A bi-partisan group of six Senators introduced a bill (S. 2223) on March 22 that would postpone the implementation of the Volcker Rule set for on July 2. Instead, S. 2223 links the effective date of the Volker Rule to the date regulators finish drafting their Volker Rule regulations. Based on their concerns that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others have said the regulations implementing the rule may not be completed by the current deadline, Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Mark Warner (D-VA), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Tom Carper (D-DE), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Bob Corker (R-TN) proposed the legislation.
Under Title VI of the Dodd-Frank Act, if left unchanged, the July 2, 2012 effective date of the Volcker Rule triggers the start of a conformance period lasting two years. This bill delaying the Volcker Rule’s effective date until 12 months after the issuance of the final interagency rule, would provide banking entities three years after the regulators issue the rule to implement the the Volker Rule regulations and conform their activities and investments.
According to the senators, "by linking the effective date to the regulators completing their work, Congress will not be arbitrarily extending the implementation of Dodd-Frank, and financial institutions and markets will be able to comply with final rules rather than being forced to guess what those regulations might be.”