Senators Introduce Bill to Separate Trading Activities From Big Banks

By PETER EAVIS, NYT

11:32 a.m. | Updated

Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday introduced an aggressive piece of legislation that intends to take the financial industry back to an era when there was a strict divide between traditional banking and speculative activities.

The bill, which is also sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and two other senators, is named the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. Its intention is to create a modern version of the seminal Glass-Steagall legislation from the 1930s, which placed firm limits on what regulated banks could do. It was fully repealed in 1999, laying the groundwork for the mergers that created some of the biggest banks of today. If passed, it could force many of those banks to let go of their trading operations.

Senator Warren’s bill is one of several that have aimed to add far more bite to the overhauls that have been put in place since the financial crisis. The bill serves as a jarring reminder to Wall Street of why it feared her election to the Senate last year.

“Over the past five years, we’ve made real progress,” said Senator Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. But, she added, “The biggest banks continue to engage in dangerous high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk.”

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