This will be a jam-packed week for the Wall Street reform conference committee, with a final draft expected to go to both chambers of Congress by Friday. And many of the more important details remain up in the air. In particular, the consequential, hard-wired reforms designed to reduce risk and even the size of risky markets still have to clear the final hurdles. The combination of a strong Volcker rule, banning banks from owning a hedge fund or engaging in proprietary trading, and Section 716 of the Senate derivatives title, forcing the mega-banks to spin off their lucrative swaps trading desks into separately capitalized subsidiaries, could join to manufacture a 21st-century Glass-Steagall Act. And this frightens the financial industry, who want the easy profits provided by the largely unregulated wild west show that currently predominates.

With some weakening to 716 achieved, the industry has set their sights on the Volcker rule, which would prove more inhibiting to their profit margins. Their last-minute effort to gut the Volcker rule would provide loopholes that could keep the casino running:

To secure the support needed for their bill, Senate negotiators are leaning toward creating a series of exemptions to the Volcker Rule that would allow banks to continue to operate these businesses as investment funds that hold only client money, according to several Congressional aides, industry officials and lawyers.

The three main changes under consideration would be a carve-out to exclude asset management and insurance companies outright, an exemption that would allow banks to continue to invest in hedge funds and private equity firms, and a long delay that would give banks up to seven years to enact the changes.

In particular, the provisions, sought by Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, and several other lawmakers, would benefit Boston-based money management giants like Fidelity Investments and State Street Corporation.

This actually isn’t entirely new. Certain promises around asset management companies in Massachusetts were promised to Brown in exchange for his cloture vote on the Senate bill. But there’s absolutely no need to do anything for the sole benefit of Scott Brown at this point. Lawmakers in the Senate have probably already picked up one vote in the form of Maria Cantwell, if they close the enforcement loophole to the derivatives title (which they expect to do). Russ Feingold then becomes a consequential figure, and his support for the bill would more than cancel out Brown flipping to No.

On the policy, this would be a disaster. The biggest banks already own asset management companies and private equity firms, and some own insurance companies too (or would certainly be incentivized to buy one so they could keep trading). This rips out the heart of what the Volcker rule seeks to accomplish.

Even getting a long delay would probably be fine with Wall Street as a fallback. Many firms are ramping up their purchases of asset management companies and hedge funds. At least they would have half a decade to play around with depositor money and roll in the profits. The fact that they risk another collapse of the financial sector and the broader economy in the process clearly means nothing.

Banks surely have a Plan B or C if these changes are rejected – Goldman Sachs is talking about basically dropping its status as a bank, others are figuring out ways to restructure their businesses and spin off companies that can make riskier trades, and still others are trying to re-define what constitutes a “proprietary trade”. But Plan A would truly mean no changes whatsoever for the largest and most systemically significant firms. The goal here is not punitive, not to deny the mega-banks profits out of spite. It’s to make the sector safer, sounder, and frankly more boring.

Both Carl Levin and Jeff Merkley, the chief lawmakers behind the Volcker rule changes, sounded confident that they would be satisfied with the finished product. But they’ll have to do battle with literally thousands of lobbyists and the general sentiment in Washington that what’s good for Goldman Sachs is good for America. Despite everything we’ve been through the past couple years, in the halls of power, with friends and colleagues littered throughout the political and financial sectors, that sentiment still holds.