Ryan: GOP has deal on bill easing Dodd-Frank

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that the House and Senate have struck a deal to pass the upper chamber’s bipartisan bill to roll back strict financial rules enacted by former President Obama.

Ryan told reporters at the Capitol that the House will hold a vote on the Senate bill targeting the Dodd-Frank Act in exchange for the Senate taking up a package of bills from the House Financial Services Committee.

“We’ve got an agreement on moving different pieces of legislation, so we will be moving the Dodd-Frank bill,” Ryan said.

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Ryan didn’t say when a vote would take place, if it would happen before Memorial Day or what House bills the Senate would take up. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who controls the House floor schedule, said he would announce when the lower chamber will vote on the Senate bill “soon.”

The Senate in March passed a bipartisan bill to exempt dozens of banks from the stricter Federal Reserve oversight under Dodd-Frank and scores more from lending restrictions and reporting requirements. The deal, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), passed by a 67-31 vote with support from more than a dozen Democrats.

A deal between the House and Senate would clear the way for Congress to pass the biggest changes to the Dodd-Frank financial rules since the law was enacted in 2010. The House and Senate have squabbled over the Senate bill, which Ryan vowed to freeze unless the Senate agreed to take up provisions from the House.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said he was “excited that our negotiations over the last few weeks have culminated in the Senate agreeing to vote on our House bills.”

Spokespeople for Crapo and Democratic senators who sponsored the bill declined to comment on Ryan’s remarks. 

House Republicans who passed a sweeping rewrite of Dodd-Frank last year initially said the Senate’s bill didn’t go far enough. Hensarling, the architect of that effort, in March said that the Senate bill would stay on Ryan’s desk unless the Senate agreed to consider amending it.

Hensarling had pushed to add to the Senate bill several dozen Financial Services Committee measures meant to boost small business lending and investment. Those bills passed with little to no Democratic opposition. 

But he eased off from his pledge to block the bill last month, voicing support for putting the Senate bill on the House floor if the Senate agreed to take up bills from his committee.

There are still several steps congressional leaders must take before the House and Senate could put the deal in action.

House Republicans told The Hill that House and Senate leaders are still working on which House bills the Senate will take up, but were confident that the deal would be finalized.

“The Senate is working in good faith on this and they’re trying to find a way for us to be able to get some more of our noncontroversial bills through,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), a senior Financial Services panel member, told The Hill. “They are still working on that — trying to work with a couple of senators to see what kind of bills, how many bills they’d be willing to take in a package.”

Another Financial Services Committee Republican told The Hill that the House had been given “a firm commitment” from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who’s “working to get Democratic support.”

The tentative deal is welcome news for Republicans eager to scale back Dodd-Frank, and for the bank and credit union groups who’ve pressured the House to pass the Senate bill. 

Senate Democrats who sponsored the deal said further changes could fracture the fragile bipartisan coalition behind their bill. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said his fellow Democrats agreed to tank the Dodd-Frank legislation if it came back to the Senate with changes.

Senate Republican leadership has also been wary of spending more floor time on the bill with dozens of presidential appointees still waiting for confirmation.

“It’s as good as we can do,” Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) told The Hill. “I mean, I was originally saying, if you don’t blow up the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], I’m out of here. But we have to see the big picture, and Main Street and the community banks are just ready for this to happen.”

Updated at 3:24 p.m. Melanie Zanona contributed.