Financial regulations

With the House approving the most significant expansion of the regulation of U.S. financial companies since the Great Depression, observers are at odds over whether new restrictions on the nation's biggest banks can prevent the next major financial crisis.

"It feels about right to me," said Brookings Institution analyst Douglas Elliott.

The mammoth legislative package - which passed the House with every Republican and 27 Democrats voting against it - includes new "too-big-to-fail" fees, leverage limits and other restrictions on large financial institutions. It permits bank regulators to break up big banks but does not require them to do so, as some have advocated.