The Senate will likely take up House-passed legislation aimed at reining in excessive executive compensation when it tackles its own overhaul of financial industry regulations later this year, reports Congressional Quarterly Today. The House passed the bill, HR 3269, on a 237-185 vote July 31, which most lawmakers voting along party lines. It would expand regulatory oversight of executive compensation and give shareholders a bigger say in what corporate executives are paid.

The bill capitalizes on the public outrage over multi-million dollar bonuses that Wall Street executives took after their companies received taxpayer subsidized bailouts.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said Barney Frank, the bill's sponsor, said the legislation will address "this practice where people are given bonuses if the gamble pays off, but don't lose anything if it doesn't."

In the Senate, Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd - who is chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee -- plans to take the lead on the legislation in his chamber. But as Dodd is also a key player in the current health-care debate, the executive pay bill could be on the back burner for a spell.

The House-passed bill:

• Enables regulators to ban payments that give workers what the legislation calls "perverse incentives" to take risks that could hurt the nation's financial system.
• Gives the Securities and Exchange Commission, among other federal regulators, nine months to propose rules for regulating compensation packages at institutions whose assets total more than $1 billion.
• Allows shareholders to vote on executive pay, though those votes would be nonbinding.
• Requires that individuals from outside a company's management be included on compensation committees, and that these people receive no pay from, and have no relationship to, company management.