WASHINGTON — The numerous agencies involved in financial regulation should find better ways to coordinate with each other as they seek to implement the massive Dodd-Frank Act, according to a government watchdog report released Thursday.
The Government Accountability Office found that different agencies that are responsible for implementing different parts of Dodd-Frank have been coordinating only in an informal, ad hoc way.
"While informal and ad hoc coordination can produce the desired results, such coordination can break down when disagreements arise or other work becomes pressing," the GAO concluded.
The report recommends that the Financial Stability Oversight Council work with financial regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to develop formal coordination policies.
The GAO report also looked at the steps the various financial regulators are taking to analyze the potential costs and benefits of the regulations they are implementing as a result of Dodd-Frank. It concluded that as the agencies seek to analyze potential costs and benefits, they should hew more closely to a set of guidelines developed by the Office of Management and Budget.
In addition, the report outlined a series of steps that it said the agencies should take so that they are better prepared to measure the eventual impact of the new Dodd-Frank regulations.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who has been pushing for greater scrutiny of new regulations, seized on the GAO's finding that some regulators have yet to develop plans to review the eventual impact of the rules they've been writing.
"That is why we need immediate Congressional action to hold financial regulators accountable for rigorous, consistent economic analysis on every new rule they propose," Shelby said in a press release.
