s a starting point, we think the Proposed Rule is simply too tepid.” That was how Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin opened their February 2012 comment letter to federal banking regulators about the “Volcker rule,” designed to prevent large banks from making risky proprietary trades for their own profit, the kinds of trades that nearly took down the financial system in 2008. The senators, who authored the rule in Congress, were displeased about a number of loopholes added to the proposal, which they said did not “fulfill the law’s promise.” They demanded that regulators “draw brighter lines, remove unnecessary complexities, and enable cost-effective, consistent enforcement.”Twenty months later, five regulators will today finalize the Volcker rule, and Merkley, for one, is pleased with the result. “I believe the loopholes inherent in that [2012] draft have been significantly reduced or eliminated,” he said in an interview on the eve of the final votes. “I have a much more positive feeling about what will be voted on.”