Financial Reform Bill Passes Senate

In spite of previous false starts, and an extremely lengthy process, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill just passed the Senate and will shortly be on its way to the President for his signature.

While there’s certainly cause for celebration among the bill’s backers (the final Senate vote was 60-39), the Washington Post’s lead paragraph has this just right:

“The focus now shifts to the monumental task of implementing the new regulations over coming weeks and months.”

The task will indeed be monumental. That was one of the themes of our discussion of the legislation on Tuesday and something I discussed with Travis Plunkett of the Consumer Federation of America, watch the video at right.

The next big question in our mind is who will head up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Leadership of this new agency is going to be critical to its success. There are some great candidates out there (not to mention Michael Barr and Ellen Seidman!), and it should be fascinating to watch the CFPB unfold. This moment holds a great deal of promise, here’s hoping that much of it is fulfilled.