The SEC, Federal Reserve, FDIC and Comptroller of the Currency jointly decided to hold open the comment period on the proposed Volcker Rule one extra month, unitl 2/13/12.  SEC Commissioners Troy Paredes and Daniel Gallagher, while agreeing to an extension, say that one additional month is simply not enough time to consider the complexities of the proposal. SEC Proposed Rule Release No. 34-66057. On 11/7/11, the SEC, Fed, FDIC, and OCC (colletively, the "agencies") published for comment a joint notice of proposed rulemaking.  The Volcker rule, mandated under Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank reform Act, contains certain prohibitions and restrictions on the ability of a banking entity and nonbank financial company supervised by the Board to engage in proprietary trading and have certain interests in, or relationships with, a hedge fund or private equity fund (“proposed rule”). Owing to the complexities of the issues involved and to facilitate coordination of the rulemaking among the 4 agencies, it was jointly agreed to provide for an extension. Dissenting SEC Commissioners. SEC Commissioners Troy Paredes and Daniel Gallagher, the Republican Commissioners, expressed the following concern:

We strongly agree that interested parties should be allowed more time to study the rule proposal and to give careful thought to all the questions that the release poses.  But the 30 day comment period extension is insufficient given the complexities of the Volcker Rule proposal.  This proposal also has the potential to dramatically and irrevocably impact the U.S. financial markets.  Accordingly, the comment period extension should have been longer to help ensure the integrity and soundness of the rulemaking process.

For further details, go to:   [SEC Pr Release 11-278, 12/23/11] , [Paredes and Gallagher Statement, 12/23], and [SEC Proposed Rule Release No. 34-66057, 12/23/11]