Senate Banking Has Oversight Hearing on Administration?s Money Laundering Strategy

On October 3, 2002, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing on ?The Administration?s National Money Laundering Strategy for 2002 and expressed concern that the Bush Administration?s strategy is not properly achieving its goals. During the hearing Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), the Committee chair, said a positive sign was the committed effort to achieve the strict statutory deadlines imposed by the USA Patriot Act last year and progress in counter-terrorism financial enforcement. Kenneth W. Dam, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, testified that the 2002 Strategy has focused on the need for interagency coordination and cooperation in conducting AML policy. Mr. Dam characterized as the Administration?s major AML accomplishments over the past eleven months as: the issuance with Federal regulators of proposed customer identification and verification regulations; the development of a proposed rule to that seeks to minimize risks presented by correspondent banking and private banking accounts; the expansion of the U.S. AML program requirement to the major financial services sectors, including insurance and unregistered investment companies, such as hedge funds; and the development of rules to permit and facilitate the sharing of information between law enforcement and financial institutions, as well as among financial institutions themselves. Stuart E. Eizenstat, former Clinton administration Treasury Deputy Secretary and now partner, Covington & Burling, Washington , D.C., testified that the Bush Administration lacks a ?genuine strategy? to combat money laundering and is not properly structured internally to focus attention on terrorist financing.