The chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee said she would introduce legislation that would prevent regulators from enabling further deregulation of the financial services industry.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., promised during a subcommittee hearing on financial stability that she would craft a measure that would stop financial regulators from dismantling Dodd-Frank Act rules if they continue to focus on deregulation.
"We're going to do everything we can to stop the deregulation efforts of major institutions in this country that have been [detrimental] to the people that we're serving," Waters said.
"In the event that this keeps up, we're going to have to deal with some kind of legislation that would limit the ability" of agencies to deregulate industry, Waters added.
Waters said she warned the CEOs of some of the largest U.S. banks not to ask the committee for further deregulations at a landmark April 10 hearing. As a result, Waters claimed that the industry has circumvented Congress and gone straight to regulators, who have "done the bidding" of Wall Street.
To Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, who represented the central bank at the subcommittee hearing, Waters said, "Don't keep doing that — don't keep being used to promote deregulation."
In May, the full House approved a bill authored by Waters that would return much of the operational strength to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that it enjoyed during the Obama administration.
"This committee has decided that we're going to do everything that we can to protect consumers," Waters said.
