Erin Kauffman, Victoria Anglin, and W. Hardy Callcott are Partners at Sidley Austin LLP. This post is based on a Sidley memorandum by Sonia Gupta Barros, David Katz, and Charlie Sommers, all at Sidley Austin LLP.
The SEC has released its Spring 2026 Regulatory Flexibility agenda (Spring 2026 Agenda). The Spring 2026 Agenda announces an ambitious set of potential rulemaking proposals, across all the major SEC operating divisions, for the next year. Most of the proposed rulemakings are strongly deregulatory in nature, although details are limited. The SEC had not previously announced some of the proposed rulemaking topics.
In a statement published on July 7, 2026, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins described the Commission’s Spring 2026 Agenda as “robust rulemaking” that will return the agency to its “core mission of protecting investors; facilitating capital formation; and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets.”[1] Read alongside the 2025 Regulatory Flexibility Agenda (the 2025 Agenda), the Spring 2026 Agenda reveals a Commission that has rapidly expanded its active rulemaking program while simultaneously executing a sweeping deregulatory reset.
