Blaine Luetkemeyer: “I would like to thank Chairman Hensarling for all his fine work on this issue, as well as other financial services…”

“I would like to thank Chairman Hensarling for all his fine work on this issue, as well as other financial services issues. I also would like to thank my good friend and neighbor in Missouri, Mrs. Wagner, for introducing this legislation and all her hard work on it. What she is trying to do here is propose legislation that tries to solve a problem that we have got in the situation here with these two agencies--DOL and SEC--trying to coordinate and propose a regulation which they don't seem to be willing to do or do it in the right way. As usual, when the bureaucracy tries to propose things, there always are unintended consequences of those actions and those rulings. We have here some of those unintended consequences, which Mrs. Wagner in her legislation is trying to mitigate. This proposal has the potential to drive up the cost and availability of investment services and products for investors, particularly those with low and moderate incomes. I will give you an example. I recently spoke to a broker-dealer in rural Missouri who I represent, who is one of only a handful of small brokers in a two-county radius. If the Department of Labor rule moves forward, he, like many other small broker-dealers, will have no choice, because of the way this rule is written or being proposed, that they will stop offering his services to clients, and many Missourians are going to be without or have limited access to financial products and advice.…”