Bernanke Defends Fed's Turf

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told House Financial Services Committee members Wednesday that he would like retain regulatory powers within the Federal Reserve which are under threat by newly proposed reforms. “We are quite concerned by proposals to make the Fed a regulator only of the biggest banks,” Bernanke said. “It makes us essentially the too-big-to-fail regulator. We don’t want that responsibility.” On Monday, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd released a plan which would limit regulatory powers of the Fed so that it only supervised banks with assets over $50 billion.