Report: Regulators missing a slew of Dodd-Frank deadlines

Regulators have missed roughly three-quarters of the deadlines for implementing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law through 2011, according to a new report.

So far, 200 deadlines for drafting rules to implement the Wall Street overhaul have come and gone, and regulators have met only 51 of them, according to the law firm of Davis Polk. Another 200 rulemaking requirements stemming from the law still await regulatory action.

All told, regulators have implemented less than a quarter of the sweeping law. Just 21.5 percent of the rulemaking requirements have resulted in finalized rules, while 38.75 percent currently have proposed rules. Another 39.75 percent of rules that ultimately will have to be implemented to make the law a reality have yet to be proposed.

Regulators have spent much of the last year and a half struggling to draft huge numbers of rules implementing the new law, even as lawmakers argue over whether to expand their budgets to help address their expanded responsibilities.

For example, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was handed new oversight over the financial derivatives market. To help with that expanded role, the White House had requested $308 million for the agency in its fiscal 2012 budget request — a 50 percent increase from its previous $202 million budget. However, congressional negotiators effectively froze the agency's budget in a conference agreement in December, giving it just $205 million.

So far, the CFTC has missed more than half of its deadlines — 31 out of 54 that have passed.

The Securities and Exchange Commission was another Wall Street regulator that pressed hard for a bigger budget since Dodd-Frank. The White House asked for a $1.4 billion budget in 2012, and Congress gave it $1.3 billion. It has missed 81 percent of passed deadlines, according to the report.

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