Speech by SEC Commissioner:
Statement at Open Meeting to Adopt Amendments to Municipal Securities Disclosure

by

Commissioner Troy A. Paredes

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Washington, D.C.
May 26, 2010

Thank you, Chairman Schapiro.

I support today's recommendation to adopt amendments designed to improve municipal securities disclosure.

I would like to offer a general observation that flows from the rulemaking. Simply put, it is important to recognize that regulatory requirements can disproportionately burden small entities, such as small municipal issuers or obligated persons. Indeed, the federal securities laws have long recognized the need to be measured, as there is a tradition of scaling federal securities regulation in important respects to provide small entities relief from select burdens that may be especially onerous for them. As an agency, we should be ready, when appropriate, to eschew a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme in favor of tailoring securities regulation to ensure that small entities are not unduly burdened.1

With this in mind, I encourage the Division of Trading and Markets to keep apprised of the impact on the municipal securities market of the rule changes we will adopt today, especially the impact on small issuers and obligated persons.

I would like to join the Chairman and my fellow Commissioners in thanking the staff — particularly those from the Division of Trading and Markets — for their hard work.


Endnotes