SEC Regulatory Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlelady. Just let me say that a 2013 GAO study estimated that the financial crisis cost the U.S. economy a total of more than $22 trillion--a crisis brought on by Wall Street deregulation that allowed firms and markets to operate unchecked and without accountability.

Supporters of this bill seek to ignore those lessons and bind the SEC to the myopic vision of deregulation that was completely discredited when it nearly caused a second Great Depression.

This bill raises intractable hurdles to regulation, making it impossible to protect investors, even in the presence of fraud. Instead, this bill requires the SEC to eliminate accountability for market participants, despite the systematic risk that it imposes.

Now, my dear colleagues on the other side, I've heard them wax on and on and on about a cost-benefit analysis. This bill focuses totally on the cost to market participants and talks nothing, nothing, nothing about the benefits of the SEC regulation in protecting investors and avoiding systemic risk, nothing about the value of preventing another financial meltdown.

The Republicans' cost-benefit rhetoric on this bill cloaks its reality, which is that this bill benefits Wall Street and costs taxpayers. Wall Street bemoans all regulations as too costly; yet they keep posting record profits and keep paying record bonuses.

I urge all of my colleagues to support those hurt by the financial crisis and to vote against this legislation.

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