In addition to requiring regulated trading through clearinghouses, the Dodd-Frank Act also included a provision called the Volker, This rule, named after a former head of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volker, who had suggested it, said that banks could not trade derivatives for their own accounts-something they had commonly done before Dodd-Frank. The purpose of the rule was to prevent banks from taking on excessive risk by making big bets-and leaving taxpayers on the hook to bail them out if something went seriously wrong, as it had in 2008. An exception was made for derivatives trading done to hedge risk in a bank's own portfolio. In 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission was still teying to figure out exactly how to implement this past of the law-and what exactly a hedging teade was, as opposed to some other kind-so banks were still largely free to do what they wanted. Bank lobbyists were still busy arguing for a loose interpretation of the rule.