In a word, yes, as George Mason University Law School professor Todd Zywicki explains in the Washington Times:

Late in the Senate’s proceedings on the financial regulatory reform bill, the Senate adopted — with no hearings and minimal debate — a controversial provision proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, that imposes price controls on interchange fees for debit and prepaid cards.

How would that work?

In a provision reminiscent of Soviet-style economic planning, the Durbin amendment requires the Federal Reserve to determine interchange transaction fees for debit that are “reasonable and proportional” to the “actual cost” to issuers with respect to the transaction. But the amendment does not permit recovery of the actual cost to issuers from debit transactions, only the “incremental” cost of a particular transaction. The massive fixed costs of running the network and servicing cardholders would be excluded, guaranteeing that debit card issuers will lose money on their debit card operations. That’s not sustainable.

And who do you think will pay for these extra costs? Consumers, of course.Obviously, this has nothing to do with preventing another financial crisis. Instead, it’s about powerful interest groups getting their way, thanks to clueless lawmakers.Zywicki concludes, “Maybe next they’ll try to persuade Congress to outlaw free parking and friendly cashiers in order to reduce business costs.” Sadly, his predictions make me nervous: Zywicki tends to be right about where the next crazy idea will come from and what it will be.