For more than a month now, the White House has been vetting a proposal by the Labor Department that would require financial advisers to act solely in the interests of clients when giving advice on retirement accounts.

The White House should move the process forward without further delay. Its own research has shown that biased advice costs retirement investors billions of dollars a year in excess fees and commissions.

Prompt issuance of a so-called fiduciary rule for retirement advisers would also send a signal to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has balked at imposing a similar duty on all the various financial professionals who give advice on nonretirement investments.

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Read the full New York Times Editorial Board piece here.