Banking committee OKs White, Cordray for SEC, CFPB

[admin]

Banking committee OKs White, Cordray for SEC, CFPB
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday voted almost unanimously to approve Mary Jo White, a high-profile former U.S. attorney who supervised the prosecution of mob boss John Gotti, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. White, the Obama administration pick for the agency, is expected to be approved by the full Senate as soon as later this week without much difficulty. The panel voted 21 to 1 to approve her, with Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, casting the only vote against. The panel approved Richard Cordray on a party-line 12 to 10 vote -- with Democrats supporting him -- to head the nascent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency set up to write rules for mortgages and credit cards. He is unlikely to be approved by the full Senate as Republicans have been blocking his nomination as part of their effort to have the bureau transformed into a five-person bipartisan panel instead of its current single-director structure. White would be approved to serve for over one year, for a term finishing in June 2014. Congress could approve her for a five-year term after that.