§5227 Study and report on margin authority

Summary

The Comptroller General must study how heavy borrowing and sudden pay-downs of debt at banks and other financial firms helped cause the financial crisis. The study must cover four things: what roles the Federal Reserve Board, the SEC, the Treasury Secretary, and other federal banking agencies had in watching and limiting risky borrowing; the Fed’s power to set margin rules and how it decided whether to use that power; any times it used those rules; and recommendations for the Fed and the proper Congressional committees. The report is due June 1, 2009, to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the House Committee on Financial Services, and a copy must also go to the Congressional Oversight Panel under section 5233.