The Hill reported yesterday that House Republicans have sent a letter to SEC Chairman Elisse Walter regarding the SEC’s recent allocation of resources. From the article…
In a letter sent Tuesday to SEC Chairman Elisse Walter and obtained by The Hill, the quartet of lawmakers said they are “surprised and troubled” to see the SEC expending resources on a project to force political spending disclosures by corporations even as they run behind in implementing the new law — the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.
“The Commission appears to be allocating its limited resources on a discretionary project wholly unrelated to its mandate to ‘protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation,'” they wrote. “In light of the SEC’s extraordinary delays in meetings the JOBS Act’s mandatory statutory deadline, an allocation of resources devoted to non-essential rule making raises serious questions.”
The criticism comes in light of the fact that the SEC has allocated limited resources toward the drafting of a rule that that “would require publicly traded companies to disclose information about their political spending activities.”
The JOBS Act was passed in April of 2012 with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill was supposed to be implemented by the end of last year, but the SEC has been slow to act while citing limited resources and concerns about investor protection.
It remains to be seen whether or not increased leverage from Congress will do anything to expedite the act’s implementation.