PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 622.
Congressional Research Service
Version 79 · Reported to House without amendment · Sep 28, 2016
(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:
Showing the opening paragraphs of the official summary.
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.
People & committees
Rep. Garrett, Scott [R-NJ-5] · R–NJ
Legislative record
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Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 622.
Reported by the Committee on Financial Services. H. Rept. 114-799.
Reported by the Committee on Financial Services. H. Rept. 114-799.
Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 34 - 25.
Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held.
Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held.
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Hearings Held by the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Prior to Introduction and Referral.
Primary sources
Text links open the official source. We currently store references to these documents.
Source last updated: Apr 7, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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