A voluminous House-Senate conference agreement that would revamp federal financial regulation has cleared the House and awaits a vote in the Senate, where Democrats are trying to pick up enough votes for passage. The measure was approved by the House on June 30 by a 237-192 vote, generally along party lines. A Senate floor vote is the next step.
The package was amended the day before the House floor vote in an attempt to draw enough votes to get it through the Senate. The amendment would omit a $19-billion fee to be charged to large banks and hedge funds and insert a different revenue-raising provision, which would end new commitments from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and increase fees to be paid by banks to the federal deposit insurance fund.
But the fate of the revised bill in the Senate isn’t clear. After the amendment was added, one key Senate swing vote, Scott Brown (R-Mass.), didn’t commit himself, saying he would review the measure over the July 4 recess.