A new U.S. accounting standards body?

The fight over fair value accounting has spawned a lot of ill will. It has come to this: Two lawmakers have proposed something they call the Federal Accounting Oversight Board (FAOB), which would not replace the Financial Accounting Standards Board but would approve the standards and determine how they should be applied, reports Reuters.

The banking industry, which has gone to war to suspend fair value accounting, will no doubt support the measure, while an investor advocacy group has already come out against it. The proposed board would include regulators from the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. We'll see if this has legs, but it certainly suggests the extent to which anti-fair value constituencies are willing to go. 

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