The story I heard was that back this first surfaced back in 2006. A very, very old FAA gentleman was behind the idea, but it was swept under the rug until recently.
I guess with aviation running at full steam back then it would not work very well considering all the young inexperienced guys/gals being sucked by the regionals. Now when it's the opposite and there is an abundance of pilots on the market maybe they expected less resistance.
I spoke with an instructor at CAE SimuFlite today who said there is still strong opposition against this, but with only a few weeks to go I'm not sure time is on their side.