Newsmaker

Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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James B. Lockhart III ’68

By the staff | 2:49pm August 01 2008

Since 2006, James B. Lockhart III ’68 has been director of the little-known Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, charged with regulating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Also since 2006, he has been arguing for more oversight power. Now that the housing debacle has almost brought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac down, Congress has swung into action.

Legislation signed by President Bush on July 30 creates the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which will be empowered to regulate the mortgage companies’ capital requirements and executive pay. (They are already forbidden to buy subprime loans—a regulation that saved them from a much worse disaster than what they face now.) Lockhart, who will be the new agency’s director, was present at the small Oval Office gathering at which Bush signed the bill. But it was hardly his first meeting with the president: the two attended Andover, Yale, and Harvard Business School together.

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