FORM Act of 2015
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act of 2015 or the FORM Act of 2015
(Sec. 1) This bill amends the Federal Reserve Act to require the Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), within 48 hours after the end of a FOMC meeting, to submit to the appropriate congressional committees and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) a Directive Policy Rule, meeting specified criteria, accompanied by a statement identifying the FOMC members voting in its favor.
A Directive Policy Rule shall describe the FOMC strategy or rule for the systematic quantitative adjustment of a Policy Instrument Target to:
respond to a change in specified Intermediate Policy Inputs, and
provide the basis for an Open Market Operations Directive to achieve a specified Policy Instrument Target presented by the FOMC to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to guide open-market operations.
The GAO shall determine if a Directive Policy Rule has materially changed from the rule most recently submitted, and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) must testify within seven legislative days before certain congressional committees as to why any noncompliance exists.
The GAO must also, upon congressional request, audit the conduct of monetary policy by the Board and the FOMC.
(Sec. 2) A blackout period shall take place starting one week before an FOMC meeting and ending midnight of the day of its completion. During the black-out period only specified public communications are permissible by members and FOMC staff with respect to either macroeconomic or financial developments or about current or prospective monetary policy issues.
(Sec. 4) FMOC membership shall increase from five to six representatives of the Federal Reserve Banks. The selection process for representatives is revised, in part to divide elections from different Banks into odd-numbered and even-numbered calendar years.
(Sec. 5) The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is amended to require the Board, before adopting sets of conditions for stress tests of nonbank financial companies it supervises and bank holding companies, to: (1) first issue regulations for them, subject to public notice and comment, which shall include methodologies and models used to estimate losses on certain assets; and (2) before publishing them submit copies of such regulations to the GAO and the Panel of Economic Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office.
The summary continues for 37 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Passed House amended" stage on November 19, 2015. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on December 17, 2015: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Bill Huizenga (R-MI) introduced it on July 23, 2015, and 20 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 20 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on July 23, 2015, 4067 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3920 days ago, on December 17, 2015.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers