Bank lobbyist keep busy shaping reform

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. financial industry spent $27 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2011, the second-largest quarterly outlay ever, a research group said.

The Center for Responsive Politics said the top 26 financial firms and financial industry trade groups spent 2.7 percent more on lobbying in the quarter than they did in the first three months of 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

At stake is the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill that was signed into law in July 2010, but now requires regulators to write hundreds of rules to implement its policies.

Regulators still have to write rules concerning the $583 trillion derivatives market and stipulate where regulators draw the line on proprietary investments, defining how much of their own capital banks can bet on the market.

The only quarter in which financial firms spent more on lobbying was the second quarter of 2010, when they spent $27.3 million to influence the Dodd-Frank bill as it was being written.

In the first quarter of 2011, Wells Fargo & Co. topped the list of financial firms in lobbying, shelling out $1.9 million, $900,000 more than it spent in the first quarter of 2010.