April 11, 2011
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) will likely back legislation to defer implementation of the Federal Reserve’s debit interchange limits in a move that would pit him against Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), according to The Hill.
The blog reports that the “Debit Interchange Fee Study Act of 2011,” introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and a group of bipartisan lawmakers, has “strong backing from banking interest in New York.”
Durbin, for whom the Dodd-Frank bill’s debit regulation amendment is nicknamed, is seen by many as Schumer’s rival to succeed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Because Durbin has been a “passionate” advocate for debit regulation, the Hill reports a Democratic aide said Schumer would likely try to keep his support for the Tester bill would likely be under the radar.
However, at a breakfast last Wednesday, Schumer declared that the impact of debit interchange regulation had not been examined closely enough ahead of the Dodd-Frank bill being signed into law.
“On this particular issue, because there wasn’t study, there is some momentum, led by Sen. Tester, who has done a great job, to at least delay it and see how it’s affected,” he said, according to The Hill.
The blog reports that Schumer and Durbin have been long-time co-tenants at a Capitol Hill townhouse with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). Durbin acknowledged in a March 31 speech that bank regulation is an issue on which he might “have a little prejudice involved too.”
“The biggest banks in America — the top 1 percent of banks in America — are the ones that do almost 60 percent of this card business. I am talking about the same Wall Street banks that ended up getting a bailout from the federal government, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “I do not have a lot of sympathy for them.”
Tester’s spokeswoman says the lawmaker is confident his bill will get enough votes once it comes to the floor, according to The Hill.
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