Banking/Financial Institutions

Both chambers will dig into the farm bill this week as lawmakers look to strike a deal.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is set to mark up its version of the bill on Tuesday, while its House counterpart will follow suit on Wednesday. 

The biggest difference between the two bills is how they handle food stamps. The House would cut $23 billion from food stamp programs, while the Senate bill would trim just $4 billion.

Leaders in the House and Senate have both committed to floor action in the coming weeks. Farmers are currently operating under an extension of the 2008 farm bill.

Sen. Warren called the increasing amount of student debt a "quiet but growing crisis."

House Democrats splintered Tuesday as members could not agree on whether to back changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Several pieces of legislation altering the derivatives portion of the Wall Street overhaul were ultimately approved by the House Financial Services Committee with a combination of GOP and Democratic support. But first, a small but vocal group of Democrats, including the ranking member of the panel, trained their fire on bills cosponsored by their colleagues.

Members were split on whether the bills would make sensible changes to the financial overhaul or open gaping loopholes at the behest of the financial industry. The intraparty dissent may be a sign that Democrats are becoming more resistant to changes to the law, not less, as several of the contentious measures were easily cleared by the panel in 2012.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) called one bill co-sponsored by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) "basically a wish-list of the financial industry."

"This is exactly what they want," he said. "We're taking accountability and throwing it out the window."

The White House said the legislation would "threaten the full faith and credit of the United States."

Government agencies filed twin charges against debt-relief companies for fraud and deception on Tuesday, the first suit of its kind.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed civil complaints against two firms that claimed to lower customers' overall debt by negotiating with banks and credit card companies for charging consumers illegal fees. Separately, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed criminal charges against one of the companies for mail and wire fraud.

The Justice Department charged New York-based Mission Settlement Agency, its owner and three employees with defrauding more than 1,200 people for millions of dollars. The department claims that from 2009 through May 2013, the company lied about its fees and falsely claimed to be affiliated with the federal government to trick consumers into paying for its services, resulting in $2.2 million in fees for the company while ignoring its customers.

The agency's owner used the profits to run a Brooklyn nightclub, lease two luxury cars and pay for his mother's credit card bills, the Justice Department alleges.

The White House is opposing a handful of bills that previously garnered bipartisan support that would alter new derivatives regulations in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

In a letter sent Monday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) that lawmakers were jumping the gun in considering bills to alter portions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which he said would weaken the landmark overhaul.

"The derivatives provisions in the Wall Street Reform Act constitute an important part of the reforms being put in place to strengthen our financial system by improving transparency and reducing risks for market participants," he wrote. "These reforms should not be weakened or repealed."

A top New York state official is suing two of the nation's largest banks over alleged repeated violations of a national mortgage settlement. 

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday that he intends to sue Bank of America and Wells Fargo for 339 documented violations for failing to provide timely responses to mortgage modification applications that he argues puts struggling homeowners at risk for losing their homes.

“The five mortgage servicers that signed the national mortgage settlement are legally required to take specific, rigorous and enforceable steps to protect homeowners,” Schneiderman said in a statement. 

The Treasury Department's investment in General Motors is continuing to shrink as the government winds down one of the last major pieces of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The Treasury announced Monday that it had entered the second stage of its exit from the domestic car manufacturer, as it continues to sell off the roughly 241.7 million shares it has in the company. The government anticipates it will have fully exited its rescue of GM sometime in the first quarter of 2014.

"Earlier this year, Treasury launched an effort to sell its remaining shares in GM common stock," said Tim Massad, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability. "We are pleased with the progress to date and will continue exiting this investment in accordance with our previously announced plan and timetable and in a manner that maximizes returns for taxpayers.”

Financial regulators unveiled a new set of guidelines for a civil penalty fund created to collect fines from violators of consumer protection law.

The House will turn this week to a bill that Republicans say would prevent the United States from defaulting on its debts.

The Full Faith and Credit Act is a preemptive attempt by Republicans to defuse the warnings from the White House and Democrats about holding the debt ceiling “hostage” in fiscal negotiations. The bill would give the Treasury Department the ability to borrow above the limit to cover bond and Social Security payments.

While the Treasury insists it cannot prioritize payments and avoid a default if its borrowing capacity is reached, Republicans disagree, and say their bill should assure markets that the country will always pay its debts.

Lawmakers will likely have to increase the debt ceiling sometime in the late summer or early fall.