Chair Gensler’s Regulatory Flexibility Agenda [1] for the Securities and Exchange Commission sets forth flawed goals and a flawed method for achieving them. The agenda, if enacted, risks setting off the regulatory version of a rip current—fast-moving currents flowing away from shore that can be fatal to swimmers. Just as certain wave and wind conditions can create dangerous rip currents, [2] the pace and character of the rulemakings on this agenda make for dangerous conditions in our capital markets.

I. The Agenda Devotes the Agency’s Limited Resources to Rulemaking Proposals Disconnected from our Core Mission

The Agenda continues to shun issues at the core of our mission in favor of shiny objects outside our jurisdiction. We used to focus on companies’ disclosure of economically material information; we now focus on disclosure of hot-button matters outside our remit. [3] We once sought to protect retail investors; we now rush to the aid of professional investors. [4] We once worked to help small and emerging companies raise the funds that are their lifeblood; we now work to increase their costs and shrink their investor base. [5] We once hoped to increase the ranks of public companies by making it less costly and more beneficial to be public; we now look for ways to force companies to go public [6] since we are making it costlier to go public and be public. [7]

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