Huizenga Delivers Remarks at Hearing to Conduct Oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Washington,
June 22, 2023 -
Today, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, led by Chairman Bill Huizenga (MI-04), is holding a hearing entitled “Oversight of the SEC.”
Watch Chairman Huizenga’s opening remarks here.
Read Chairman Huizenga’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery:
“Today’s hearing is entitled, “Oversight of the SEC.’
“Article I, Section I of the United State Constitution vests ‘all legislative powers’ in Congress.
“However, even after the landmark decision in West Virginia versus the EPA, some agencies continue to act well outside the bounds Congress instructed them to follow.
“Inherent in those constitutional powers is the power to conduct oversight. The Supreme Court has held and reaffirmed that Congress has the power to conduct oversight to ‘secure needed information’ in order to legislate.
“Let me remind everyone paying attention this morning. Our Subcommittee should and will continue to conduct oversight where needed. And with all due respect to Ms. Barbero, it is not up to the General Counsel’s office or Chair Gensler to decide what those investigations are.
“Ms. Barbero, ultimately the buck stops with you. As Chief Legal Officer, it is your job to make sure the SEC complies with our requests. Given your extensive experience sitting on this side of the dais, I know that you would never have allowed any agency to stonewall Congress like you have done for the last six months.
“But let’s not for a second pretend that this unresponsiveness is ‘business as usual’ for the SEC.
“Under Chair Gensler, the SEC’s unresponsiveness to the Committee’s requests has been extremely slow and limited in comparison to that of previous chairs.
“Where past Chairs have been quick to respond to Congress, in contrast, you and Chair Gensler has continued to miss deadlines, offering no accommodations, blaming staff shortages, budget deficiencies, and bureaucratic obstacles.
“When Committee staff received documents claiming to be ‘responsive,’ the SEC either failed to acknowledge the questions being asked or provided mostly publicly available documents.
“To put this in perspective, let me provide you with some statistics.
“For our request on the SEC’s Climate Disclosure rule, 80 percent of the documents you produced to date are publicly available. In fact, a portion of those documents were previously provided to FOIA requestors.
“But wait, it gets worse.
“In response to the Committee’s request to better understand the charges against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried, 100 percent of the documents are, you guessed it, publicly available.
“And to be sure, the SEC’s slow and limited responses to Congressional requests isn’t for a lack of resources or experience.
“The SEC oversees 24 national security exchanges, 9 credit rating agencies, 7 registered clearing agencies, the activities of 29,000 registered agencies, including investment advisors and broker dealers that collectively employ over one million people in the United States.
“To imply they cannot respond to Congress in a timely manner is an insult to this institution.
“It should be noted that during the failure of multiple banks which they oversee, and while working to manage the fallout, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and other regulators, have been perfectly capable of providing important documents, testimony, and access to documents. The SEC is an outlier.
“Under Chair Gensler, the SEC has prioritized rewriting every corner of our capital markets, proposing 46 rules since the start of his tenure. Many with far reaching implications that will upend decades of precedence and have little economic analysis to justify their existence.
“Under Chair Gensler, the SEC has prioritized regulation by enforcement in the name of ‘protecting investors.’
“Under Chair Gensler, the SEC has completely ignored its mission to promote capital formation, instead, opting to create confusion that will ultimately hurt innovation and entrepreneurs who seek access to our markets.
“At today’s hearing, you will hear countless instances where the Chair and his staff have failed to respond to members inquiries- often with a complete disregard to the questions being asked.
“And this isn’t unique to requests that have come from myself or Chairman McHenry- these issues have persisted on both sides of the aisle.
“Ms. Barbero, this hearing could have and should have been avoided. But what other choice do we have when you continue to be uncooperative and unresponsive?
“In May, I sent you a letter that indicated that this committee was prepared to take the necessary steps to get the information we have sought as part of our constitutional right to provide oversight of the executive branch. Rest assured that if this obstruction continues, we’ll be seeing many more of your colleagues before our subcommittee in the future.
“I look forward to hearing your testimony this morning and yield back the balance of my time.”
###
