Congressional work on bankruptcy reform is intensifying, with Senate and House panels planning markups this week on legislation similar to that which failed to pass Congress last year.

But the bills are different, with the Senate’s more bipartisan bill substantively diluting the "means test" provision in last year’s bill which was very strongly opposed by consumer groups, Democratic members of the Senate and the Clinton Administration. That opposition is what killed the bill, which is supported by the credit card industry.

Rep. George Gekas, R-Penn., head of the commercial and administrative law subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, has scheduled a markup on his more restrictive bill for March 24-25. In the Senate, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, scheduled a markup of his bill March 25. The Senate Republican leadership is indicating it wants the bill on the floor in April, with or without Democratic support. But Grassley does have Sens. Robert Torricelli, N.J., and Joe Biden, Del., as Democratic co-sponsors.

Even though House Republicans have been able to win significant Democrat support for their bill, it is still likely to face opposition if the means-test provision is included.

The seeds of a compromise on the House bill could be in the form of legislation recently introduced by Rep. John LaFalce, D-N.Y., ranking minority member of the House Banking Committee. LaFalce, who testified last week in support of his bill before Gekas’s panel, is calling for far greater disclosure by credit card companies of the potential pitfalls of credit card debt.

The bill requires a more complete disclosure of all credit card terms and costs, including "teaser rates." It also bans credit card issuers from canceling an account or imposing new fees on card holders who routinely pay off monthly card balances in full. The bill also prohibits credit card companies from issuing credit card accounts to people under 21 years of age, except with parental approval or evidence of means of payment.

There are four main differences between the two bills. First, the means test in the Senate version gives bankruptcy judges greater discretion in considering whether to transfer a debtor from Chapter 7, which means the debts are fully discharged, to Chapter 13, where the debtor needs to repay all or some of the debt. The Senate version also has greater consumer protections designed to lessen pressures from creditors for debtors to "reaffirm" debt that would normally be discharged in bankruptcy, plus greater protection for child support payments. Finally, it has a reduction in the amount of unsecured debt that would be made nondischargeable by the new law.