WASHINGTON -- A House Banking Committee panel will pending bank derivatives bill during the week of Sept. 12, a subcommittee aide said this week.
The bill, introduced earlier this year by House Banking Committee leaders Rep. Henry Gonzalez, D-Tex., and Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, would require federal regulators to establish comprehensive derivatives standards for banks, government-sponsored agencies, and federal credit unions.
Meanwhile, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has given the Securities and Exchange Commission until early next month to produce a comprehensive report on the use of derivatives by mutual funds.
Markey, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on telecommunications and finance, had asked the report to be submitted to the subcommittee by July 18, but postponed the deadline at the SEC's request.
The House Banking Committee's subcommittee on financial institutions supervision, regulation, and deposit insurance will take up the Gonzalez and Leach derivatives bill in mid-September.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Stephen Neal, D-N.C., is a co-sponsor of the bill.
In a letter earlier this month, Gonzalez asked Neal for a subcommittee vote on the bill as soon as possible after the Labor Day recess.
The subcommittee had already planned to take up the bill in September before Gonzalez made the request, the subcommittee aide said.
Gonzalez's push for derivatives legislation for banks comes as Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has backed off considering a bill to regulate securities firms' derivatives affiliates, which currently are not regulated by the SEC.
Markey introduced a bill earlier this year that would subject the affiliates to SEC oversight and regulation, but Dingell has refrained from supporting it, at least for now.
Instead, Dingell endorsed a proposal by the Securities Industry Association and SEC to work together to develop voluntary standards for the derivatives affiliates.
Markey and Rep. Jack Fields, R-Tex., asked the SEC in June to conduct a comprehensive study of mutual funds use of derivatives and to determine whether changes in securities laws and rules are needed to govern funds' derivatives activities.
The two lawmakers made the request after several funds that had been viewed as conservative by investors reported derivativesrelated losses.
In a letter, Markey and Fields asked the SEC for specific information, including whether derivatives interfere with compliance of certain federal securities law requirements for funds.
