Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) has sent letters to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the federal financial regulators to ensure reforms mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act are implemented effectively and that the true costs from the financial crisis are not forgotten. In both letters, Johnson urged the regulators not to repeal or undermine mandates of the Dodd-Frank Act. In his letter to the GAO, Johnson requested that the GAO conduct a study of the aggregate costs of the financial crisis “to ensure Congress and the American people have a full economic perspective of regulations implementing the Wall Street reforms.” Johnson asked the GAO to report on the quantitative and qualitative impacts of the crisis. In his letter to the federal financial regulators, Johnson requested responses from a handful of questions. The questions inquired about each agency’s rulemaking process, current and future plans to review and modify regulations, how public participation in the rulemaking process is encouraged, how each agency addresses challenges facing smaller institutions when dealing with regulatory compliance, and how interagency coordination has improved since the creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Both letters can be viewed
here.