Chris Dodd and Barney Frank take a lot of flack from all sides. But, they rarely get credit when credit is due. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) gives them kudos in a letter they sent today:

Thank you for your pro-consumer, pro-investor vote on the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill. This historic legislation provides a sweeping overhaul of federal financial regulations that should help protect consumers, Main Street investors, and the economy for decades to come.

CFA is particularly supportive of the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to guard against unfair, deceptive and abusive practices when consumers take out a loan, use a credit card, or get a mortgage. The Dodd-Frank bill includes provisions that are crucial to an effective bureau, such as making the CFPB autonomous, with independent funding, and led by a single director. The bill also allows states to go beyond the CFPB’s rules to rein in a local problem prior to it erupting into a national disaster.

The new restrictions on mortgage lending are also important. Had these provisions been in place years ago, we may not have seen the crisis in mortgage lending that we are still dealing with today. We are particularly supportive of the restrictions on prepayment penalties on mortgages, a requirement that mortgage lenders ensure that home loans are affordable to the borrower, and a prohibition on steering consumers into unaffordable loans.

For years, CFA has promoted the need for brokers to have the same fiduciary duty requirement to work in the best interest of their customers when they give investment advice as Investment Advisers have. The Dodd-Frank bill gives the Securities and Exchange Commission the clear authority to write rules to this effect. Other important provisions for Main Street investors include: creation of a powerful new Investor Advocate Office within the SEC, elimination or limits on the use of pre-dispute binding arbitration clauses in brokerage and investment adviser contracts, improved disclosures, reform of broker-dealer compensation practices, and strengthened SEC enforcement tools.

Finally, CFA is supportive of the provisions that strengthen regulatory oversight of ratings agencies, increase rating agency accountability, and improve rating transparency. The Dodd-Frank bill also includes strong provisions on the key issues of moving the majority of clearable swaps into central clearing, requiring exchange trading, increasing capital and margin requirements, and other measures to improve the stability, transparency, and regulatory oversight of the derivatives market.

For the legislation to achieve its goals, regulators will need to provide the kind of vigorous oversight of the financial services industry that was lacking in the years leading up to the crisis. We look forward to working with them, and with you, to ensure that this legislation is implemented so that it fulfills its mission of helping consumers, thereby strengthening our entire economy.

While there is certainly more work that needs to be done, Wall Street Reform is an historic piece of legislation that will protect American consumers for generations to come.

This is encouraging:

Wall Street's lobbying army is marching around Washington in a push to shape the final financial-overhaul bill. But it has gotten harder to get through the door with some lawmakers.

One bank has complained that it no longer has access to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), whose schedule has filled up to accommodate negotiations with his Senate counterparts during the next two weeks.

This is a step in the right direction. Lobbyists need to be locked out as early in the process as possible. Our legislators should be working for us, not the lobbyists.