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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Securities Association (ASA), in advance of today’s U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee hearing, sent a letter to Subcommittee Chairwoman Ann Wagner (R-MO) and Ranking Member Brad Sherman (D-CA) expressing concerns related to the Commission’s regulatory agenda.
“The SEC has advanced an extraordinary regulatory agenda whose scope, scale, and speed are wholly unwarranted, and much of it, being done without any congressional mandate. Congressional oversight is incredibly important to understand the threats the Commission’s agenda poses to the American economy,” said ASA President & CEO Chris Iacovella. “We also draw the Committee’s attention to the reality of the SEC’s regulatory agenda, which has purposefully forced the transfer of wealth from American businesses and investors who risk their capital to a professional class of “service providers” who do not. This is a corruption of capitalism that only Congress can end.”
Failure to Follow Administrative Procedure Act: ASA has significant concerns with the SEC’s “fast-tracking” of its agenda, limiting public comment periods and shortcutting economic analysis of rules as required by the Administrative Procedure Act. ASA President & CEO Chris Iacovella penned an op-ed published highlighting The True Cost of the SEC’s Regulatory Overreach.
Lack of Congressional Authority: ASA believes the Commission lacks statutory authority to adopt a number of its proposed rules, including the climate-risk disclosure proposal as well as the predictive data analytics proposal. If Congress had intended to grant the SEC authority to regulate specific activities, then it would have explicitly granted the agency the authority to act.
Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT): ASA remains concerned about the SEC’s collection of every American investors’ personal and financial information (PII) by the Consolidated Audit Trail. ASA has been at the forefront of advocacy in the industry and Members of Congress, to remove retail investor PII from the CAT. We thank U.S. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) and Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) for introducing the Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act.
In April 2023, ASA sent a letter to the full House Financial Services Committee in advance of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s testimony on the Agency’s regulatory developments, rulemakings, and activities.
Read the letter to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets here.
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About the American Securities Association
American Securities Association, based in Washington, DC, represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.