Congress looks set to pass long-awaited changes to the Dodd-Frank Act that would relieve small and medium-sized banks from some of the onerous burdens of the post-crisis financial legislation package, the Hill reports:

The Senate in March passed a bipartisan bill to exempt dozens of banks from the stricter Federal Reserve oversight under Dodd-Frank and scores more from lending restrictions and reporting requirements. The deal, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), passed by a 67-31 vote with support from more than a dozen Democrats.

A deal between the House and Senate would clear the way for Congress to pass the biggest changes to the Dodd-Frank financial rules since the law was enacted in 2010. The House and Senate have squabbled over the Senate bill, which Ryan vowed to freeze unless the Senate agreed to take up provisions from the House.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said he was “excited that our negotiations over the last few weeks have culminated in the Senate agreeing to vote on our House bills.”

The 849-page Dodd-Frank Act introduced 27,000 new regulations on the financial sector. The Senate bill, which the House now appears ready to support, is only a modest step to relieve the burden of such a massive exercise in rule-making.

But the effort is nonetheless welcome. Since Dodd-Frank’s passage in 2010, compliance costs have rocketed up, especially for small banks. The number of new banks has virtually ground to a halt, while there is evidence that reduced small-business lending has adversely affected local communities across America.

To ease the supervisory burden on small and medium-sized institutions, and to exempt them from trading restrictions of which they were never the target, is thus necessary and appropriate. This the Senate bill does, and for that reason it constitutes a positive move to facilitate lending, competition and access to financial services.