The House this evening passed by a 237-192 vote the ABA-opposed financial regulatory reform bill’s (H.R. 4173) conference report. The conference report now goes to the Senate, which will not vote on the measure until the week of July 12th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said earlier today.

ABA expressed its continued opposition to the conference report. “As we have consistently maintained throughout the legislative process, there is broad agreement that financial regulatory reform is needed and bankers support the effort to end too-big-to-fail, enhance consumer protections and reign in the shadow banking system. But the good in this legislation is far outweighed by the bad,” ABA President and CEO Ed Yingling said.

Yingling emphasized that the bill will do severe damage to traditional banks and to Main Street. “Traditional banks, which had nothing to do with causing the financial crisis, will be subjected to more than 5,000 pages of new regulations. As a result, many small banks are telling us they will simply have to sell out to larger institutions that have the staff to deal with the massive volume of new reports and rules,” he said.

“Above all, the bill undermines the capability of traditional banks to provide the credit needed to move the economy forward,” Yingling said. “We will continue to make our case to the Senate.”

Source: ABA Daily Newsbytes