Senate prepares to end week without vote on Dodd-Frank relief

WASHINGTON — The Senate will leave Washington this week without voting on a regulatory relief bill.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the lead author of a targeted bill to roll back certain Dodd-Frank Act provisions, introduced an amendment late Wednesday to clarify certain measures and add new sections to the bill.

Crapo had hoped the Senate could vote on the bill before finishing business for the week, but with dozens of amendments to sort through, Democrats and Republicans were unable to come to an agreement on deciding which measures to allow for floor consideration.

Democrats also appeared to be in no hurry to proceed with a vote. Amendments totaled around 100 by Thursday afternoon.

“We continue to be open and be ready for amendments on our side,” said Crapo during a floor speech on Thursday. “We have a number that we are ready to proceed forward with … yet so far have not received agreement yet from the other side to move forward.”

“We hope that we can avoid this slowdown and start moving forward by setting votes on amendments as soon as we can,” he added.

While the updated bill that Crapo introduced on Wednesday appeared even narrower in some respects than legislation that passed out of the Senate Banking Committee 16-7 in December, the House wants to expand the bill. Yet moderate Senate Democrats co-sponsoring the bill have threatened to pull their support if additional provisions are added.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has identified roughly 30 bills that passed the House with strong bipartisanship as candidates to be added to the Senate legislation.

The House will also likely continue to pass financial services bills next week, sending a message to the Senate that House members would like to have their fingerprints on the regulatory relief bill.