Lawmakers Approve Oversight Plan to Monitor Financial Agencies' Spending and Operations

An oversight plan recently approved by lawmakers pledges to “continually and vigilantly scrutinize how [financial] agencies spend precious taxpayer dollars,” according to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling. The Authorization and Oversight Plan contains 12 initiatives that will be undertaken in order to identify cuts to or the elimination of 13 programs that “are inefficient, duplicative, outdated, or more appropriately administered by State and local government.” Among the oversight plan’s initiatives is the continued examination of Dodd-Frank, including a review of the operations, activities, and initiatives of FSOC and the Office of Financial Research and the effects of the Volcker Rule. The oversight plan also singles out the SEC and says the Financial Services Committee will monitor: all aspects of the SEC’s operations and activities; the SEC’s regulation and oversight of broker-dealers and investment advisers; and recent developments in the U.S. fixed-income, equity and option markets and the SEC’s response to those recent developments. The Financial Services Committee also will review developments and issues concerning corporate governance at public companies and the SEC’s proposals that seek to modernize corporate governance practices. The agenda also includes plans to oversee the activities of the CFPB, which Chairman Hensarling has publicly criticized and targeted.  Hensarling said that lawmakers “will hold hearings and investigate and ask the tough questions of the heads of these agencies and bureaus about their spending, and hold them accountable.”