Mary Schapiro could have been triumphal in her talk today to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission walked into the den of perhaps the agency’s leading adversary with a massive new regulatory law in her back pocket that greatly enhances the SEC’s powers.
That law demands the SEC undertake studies and rulemaking to get the job done.
The Chamber has been on the opposite side of a number of recent SEC initiatives, launching court battles with the agency when the powerful business trade group deems them necessary.
But Schapiro’s remarks written for a Chamber-sponsored conference in Washington contained no hint of gloating or goading from the victor. She might as well have said ‘I come in peace.’
What Schapiro actually did say was, “I know that there are some differences of opinion about the legislation, but I am here today to ask for your input in good faith as we implement a number of vitally important changes.”
She also ended with a bit of conciliation. “As the study and rulemaking processes move forward, I believe that interest we all share will be served by constructive and pragmatic participation by all those affected.”
No one should think, even for a second, that such reasonableness from a seat of enhanced SEC power bears any resemblance to the significant false step taken by a Schapiro predecessor nearly a decade ago.
That’s when SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt implied to an accounting group that the watchdog agency might have been too tough on them. Pitt wondered whether the agency needed to be “kinder and gentler.” It was a line that haunted his time atop the SEC.
The power line now is clear. “The regulatory process is not designed to re-debate issues that Congress has resolved,” said Schapiro.
True enough, but by neceassrily leaving it to regulatory agencies to study and then make rules to implement its decisions, Congress has pushed the lobbying effort to the next, crucial, granular level.
No doubt the public comments the SEC is so eager to seek that it’s already set up email inboxes to gather them will feature their share of detailed denials that re-regulation is under way. It is under way. It might be tweaked, but it won’t be stopped.
Take the controversial plan to allow some shareholders to nominate corporate directors whose candidacy will be carried on company distributed proxy cards. The SEC received explicit power from Congress to get this done.
A vote of commissioners, of course, is still needed and the details will determine how distracting this turns out to be for boards of directors, but Schapiro today said “I am committed to bringing a final rule to the Commission for consideration so that rules will generally be effect in time for the 2011 proxy system.”
The change begins.
