SEC Regulatory Accountability Act
Latest action. Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 622.
(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary of that version is repeated here.)
SEC Regulatory Accountability Act
This bill amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), before issuing a regulation under the securities laws, to:
identify the nature and source of the problem that the proposed regulation is designed to address in order to assess whether any new regulation is warranted;
use the SEC Chief Economist to assess the costs and benefits of the intended regulation and adopt it only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify the costs;
identify and assess available alternatives that were considered; and
ensure that any regulation is accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.
The SEC shall:
consider the impact of the regulation upon investor choice, market liquidity, and small business; and
explain in its final rule the nature of comments received concerning the proposed rule or rule change as well as its response to those comments.
The SEC shall: (1) review its existing regulations periodically to determine if they are outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome; and (2) modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them.
Whenever it adopts or amends a major rule, the SEC shall state in its adopting release the regulation's purposes and intended consequences, the post-implementation quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure the regulation's economic impact, the assessment plan to be used under the supervision of the Chief Economist to assess whether the regulation has achieved those purposes, and any foreseeable unintended or negative consequences.
The assessment plan must: (1) consider the regulation's costs, benefits, and intended and unintended consequences; and (2) specify the data to be collected, the methods for its collection and analysis, and an assessment completion date.
The bill expresses the sense of Congress that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board should also follow the requirements set forth by this bill.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Reported to House without amendment" stage on September 28, 2016. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on September 28, 2016: Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 622.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Scott Garrett (R-NJ) introduced it on June 9, 2016, and 2 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 2 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on June 9, 2016, 3745 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3634 days ago, on September 28, 2016.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers