Heritage Foundation's
Project 2025

Chapter 27 - Financial Regulatory Agencies

• Fundamentally reform securities laws governing issuers, broker-dealers, exchanges, and other market participants
• Establish a simplified securities disclosure system with three categories: private firms, smaller firms, and public firms
• Reform the SEC to achieve core functions more effectively and improve transparency and due process
• Abolish the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), merging their functions into the SEC
• Eliminate offices promoting "diversity, equity, and inclusion" at financial regulators
• Increase SEC use of its general exemptive authority to reduce regulatory burden
• Simplify and streamline Regulation A and Regulation CF (crowdfunding)
• Preempt blue sky registration and qualification requirements for Regulation A offerings
• Broaden the definition of accredited investor or eliminate the restriction altogether
• Allow self-certification of accredited investor status for Regulation D Rule 506 offerings
• Exempt small micro-offerings from registration requirements
• Exempt small and intermittent finders from broker-dealer registration requirements
• Provide a simplified registration process for private placement brokers
• Exempt peer-to-peer lending from federal and state securities laws
• Reduce regulatory burden on Regulation CF debt securities
• Make Title I Emerging Growth Company exemptions permanent for all EGCs
• Reduce regulatory burden on small broker-dealers
• Exempt privately held, non-custodial broker-dealers from PCAOB-registered firm audit requirements
• Amend Internal Revenue Code to disregard crowdfunding and Regulation A shareholders for Subchapter S corporation 100-shareholder limit
• Preempt blue sky requirements for securities traded on established securities markets
• Terminate the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) program
• Abolish Rule 144 and other regulations restricting securities resales
• Prohibit SEC from requiring disclosure of non-material social, ideological, political, or "human capital" information
• Repeal Dodd-Frank mandated disclosures on conflict minerals, mine safety, resource extraction, and CEO pay ratios
• Oppose efforts to redefine business purpose in terms of social responsibility or ESG criteria
• Prohibit securities regulators from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
• Improve SEC data publication and reporting
• Reallocate SEC resources toward core functions
• Empower any three SEC Commissioners to place items on the agenda
• Eliminate most SEC administrative proceedings
• End delegation of enforcement case initiation decisions
• Limit SEC investigations to two years maximum
• Reduce number of direct reports to SEC Chairman and merge similar offices
• Modernize the definition of commodity in CFTC regulations
• Clarify foreign swap trading platform registration requirements
• Amend Commodity Exchange Act to allow CFTC Chairman to remove Executive Director without Commission vote
• Establish statutory funding for CFTC Commissioners' offices
• Replace CFTC position limits rule with more exchange authority
• Reduce prescriptive rules implementing CFTC core principles
• Harmonize definitions in CFTC cross-border swap regulations
• Clarify treatment of digital assets (cryptocurrencies)
• Reform self-regulatory organizations (SROs) like FINRA, MSRB, and NFA
• Require SROs to conduct cost-benefit analysis for major rules
• Establish inspector general oversight of financial SROs
• Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
• Return CFPB consumer protection functions to banking regulators and FTC
• Ensure CFPB civil penalty funds go to Treasury if not used for consumer recompense
• Repeal Dodd-Frank Section 1071 on small-business data collection
• Limit CFPB enforcement actions to those based on formal rulemaking
• Allow respondents in CFPB administrative actions to choose federal court adjudication