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OFR Director Delivers “Reducing the Regulatory Reporting Burden” Remarks at the Financial Data Summit
On March 16, the Office of Financial Research (OFR) posted remarks made by Director Richard Berner at the third annual Financial Data Summit hosted by the Data Transparency Coalition. "Reducing the Regulatory Reporting Burden" outlines OFR’s mission to identify areas of “duplication, overlap, and inefficiency in regulatory reporting,” presents steps to be undertaken in partnership with the Financial Stability Oversight Council (and its member agencies) to “improve data quality and reduce the reporting burden [by] requiring standards, including precise and agreed-on definitions, identifiers, and formats; industry-regulator agreement on essential data elements; adherence to best practices in data collection; and more data sharing among regulators,” and seeks participation and input from the private sector.
Special Alert: Trump Administration Initiates "Regulatory Freeze"
On January 20, Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff to President Trump, issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies initiating a regulatory review to be headed by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”). Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) has been nominated to fill that position.
On behalf of the President, the memorandum asks the following of the agency and department heads:
- No new regulations: “[S]end no regulation to the Office of the Federal Register (the ‘OFR’) until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after noon on January 20, 2017, reviews and approves the regulation.”
- Withdraw final but unpublished regulations: “With respect to regulations that have been sent to the OFR but not published in the Federal Register, immediately withdraw them from the OFR for review and approval.”
- Delay the effective date of published but not yet effective regulations: “With respect to regulations that have been published in the OFR but have not taken effect, as permitted by applicable law, temporarily postpone their effective date for 60 days from the date of this memorandum” and consider notice and comment to further delay the effective date or to address “questions of fact, law, or policy.” Following the delay, regulations that “raise no substantial questions of law or policy” would be allowed to take effect. For those regulations that do raise such questions, the agency or department “should notify the OMB Director and take further appropriate action in consultation with the OMB Director.”
Rulemakings subject to statutory or judicial deadlines are exempt, and the OMB Director has the authority to grant further exemptions for “emergency situations or other urgent circumstances relating to health, safety, financial, or national security matters, or otherwise.”
Click here to read full special alert
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If you have questions about the “freeze” or other related issues, visit our Consumer Financial Protection Bureau practice for more information, or contact a BuckleySandler attorney with whom you have worked in the past.
OFR Releases 2016 Annual Report to Congress; Reveals Credit Extended Through "Shadow Banking" Exceeds That of Traditional Banks
On December 13, the Office of Financial Research (OFR) announced the release of both its 2016 Annual Report to Congress and its 2016 Financial Stability Report. The reports met the reporting requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act, including an analysis of: (i) threats to U.S. financial stability; (ii) key findings and insights from the OFR’s research; and (iii) the status of OFR efforts in meeting its mission. Among other things, the report noted the increasingly prominent role of shadow banking — “the extension of credit by nonbank companies, or credit funded by liabilities susceptible to runs because they are payable on demand and lack a government backstop.” According to the OFR, credit provided by the so-called shadow banking sector is presently higher than that of established banks. Indeed, OFR research indicates that credit from nonbank companies reached about $15.1 trillion as of the first quarter of 2016, thus making it "the major source of credit to U.S. businesses and households" — providing 38 percent of credit compared with banks' 32 percent.