Capital Briefs: Commerce Panel Chief Plans a Reg Relief Bill

Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va., plans to introduce his own version of financial modernization legislation early next year, according to congressional employees.

Details of the bill, which would repeal the Depression-era Glass- Steagall Act, were not available. But Richard L. Maurano, the House Banking Committee's deputy Democratic staff director, said it would differ from legislation previously introduced by the committee's chairman, Jim Leach, R-Iowa.

Mr. Maurano, speaking at a conference sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute, said he expects that turf battles between the two committees would prevent either chairman's plan from advancing far in the House.

Prospects are better in the Senate, Mr. Maurano said, where Banking Committee Chairman Alfonse M. D'Amato, R-N.Y., has said he will introduce legislation allowing banks and commercial firms to own each other.

"Chairman D'Amato is very pumped up about this ... to a degree that he wasn't last Congress," agreed Robert Guiffra, former chief counsel to the committee.

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