The Senate voted 52-44 Wednesday to confirm Paul Atkins as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Atkins is expected to be friendlier toward the financial industry than the previous SEC chair, Gary Gensler. A Biden administration appointee, Gensler drew strong criticism from Republicans and many Wall Street firms and trade groups for pursuing what they called a too aggressive and expansive agenda.
Atkins, a former SEC commissioner and a longtime financial industry consultant, was tapped in December by Donald Trump for the position. In his March 27 confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Atkins indicated he would streamline the agency’s regulatory activity.
“Regulation ideally should be smart, effective and appropriately tailored within the confines of the regulator’s statutory authority,” said Atkins, whose previous SEC stint was from 2002 to 2008. “In short, clear rules of the road benefit all market participants.”
“Paul Atkins brings a wealth of experience and dedication to safeguarding our capital markets,” Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., said in a statement after the floor vote. “His tenure will mark a pivotal moment to roll back harmful Biden-era policies, promote capital formation, and enhance opportunities for retail investors. Chairman Atkins will also provide regulatory clarity for digital assets, allowing American innovation to flourish, and ensuring we remain competitive on the global stage.”
Since leaving the SEC, Atkins founded and has been CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a firm that specializes in financial strategy, risk management and compliance. He has been a consultant for a wide range of financial firms and officials, raising concerns among Democrats that he will take a number of potential conflicts of interest with him to the helm of the SEC.
Senate Banking ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns about Atkins in a speech before the floor vote. She referred both to his consulting work and what she said was his culpability for the 2008 financial crisis when he was an SEC commissioner.
“[T]he Senate is about to vote to put a career Wall Street suit in charge of the SEC,” Warren said. “Mr. Atkins took votes that directly contributed to the crash. And, even today, despite all the evidence about how loose regulations triggered a crisis that cost 10 million families their homes and put millions more out of work, Mr. Atkins has 20/0 hindsight about his mistakes. Apparently, he thinks the only thing we did wrong was not to remove more rules from the giant banks so they could have loaded up even faster on even more risk.”
Atkins is a champion of cryptocurrency, a contrast to Gensler. The SEC under acting Chair Mark Uyeda has set up a crypto task force to develop new rules, eased up on crypto enforcement and dropped lawsuits against crypto firms.
Atkins is expected to build on those efforts to usher in a much more accommodating SEC approach to crypto oversight than it had under Gensler, when it pursued many enforcement actions against crypto firms.
After backing many successful candidates in last fall’s election, the crypto industry has enjoyed momentum on Capitol Hill, too. Senate Banking approved a stablecoins bill on March 13, and the House Financial Services Committee approved its version of the legislation on April 2.
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