Financial report you say?

Look here.

The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency took another step forward Thursday in the House, moving out of the Financial Services Committee -- albeit a bit weaker -- on its way toward the floor.

CFPA, which would be the first federal regulatory agency devoted solely to consumer financial protection, passed the committee 39 to 29. All but one of the assembled committee Republicans and two Democrats voted against the consumer protection bill, despite a series of compromises that included exemptions for favored industries and limits on tougher state regulation.

During the four days worth of amendments considered by the committee, Republicans consistently decried the proposed independent consumer watchdog, echoing bank lobbyists, as a threat to the overall "safety and soundness" of the financial services industry. Those complaints were undercut -- and the bill given a boost -- when top banks announced huge bonus payouts during the markup.

Republicans also argued, in debate and through a long list of proposed amendments, that existing banking regulators like the Federal Reserve were already capable of protecting consumers as well as the financial markets. Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) acknowledged that existing regulators failed to protect consumers, but, he added, "I think they're ready to do that now."

Democrats weren't convinced.

"What did the prudential regulators do to protect consumers? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. They didn't do a thing," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said, noting that the Fed has already had consumer protection powers since 1994 but that they went unused for 12 years. "I think enough has been said here in this committee about the markets. The markets. Always concerned about the markets. Well, you know what? Those markets caused trillions of dollars in losses to men and women who live on Main Street across this country."

Castle ultimately crossed the aisle to support the bill, while Democrats Travis Childers of Mississippi and Walt Minnick of Idaho opposed it.

A pillar of the Obama administration's proposed financial regulatory reforms, the CFPA is designed to protect Americans from abusive or deceptive loans, including credit cards and mortgages, that played a substantial role in the financial crisis.

However, committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) made it clear, via his own amendments and his support for certain exemptions proposed by other committee members, that the agency's regulatory power extends only to lending activity, not other retail purchases on credit. Frank also stressed that the bill is designed to target predatory practices, not necessarily particular professions.

"We have restricted the CFPA from what the administration proposed," Frank said Wednesday. The requirement that banks offer easily understandable "plain vanilla" financial products was out of the bill by the time the markup process began, and the committee quickly decided that community banks -- those with less than $10 billion in assets -- should be exempt from agency oversight. So are credit, mortgage and title insurers, plus lawyers, real estate brokers, cable companies, accountants and auto dealers.