Financial Overhaul

WASHINGTON — Buoyed by passage of landmark health care legislation, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress said Wednesday that an overhaul of financial regulations was the next legislative priority.

The legislation appeared to be gaining momentum, as two crucial Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Bob Corker of Tennessee, said they expected the overhaul to pass this year even though they had concerns about some of its provisions.

A Democratic strategy appeared to be emerging: expressing confidence that the measure would pass and urging Republicans to help shape legislation that they could support, rather than trying to block it.

“When we come back from recess, the No. 1 issue for the U.S. Congress will be this bill in the United States Senate,” Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said after meeting at the White House with President Obama.

The House voted along party lines in December to approve a regulatory overhaul similar to one proposed by the White House last summer.

Described as the most sweeping change in financial rules since the Depression, the legislation would create a council to detect and avert systemic risks to the financial system; expand the Federal Reserve’s oversight over the largest and most interconnected financial companies; create a consumer financial protection agency to regulate mortgages and credit cards; and regulate many of the over-the-counter derivatives that amplified the risk-taking that brought about the 2008 financial crisis.

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