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Financial Services panel to oversee insurance, banking
WASHINGTON-Many in the insurance industry hope that the creation of a new Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives will help put them on a par politically with their counterparts in the banking industry.
The new committee replaced the old House Banking Committee last week and will, in addition to having jurisdiction over banking concerns, handle many of the insurance and securities matters that formerly were in the purview of the Commerce Committee. The expansion of jurisdiction reflects the changes in financial regulation wrought by the Gramm-- Leach-Bliley Act, a far-ranging financial services modernization measure enacted in late 1999. The act was named after its chief sponsors-Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, RTexas; House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach, R-Iowa; and House Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, R-Va.-and it lowered barriers that had kept banks, insurers and securities firms from engaging in each other's business since the Glass-Steagall Act went into effect in the 1930s.
Of the three committee chairmen, only Sen. Gramm retains his job. Rep. Bliley retired, and Rep. Leach was barred from serving another term as chairman under term limits adopted for all committee chairmen by House Republicans after they won control of that chamber as a result of the 1994 elections.
That opened the way for Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, to become chairman of the new committee. Rep. Oxley, who initially sought to succeed Rep. Bliley at the helm of the Commerce Committee, is regarded as a friend of the insurance Committee, industry and of regulatory reform.
The move transfers all of the Commerce Committee's securities powers and much of its insurance powers to the Financial Services...