Taking a cue from the Bush administration, a key House lawmaker last week introduced legislation that would create an interim federal insurance office within the Treasury Department, with backers and detractors alike seeing it as most likely the first step toward establishing an optional federal charter.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., chair of the Capital Markets Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced H.R. 5840, the Insurance Information Act of 2008, creating an Office of Insurance Information within Treasury a day after holding a hearing on “Examining Proposals to Reform Insurance Regulation.” (The bill had not been named or numbered as this story went to press.)

In his opening statement at the hearing, Rep. Kanjorski also said he is prepared to give opponents of federal insurance regulation–especially agents–what they want in the form of legislation streamlining agent and broker licensing, in exchange for their support for his bill creating the new Treasury agency.