some key measures up in the air.

The Dodd-Frank Act mandated that dozens of rulemakings be completed within either nine months or a year of the bill’s enactment. Nine months have now passed. The one-year mark is fast approaching. Much remains undone.
But Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who championed the bill in the House last year, isn’t concerned about the delays. “There are a lot of complicated rules there,” he said. “I believe all the agencies are working hard to try to complete them.”
The regulatory agencies will get the rules finished “as soon as it can be rationally done,” Frank told HuffPost. “What difference does it make if it‘s a month later or six weeks later?”
Until definitions and regulations are finalized, there will be no new regime for derivatives, the complex investments that played a key role in amplifying the financial crisis. Also at issue are regulations regarding such things as oversight of credit-rating agencies; a new program for whistleblowers; and the implementation of the Volcker rule, which would limit a bank's ability to make risky speculative bets and its financial involvement with hedge funds and other high-octane trading firms.
The Huffington Post reported two weeks ago that the Securities and Exchange Commission had delayed its final rulemaking on three measures that were due on April 15. One of those is an anti-corruption measure that calls for publicly traded companies to disclose how much they pay foreign governments to acquire drilling and mining rights in their countries.
The measure has been fiercely opposed by oil and mining interest, and the bipartisan duo of senators who sponsored it expressed concern about the delay and requested an explanation from the SEC.
But Frank said that delays do not in any way indicate that rules are being watered down. “We have regulators in every case who are sympathetic to what we are trying to do,” he said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/28/dodd-frank-deadlines_n_854822.html

Why rush to fix your screwed up regulations?  You know the ones; the ones that got us in this mess.  Your lack of initiative is showing once again.  It is my hope that some fine Tuesday during the month of November, in a year not too far into the future; the voters will do something about your lackadaisical attitude.  I look at you, and all the others in Congress and I wonder:  How do you ever tie your shoes and get out of the house each morning?  Lazy, lazy, lazy.