Today the House plans to take up two industry-backed bills dealing with derivatives, the hitherto opaque financial instruments so crucial to the 2008 meltdown, under a procedure usually reserved for noncontroversial matters.

A coalition of labor and consumer groups, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), believes the bills, which have bipartisan support, should be controversial and is urging lawmakers to oppose them. "Both proposed bills are unnecessary and potentially harmful attempts to micromanage the work of regulators in implementing the Dodd-Frank Act," the groups argued. "They amplify the views of the regulated industries which already have overwhelmingly greater resources to intervene ...