'The Watchdog': SEC Flooded With Whistleblower Tips
Welcome to our new blog, "The Watchdog," which will keep a close eye on regulatory agencies and how their actions impact the lives of everyday Americans. Though the rules and regulations they write -- from determining how much arsenic is allowable in your drinking water to whether your favorite TV show can drop the F-bomb in primetime -- affect all of us, their deliberations and the way that lobbyists influence their decisions receives very little coverage.
To make sense of these debates, follow the implementation of health care reform and financial reform and decipher the minutia of the Federal Register, "The Watchdog" is on the case. If you have any tips or suggestions, send them to marcus@huffingtonpost.com.
Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.), the new chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released today the 100-plus submissions he's received in response to his request for a list of "burdensome" federal regulations.
Last week, I reviewed about 40 of the letters submitted to Issa and today the Wall Street Journal's Louise Radofsky notes that the EPA "is the No. 1 target of complaints from business groups collected by House Republican leaders," with 58 of the agency's rules cited.
The EPA's rules to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were cited as an impediment to growth by at least 30 organizations writing to Mr. Issa, including representatives of the agriculture, business, chemicals, energy, paper, manufacturing and steel and iron sectors.Groups complained about dozens of other proposed and existing EPA regulations in letters viewed by the Journal, including the agency's plans to tighten limits on emissions of some pollutants from industrial boilers, ground-level ozone, mountain-top mining, cooling water intake structures, the level of nutrients in Florida waters, and pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay.
Check out the letters here.
From jilted spouses to competitors, whistleblowers have been flooding the Securities and Exchange Commission with tips about fraud and other securities violations. Under new Dodd-Frank rules, those who provide "original information" about fraud could net as much as 30 percent of the penalties and recovered funds collected by the SEC.
Reuters reports:
The number of "high-value" tips on fraud and other violations of securities law numbered about two dozen a year before the law. But since July, the agency has sometimes been receiving one or two a day, Thomas Sporkin, chief of the SEC's Office of Market Intelligence, told the SEC Speaks event sponsored by the Practising Law Institute.
- Busy week in regulation: Today, Obama talks to one of his biggest critics, the Chamber of Commerce, which has been leading the anti-regulatory backlash. On Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa’s oversight committee kicks off its long-anticipated look at “Regulatory Impediments to Job Creation” and the House Ag Committee looks at the derivative rules in Dodd-Frank.
- SEC commissioner Kathleen Casey, one of the commission's Republican members, warns that securities regulators are moving too fast on implementing new rules under Dodd-Frank and that they could face legal challenges in the future.
- How should the Department of Energy regulate CO2 pipelines that will transport it from power plants to underground storage locations as part of the country’s carbon-sequestration efforts?
- Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) slams for-profit colleges lobbying to curb new rules that would limit federal funding to schools that saddle students with debt they cannot repay: "They're using federal funds to buy advertising to stop federal regulation of the abuses in their industry… It's a shameful situation."
- Tweet Beat: #BFuniv Regulation grows into a tall oak where the twin attributes of initiative & prosperity will be hung by the neck until dead
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First Posted: 02/07/11 11:52 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 07:30 PM ET