The House Financial Services Committee plans to mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., on Wednesday that would require the Department of Labor to wait to publish its fiduciary rule for 60 days after the Securities and Exchange Commission releases its fiduciary rule proposal.
The bill, the Retail Investor Protection Act, is a "significantly revised" version of a discussion draft that Wagner released in late May, says Neil Simon, vice president for government relations at the Investment Adviser Association in Washington.
That proposal would have required the SEC to coordinate with other federal agencies before issuing any broker-dealer fiduciary rule, though it did not specifically name the DOL as the new one does.
Industry officials said that the first draft would have been of "little consequence" as an effort to slow the progress of the SEC and DOL in crafting their fiduciary rules.
Lee Covington, IRI's senior vice president and general counsel, told AdvisorOne Tuesday that "Our members support the SEC acting first so DOL will know what the other primary regulators are doing in the [fiduciary] area."
Also, the initial draft was not referred to any committee of jurisdiction. This bill, however, is being jointly referred to the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
