After Uphill Struggle, Sweeping Financial Reform Legislation Finally Becomes a Law

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed into law another of his administration’s centerpiece legislation that seeks to end too big to fail bailouts, create a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, set up an early warning system to protect our economy from future threats, and bring transparency and accountability to derivatives and other exotic financial instruments.

In his remarks delivered on the occasion of the signing ceremony of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, Obama said that “beyond the consumer protections…., reform will also rein in the abuse and excess that nearly brought down our financial system.  It will finally bring transparency to the kinds of complex and risky transactions that helped trigger the financial crisis.  Shareholders will also have a greater say on the pay of CEOs and other executives, so they can reward success instead of failure.”

Describing the long arduous journey the bill had to go through before it finally reached his desk for his signature, Obama said: “Passing this bill was no easy task.  To get there, we had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups and a partisan minority determined to block change.  So the members who are here today, both on the stage and in the audience, they have done a great service in devoting so much time and expertise to this effort, to looking out for the public interests and not the special interests.”

To the applause of the signing ceremony’s attendees and stage participants that include Cabinet members and bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate, Obama declared that “the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes. There will be no more tax-funded bailouts—period. If a large financial institution should ever fail, this reform gives us the ability to wind it down without endangering the broader economy.  And there will be new rules to make clear that no firm is somehow protected because it is ‘too big to fail,’ so we don’t have another AIG. “

In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “This Congress and President Obama have made tough choices and taken effective steps to bring our economy back from the brink of disaster. The Recovery Act has already saved or created up to 2.8 million jobs and much of the TARP has been paid back. On December 11th, the House passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (HR 4173) and on June 30th, the House passed the Dodd-Frank Conference Report of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by a vote of 237-192.  On July 15th, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 60-39, which President Obama signed into law on July 21st.”

LawUpdates.com has previously issued a detailed summary of this financial reform legislation. This legislative summary is found at House Passes Historic Financial Reform Legislation.

The White House likewise also released its own summary at Wall Street Reform.

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