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March 17, 2017 at 09:20 AM
Forty Democratic members of Congress told the Labor Department on Friday not to delay by 60 days the April 10 compliance date for its fiduciary rule, arguing in concert that such a delay is “careless” and is being fueled by the Trump administration’s “duplicative analysis” of the rule’s potential impact.
“It is unacceptable that now – roughly a month before implementation of the final rule is scheduled to begin – the DOL is carelessly proposing to delay it,” wrote Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee; Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The lawmakers’ letter, sent on the last day of Labor’s 15-day comment period on the proposed delay, is among 565 commenters weighing in. Labor is also taking comments for 45 days on a list of questions about the impact of the fiduciary regulation and the exemptions.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 3 directing the Labor Department to undertake an assessment of its fiduciary rule, and if it deems appropriate, a proposal to revise the rulemaking, which would delay the rule’s April 10 effective date.
Acting Labor Secretary Ed Hugler said in a statement the same day that Labor would “consider its legal options to delay the applicability of the date as we comply with the president’s memorandum.”
But the forty lawmakers argued in their Friday comment letter that “any argument that a delay is warranted to comply with the president’s memorandum requiring the DOL to conduct additional analysis of industry product availability, disruptions and dislocations, and litigation costs is specious.”
Labor, they argued, “already conducted ample analysis of the relevant issues, including the three issues listed in the president’s memo. For example, the DOL specifically found that the rule would support consumer choice ‘by extending fiduciary status to more advice and providing flexible and protective [exemptions] that apply to a broad array of compensation arrangements.’ Indeed, we have already seen industry begin adapting to the rule in various ways.”
Thomas DiNapoli, New York state comptroller and trustee of the New York State Retirement Fund, the third-largest defined benefit public pension system in the country, agreed in his comment letter to Labor that the fiduciary rule should not be delayed.
