Financial regulation conference will start Thursday

By Vicki Needham - 06/08/10 06:52 PM ET

The House-Senate conference on financial regulatory reform legislation will begin Thursday and could conclude by the time President Barack Obama leaves for the Group of 20 meeting later this month.

The conference is expected to last between six and eight days, beginning at 2:15 p.m. Thursday and running Tuesday through Thursday next week in the House and Tuesday through Thursday the week of June 21 in the Senate, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told The Hill Tuesday night.

Obama is scheduled to leave June 24 for the G-20 in Toronto, the seventh day of the conference, if lawmakers need that much time. If necessary, the conference to reconcile the differences between the finance bills could go through Saturday, June 26, Frank said.

Lawmakers have been urged by the White House to provide Obama with nearly complete if not complete details of the final conference agreement by the time he leaves for Toronto.

Lawmakers and the White House are aiming to complete the measure before the July 4 recess, which begins July 2.

House conferees are expected to be named Wednesday followed by the conference's opening statements Thursday. Votes are expected during the next few weeks, Frank said.

Earlier on Tuesday Frank met with the House leadership as well as several of the committee chairmen involved in the process — Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) to clear the plans and move forward, Frank said.

The conference will be open to the public and the media, and he says he has urged C-SPAN and other networks to cover the proceedings.

"This will be the most open conference in recent memory," Frank said.

Pelosi plans to appoint House conferees Wednesday, Frank said, adding that conference meetings would alternate between the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committee hearing rooms. The Senate appointed its conferees late last month.

“This will be the most open conference in my recent memory,” Frank said, adding that the topic of each day’s negotiations, along with the “base text” from which the conferees will work, would be available to the public ahead of time.