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The House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing titled "Restricting Access to Financial Advice: Evaluating the Costs and Consequences for Working Families and Retirees." The hearing examined the proposal by the Department of Labor ("DOL") to expand the definition of "fiduciary," and discussed how the proposed rule would impact workers, small businesses and retirees. The following witnesses testified: Panel 1: The Honorable Thomas E. Perez, Secretary of the Department of Labor (written testimony) Panel 2: Mr. Jack Haley, Executive VP

On September 10, the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises held a hearing to a discuss the Department of Labor fiduciary rulemaking proposals. A number of members of the committee majority criticized the DOL's proposed rules and Subcommittee Chairman Scott Garrett (R-NJ) remarked that "[I]t's pretty clear that the biggest impact of this rule is going to be felt far from Wall Street - and millions of middle or lower income households may ultimately have no place to go for advice." Members at the hearing also discussed a bill

U.S. House Representatives Peter Roskam (R-IL), Richard Neal (D-MA), Phil Roe (R-TN) and John Larson (D-CT) introduced legislation that would require the DOL to receive congressional approval before implementing a final fiduciary rule. The legislation also outlines an alternative standard to the DOL's fiduciary proposal in the combined proposals of the "Strengthening Access to Valuable Education and Retirement Support Act" (the "SAVERS Act of 2015") (H.R. 4294) and the "Affordable Retirement Advice Protection Act" (the "ARAP Act") (H.R. 4293). According to the representatives, "the proposals

Commentary by Steven Lofchie

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) argued that "insurers and financial firms provide much more optimistic assessments when they speak to their own investors" than in their "dire and unsupported public predictions and official comments to the Department of Labor about the impact of the proposed Conflicts of Interest rule."