Whoops! Odd Dodd gets a valuable lesson in bureaucratic inertia:
blogs.wsj.com
July 26, 2008, 1:05 pm
Dodd Demands Meeting With Fed, Treasury Officials
The top member of the Senate Banking Committee is demanding a meeting with top Bush administration officials and the Federal Reserve over potential delays to implement the foreclosure prevention program passed by the Senate Saturday.
Dodd
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) said he wants to meet Tuesday morning with the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston to discuss quick implementation of the bill.
“I want to know why we can’t get this legislation enacted and the regulations in place far more quickly,” Dodd said at a press conference. “I’m not going to tolerate a slow walk on something that is so important to the American consumer.”
Dodd said he was responding to comments that he had heard suggesting that HUD was claiming it could take more than a year to implement portions of the bill aimed at averting foreclosures. Dodd said he was “terribly disappointed that the Secretary of HUD would make an announcement of that kind.”
“The idea that HUD is just sort of getting together talking about possibly a year before we’d offer any relief for homeowners is totally unacceptable to me,” Dodd said.
Stephen O’Halloran, a HUD spokesman, said the department “will be working diligently to stand up the new refinance program” — even though Congress had provided no immediate funding for the bill’s full implementation.
“Families needing mortgage assistance should continue to contact their lenders. Our goal is to make this a seamless transition and implementation, and working with our government and industry partners, we fully expect it to be one,” he added.
The American Banker reported Friday, citing an unnamed HUD spokesperson, that final regulations for the foreclosure prevention program could be proposed “early next year” and finalized next summer.
That would be much later than the Oct. 1 date that Dodd and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) have cited for the program to begin.
Frank, in a statement released by his office Saturday, said lawmakers would work with the administration to get the program in place “as rapidly as possible.”
“And I want to urge the (mortgage) servicers now that this is about to become law, to show some forbearance for troubled borrowers who may qualify for the program,” Frank said. (Updated to include HUD and Frank comments.) –Michael R. Crittenden
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