Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Chair, since 2002, Congress has significantly built upon the budget, the payroll, and the authorities of the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide proper investor and consumer protections. Among the SEC's many responsibilities is handling regulatory disputes, which they were engaged in on a day-to-day basis.
The bill we are considering today once again increases the Securities and Exchange Commission budget by doubling their multibillion dollar budget, by doubling their multibillion dollar budget. My Democratic colleagues claim that the additional monies will provide additional protection for consumers and investors. However, instead of allowing the Securities and Exchange Commission to use these new resources assigned in this legislation to enhance enforcement, my friends on the other side of the aisle, in this bill, assign new private rights of actions to allow trial lawyers to run wild with enforcement capacities.
Madam Chair, I know that my friends, the Democrats, want both bigger government and an open house for trial lawyers. If they double the SEC's budget to ensure the necessary protections, then why would they also open this up to trial lawyers as well?
For these reasons, I have introduced amendment No. 2, which strikes the provisions creating a new private right of action against credit rating agencies. Despite the fact that the SEC is already handling regulatory disputes with no backlog, this new provision allows trial lawyers to take regulatory enforcement into their own hands in the form of frivolous, unnecessary lawsuits. When it comes to a case of fraud, investors already have the right to sue credit rating agencies.
This provision is completely unnecessary, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support my amendment to allow the SEC to do their job.
I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman, my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) to control.
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