On Tuesday, August 2, House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Spencer Bachus announced that he will be putting together a bill that would, among other things:
· Consolidate several offices within the SEC, and require the agency to submit to Congress by the end of January its agenda for each year.
· Require the SEC to establish a system for documenting employee recusals, in an attempt to address “revolving door” concerns with SEC employees leaving to join the private sector.
· Require the new SEC ombudsman, created by Dodd-Frank, to report directly to the SEC chairman, as opposed to the Office of the Investor Advocate.
· Limit the use of a new $100 million reserve fund to “badly-needed” technology upgrades.
According to Bachus, “The SEC is structurally flawed and suffers from operational inefficiencies and organizational incoherence. This legislation will be a comprehensive restructuring of the SEC. It will make the SEC more efficient, consolidate duplicative offices, enable the agency to use better technology, and strengthen ethical safeguards to avoid conflicts of interest.”
In addition, this bill would combine several offices at the Wall Street watchdog, and make several other changes — including rolling back or altering recent tweaks authorized by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
Source:http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/175057-bachus-sets-sight-on-sec
