Hester M. Peirce is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on her recent statements at an Open Meeting of the SEC, available here. The views expressed in this post are those of Ms. Peirce and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange Commission or its staff
Thank you to the Chairman, the staffs in the Divisions of Corporation Finance and Economic and Risk Analysis and the Office of General Counsel, and other staff throughout the building for your diligence on this proposal. This rule certainly has extracted lots of resources from this building.
Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act and the tortured more-than-seven-year rulemaking history that it spawned serve as a reminder of the perils of permitting civil society—as this proposing release so eloquently dubs the groups that championed this rulemaking—to use the federal securities laws as an appropriate vehicle for accomplishing their own, non-securities purposes. As noble as these purposes are, the securities laws are not an appropriate Christmas tree on which to hang them.
Speaking of Christmas, ‘tis the Season, so I am going once again to trot out Charles Dickens’ tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, whose contempt for the holiday season and the people around him leads to terrifying, but edifying encounters with three ghosts. [1] The Resource Extraction rulemaking comes with its own set of ghosts. Though the lessons we have to learn are different, I hope we will be as teachable as Mr. Scrooge was.
