Sponsors (5)
The bill increases transparency, scrutiny, and public participation in SEC rulemaking and oversight—potentially improving rule quality and coordination—but does so at the cost of slower rulemaking, higher administrative burdens, and risks of weakened independent audit enforcement and reduced deterrence.
Investors, taxpayers, and market participants will get substantially more transparency and oversight of SEC rulemaking and operations through required cost‑benefit explanations, Chief Economist input, semiannual Congressional reports, GAO reviews, and periodic public reporting.
Retail investors, firms, and the public gain more meaningful opportunities to participate in rulemaking because of longer or complexity‑appropriate comment periods, plain‑language requirements, and post‑implementation assessments that can improve rule quality and understanding.
Investors and taxpayers may benefit from improved SEC IT oversight—GAO audits and benchmarking can identify vulnerabilities, reduce data‑breach risk, and reveal inefficient IT spending.
Investors, consumers, and market participants face slower SEC rulemaking and delayed enforcement or regulatory fixes because extensive pre‑rule analyses, longer comment periods, recurring testimony, and periodic GAO reviews increase procedural timelines.
Taxpayers, regulated firms, and the SEC itself will incur higher administrative and compliance costs from added analyses, audits, GAO reviews, reorganizations, and extended procedures, and those costs could be passed on to businesses or borne by taxpayers.
Retail investors and market stability could be harmed because an emphasis on quantifying benefits, repeated oversight, and increased public testimony risks biasing agencies against rules with important but hard‑to‑quantify protections and could politicize enforcement priorities.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Imposes new analytical, procedural, oversight, and organizational requirements on the SEC, moves PCAOB functions into the SEC, and standardizes civil‑penalty counting across major securities laws.
Official title: To make improvements to the securities laws, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 18, 2026 by Ann Wagner · Last progress June 18, 2026
Requires the SEC to perform and document detailed cost–benefit and impact analyses before issuing rules, lengthens public comment periods, and mandates regular congressional testimony by the SEC Chair (with annual full-Commission testimony). Orders GAO audits and periodic GAO reviews of the SEC’s major rules and IT systems. Directs an internal reorganization of the SEC, creates an Office of Public Accounting Oversight inside the SEC and phases out the independent PCAOB over two years, and consolidates related civil-penalty counting rules across four securities laws. The bill increases external oversight and internal restructuring of securities regulation: it adds procedural constraints on SEC rulemaking, requires transparency and post-adoption assessments for major rules, tasks GAO with audits and studies, reassigns PCAOB functions into the SEC, and changes how multiple violations are counted for civil penalties.