Quote:Officials have been grappling for nearly a year to figure out how to better oversee the financial system, particularly as a number of large and inadequately supervised companies have encountered problems. In a sweeping regulatory blueprint unveiled last March, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. proposed a broad consolidation of banking and financial agencies, including merging the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That proposal is not included in the current*plans.

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Other elements of the regulatory overhaul, such as the requirement that hedge funds register with and be more closely supervised by the SEC, would mark a sharp departure from the policies of the Bush administration. Many hedge funds now voluntarily register and subject themselves to some regulation, but the Bush administration opposed attempts to make registration and tighter oversight mandatory, even though that was proposed by William H. Donaldson, a chairman of the commission appointed by President George W.*Bush.