Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today to discuss the conference agreement on financial services regulatory reform and specifically an issue in section 619 of title VI, known as the Volcker rule. The section's limitations on financial organizations that own a depository institution from investing or sponsoring in hedge funds or investments in private equity to 3 percent of an organization's assets, in the aggregate, references ``tier 1 capital.'' The term ``tier 1 capital'' is a concept currently applied strictly to banks and bank holding companies and consists of core capital, which includes equity capital and disclosed reserves. However, there are financial organizations subject to the Volcker rule's investment constraints that do not have a principal regulator that utilizes tier 1 capital measurements to determine an entity's financial strength. In order to ensure a level playing field with traditional banks, I would hope the appropriate regulators would determine a suitable equivalent of tier 1 capital to determine the investment limit, while still satisfying the intent of the Volcker rule. I ask the regulators to make certain that these types of financial organizations will be subject to the Volcker rule in a manner that takes into account their unique structure.…”