Senate Banking Committee Hears Four Trump Nominees on SEC, OCC, Treasury Financial Policy and Federal Transit

The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on March 28 heard testimony from four presidential nominees overseeing financial markets and public transit: Paul Atkins for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Jonathan Gould for comptroller of the currency; Luke Pettit for assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial institutions; and Mark Molinaro for administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.

The hearing combined candidate statements and questioning on a range of issues: the 2008 financial crisis and incumbent regulators' record; bank supervision and the causes of the Silicon Valley Bank failure; “debanking” and the use of reputational risk in supervision; regulatory tailoring under the Economic Growth Act of 2018 (often cited as “2155”); policy toward digital assets and crypto firms; the SEC’s consolidated audit trail program (CAT) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB); private funds’ fees and disclosure; tariffs and their short-term effects; and staffing, grant disbursement, and safety at the Federal Transit Administration.

Paul Atkins, the SEC nominee, told the committee he would pursue the agency’s three-part statutory mission: “protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly and efficient…