Elizabeth Warren calls on SEC to use ‘the full force of its regulatory powers’ in crypto crackdown

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Wednesday that the Securities & Exchange Commission is off to a good start on crypto regulation, but said the agency still has work to do to oversee the industry.

The commission has said loud and clear that crypto is not getting the pass from long-standing security laws that protect investors,” Warren said in a speech to a virtual forum for the American Economic Liberties Project on Wednesday.

“The SEC has the right rules and the right experience and [SEC Chair] Gary Gensler demonstrates he’s the right leader to get the job done,” Warren said.[But] the SEC needs to do even more and use the full force of its regulatory powers across the entire crypto market.”

Warren called on the SEC to step up its efforts to enforce securities laws, and said where the agency needs more cops on the spot is for Congress to step up with more resources for the Commission.

The SEC did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finance for comment.

Senator Warren called on the SEC in December to “dress up” and said federal agencies should use their expanded authority to crack down on crypto fraud. Gensler told Yahoo Finance in an interview, “Were already dressed.”

The SEC filed 760 enforcement cases in its 2022 fiscal year, including 30 crypto cases. This tally excludes two new lawsuits against crypto firms filed this year.

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee during a monitoring hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, United States, September 15, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Senator Warren also called on environmental regulators, including the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, to use their existing authority to require crypto miners to disclose their energy usage and their impact on the environment.

Warren said where regulators don’t have the authority they need, Congress should give them the tools.

Although the span of SEC responsibilities has increased significantly over the years, agency funding has not kept pace, and as a result, staffing levels today are at or below 2016 levels, according to a new report from advocacy group Better Markets.

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“The SEC’s budget is inadequate given its enormous responsibilities and compared to the wealth and resources of the financial services industry it oversees,” the report said.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been the subject of scathing and relentless often hypocritical criticism from the crypto industry and its many allies, particularly in Congress but also in the media,” said Dennis M. Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets. . This criticism has been largely factual and baseless.

The report notes that it takes two to three years to investigate a company and that the SEC is compelled by laws to act more quickly, where the SEC can only act quickly if there is overwhelming and virtually uncontested evidence.

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