Regulators, lawmakers, municipal bond dealers and state and local governments are growing anxious about the U.S. government’s delays in carrying out a key part of the financial regulatory overhaul known as Dodd-Frank, two years after the law was signed.

The law requires those who counsel states, cities and authorities on bond sales to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, subjecting them to the same regulation as brokers and dealers in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market.

But when the SEC released in December 2010 a proposed definition of who qualified as an adviser, it received hundreds of comments, almost all saying the definition would ensnare too many people in the regulation, many of whom were only on the periphery for the market. The SEC pulled the proposal and has been revising it.

Source: Reuters