House and Senate leaders are still at an impasse over derivatives language in the financial regulatory reform bill, as conferees try to hammer out a compromise between the two versions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in fact, met with Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) to try to dislodge Lincoln from her position on the language, to no avail. As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lincoln wrote the derivatives language, including a provisions that would require banks to spin off their derivatives trading operations. The swap desks provision, as it’s called, is unpopular among Democrats and banks.
Asked by TPMDC reporter Brian Beutler if she could pass a bill in the House with the swaps desk spinoff provision in tact, Pelosi gave a rambling answer.
“There’s not one issue. You’ve got the clearinghouse, you’ve got the swap desk provision. … We’ll see what the oneness of it is when it comes back, because all of these issues relate to each other. It’s pretty exciting, though, because there’s going to be real change. It’s just a question of where it comes down,” she said.
Reporting by Brian Beutler
