A Dec. 6 press conference held by incoming House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) shed some light of interest to mutual funds on who will be in charge during the 110th Congress. Frank said he did not think jurisdiction over securities issues, including mutual funds, would be transferred from his panel to that of incoming Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.). Frank did, however, stress that he intends to “cooperate” with Dingell.
At the press conference, Frank focused on issues not related to the fund industry but he did indicate that Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) would likely chair the Capital Markets Subcommittee which has direct jurisdiction over funds. No official announcement will be made until next month.
In other areas, Frank praised the work of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, whose result he said was “a legitimate set of questions by intelligent people and we ought to be holding hearings on that.” The committee, which has the backing of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, has not yet made recommendations in the mutual fund area but is expected to do so before it finishes work. Frank said he had “no predisposition” to regulate hedge funds except in the case of pension funds going into hedge funds. “People are looking at that,” he said.