A state lawmaker and members of a California public advocacy group are pushing congress to approve a plan to prevent future economic meltdowns. 

Capital Public Radio's Steve Shadley reports...

 

President Obama’s proposal to create sweeping oversight for the financial industry is currently stalled in congress. Banks and other big financial institutions are fighting the program. The latest backers of the proposal are the California

Public Interest Research Group and Pedro Nava, who chairs the Assembly Banking and Finance Committee.   

CalPIRG spokesman Ed Mierzwinski says the plan would give more authority to states to prosecute lenders that provide bad loans...

 

“State attorneys general, the best consumer cops on the beat...the ones who are local and close to the problems should be reinstated as having the authority over national banks...”

 

But, Beth Mills with the California Bankers Association, says most of the subprime loans weren’t provided by banks targeted in the President’s plan...

 

“Don’t continue to put more and more regulations on the banking industry which actually won’t get to the root of the problem...”

 

Mills says the CBA also opposes President Obama’s plan to create a national “Consumer Finance Protection Agency” because she says it would limit consumer choice.