The Financial Planning Coalition encouraged its members to meet with their Congressional representatives, who are currently in their home districts for the holiday weekend, to push for uniform regulation of the financial planning profession.

"The administration has signaled its understanding and support for legislation, licensing and standards—setting regulations to protect consumers,” read an email from the coalition to its members. “We need to capitalize on this opportunity to secure long overdue registration and licensing for financial planners and advisors.”

Comprised of the CFP Board of Standards, the National Association of Personal Financial Planners and the Financial Planning Association, the coalition aims to regulate financial planning as a profession, like accounting and law. “Many of you have the opportunity to speak with your members of Congress over the Fourth of July recess this week as they schedule meetings back home with their constituents.” During those meetings, financial planners should deliver a set of three major points:

First, the coalition is happy that the President’s financial reform proposal recommended extending the fiduciary standard to broker-dealers who provide investment advice, but extending the fiduciary standard will not address all the gaps in the delivery of financial advice to consumers and investors. Financial planning is unregulated as a profession, resulting in confusion for consumers, misrepresentations and fraud. “Financial planners and advisers—like doctors, lawyers and accountants—should be subject to a professional oversight board that establishes and enforces baseline competency and ethical standards,” the coalition says.

In lauding the Administration’s proposed establishment of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), the coalition said: “The concepts included in the CFPA, such as using registration and licensing regimes to weed out bad actors and to protect consumers, are the same concepts underlying our proposed professional oversight board for financial planners.”

The Feds are making progress in establishing the consumer protection agency. The U.S. Department of the Treasury released draft legislation yesterday that calls for the CFPA to oversee banks, credit card issuers and mortgage lenders, as well as other financial services firms that deal directly with consumers. “This agency will have only one mission—to protect consumers,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday. “Consumer protection will have an independent seat at the table in our financial regulatory system. By consolidating accountability in one place, we will reduce gaps in federal supervision and enforcement.”