The SEC aren't waiting for Congress to approve the "bailout" in order to start addressing the issues created by FAS 157. There's an article in today's WSJ – Regulators Ease Securities-Valuation Rules that give some background.
You can also see the tension between easing this regulation and completely suspending it – the clarification allows:
"…executives to use their own financial models and judgment if no market exists or if assets are being sold only at fire-sale prices."
Judgment doesn't necessarily translate into transparency – exactly the issue that FASB was attempting to address with FAS 157 in the first place.
As I said in my last post:
"FAS 157 works fine until you have to contend with an illiquid asset such as a private company stock or (as in the current crisis) mortgage backed securities when the credit market dries up."
It's a challenge to see how to balance this tension – even a full set of disclosures are going to be difficult to investors to interpret. I suspect we'll see such disclosures in future 10-Qs providing an explanation of the "judgment" that has been applied in valuing such assets.
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