House Mothballs Banking Bill Til ’89 as End of Session Nears

WASHINGTON — Efforts in the House to pass broad-based legislation mixing the banking and securities industries collapsed Thursday, dooming chances for a bill this year.

A private meeting between House Speaker Jim Wright, (D-Texas), and Democratic members of the Rules and Banking committees failed to resolve a knotty jurisdictional dispute that has been tying up the bill.

“The result was in view of the fact that we are at the end of the session . . . it’s obvious we’re not going to be able to move much further on the banking bill in this Congress,” said Rep. Fernand J. St Germain, (D-R.I.), chairman of the Banking Committee.

St Germain’s committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Rep. John Dingell, (D-Mich.), had passed competing versions of legislation that would permit subsidiaries of bank holding companies to underwrite some securities.

Wright has refused to mediate the dispute, telling the two chairmen they must work out their differences. On Wednesday, St Germain told Wright that compromise efforts failed and sought his backing for a vote by the full House on the banking panel’s version of the bill.

Wright still declined to intervene, but agreed at Thursday’s meeting to more specifically define which sections of a banking bill would be sent to Dingell next year.

“We anticipate moving very quickly at the beginning of the next Congress. It’s our hope that we can work with Energy and Commerce, with the speaker, with the Rules Committee so we do not have a repetition of the impasse,” St Germain said in a telephone interview.