Tag: SEC Commission Allison Lee

New Acting SEC Chair appointed; regulatory freeze

Today, the SEC announced that President Biden —Happy Inauguration Day +1—has appointed Democratic SEC Commissioner Allison Lee as the new Acting SEC Chair to replace the Republican appointee, Elad Roisman. (Former CFTC Chair Gary Gensler is expected to serve as the permanent SEC Chair, but will first need to go through the confirmation process. See this PubCo post.) Lee has focused much of her attention at the SEC on ESG issues, such as climate and diversity, and, in the press release, she indicated that climate and sustainability would “continue to be a priority” for her. (See, e.g., this PubCo post and this PubCo post.) In addition, yesterday, the new administration imposed, at least informally, a regulatory freeze. The memorandum from the President’s Chief of Staff asks the agency heads not to propose or issue any rules or publish any rules in the Federal Register until a new department or agency head appointed or designated by the new President approves the rule. While Congress can use the Congressional Review Act to scrap agencies’ “midnight regulations” (see this PubCo post), this action represents a speedy approach to the same end available to the Executive branch for some recent rulemakings, many of which were adopted in the surge at the end of the last term.