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This week in Washington, lawmakers return to the Capitol to begin the fall session. Although leaders in the House and the Senate will try to tackle a few "must-do" items, both chambers and both parties share a common desire to keep the September session short so they can get back home to campaign for the Nov. 4 midterm elections.
The SEC has begun to develop mutual fund rules - including that asset managers such as BlackRock Inc., the Vanguard Group, State Street Global Advisors, Pimco & Fidelity Investments give regulators more data about their mutual-fund portfolio holdings and conduct stress tests on their funds - a process that could take months or years. Read more.
Tax policy will be among the top issues at hand in Congress. Several lawmakers continued to press for action aimed at curbing corporate inversions over the break, with Democratic bills ready to move forward in both the House and the Senate.
To avoid a repetition of last year's politically costly government shutdown, the most likely scenario is a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government after the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30, though it's not clear whether other impending actions may hitch a ride on the CR. Passage of a CR to finance the government at current levels would postpone budget and spending fights until a lame-duck session of Congress after the Nov. 4 elections.
Monday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will participate in a discussion at the Urban Institute on "Business Tax Reform: What Can Be Done?" Corporate inversions are expected to dominate the discussion, but no major announcements are expected about how the Administration plans to address inversions.
Tuesday, leaders of major financial regulators, including SEC chair Mary Jo White and CFTC chair Timothy Massad, will head to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on the regulation of Wall Street. The agencies say they have plenty of Dodd-Frank regulations to discuss, with the adoption last week of two rules that make new demands on bank liquidity and capital, a re-proposal for a rule on swaps margin and the OCC's new policy on how banks must manage risk.
Tuesday's House Financial Services Oversight Subcommittee hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), originally scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed to an as-yet determined date.
Wednesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp and the Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman will discuss tax reform at the Business Roundtable on Wednesday.
Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, will appear at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on tax reform.
Please see below for further detail on these events and others in Washington this week.
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