Bank of America Corp (BAC)

[Mr. Bill]

This would be HUGE - eliminate shorting or restore the uptick rule one!

S.E.C. Chief Pursues Tougher Enforcement

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Published: February 22, 2009

“The commission, since it was formed, was always known as nonpartisan and free of interference from the White House,” Mr. Levitt said. “In recent years that changed. They had ideologues. What Mary did in appointing a Republican who spoke for George Bush was an act of political courage that the commission hasn’t seen in many years.”

Ms. Schapiro recruited David M. Becker, a widely respected former general counsel at the agency under Mr. Levitt and Harvey L. Pitt, to return to the agency in an expanded version of his old job.

An early test of Ms. Schapiro’s effectiveness could come this week, when the White House announces its proposed budget for the entire government, including the regulatory agencies. The administration is under pressure to find places to make budget cuts even though President Obama and his senior aides have blamed the economic crisis in part on the inadequate financing for regulatory efforts.

In the meantime, Ms. Schapiro has outlined an ambitious agenda for the coming weeks. She says she will work quickly to adopt rules to minimize the conflicts of interest at credit-rating agencies that many experts say contributed to the current crisis. She is exploring whether to impose restrictions on short-selling, a type of trade in which an investor profits on stock declines. One idea she is considering is the revival of the uptick rule, a regulation that prohibited short-selling while a stock is declining.

She has committed to moving quickly to let shareholders have more say in executive compensation and board elections. Other chairmen throughout the years had sought the adoption of similar proposals, only to be blocked by powerful corporate interests. She is studying proposals for greater disclosures of the qualifications of board members, particularly those involved in assessing risks and setting executive compensation.

Ms. Schapiro, 53, has spent her professional life working as a Wall Street regulator. She began her career as a counsel to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was first appointed a commissioner at the S.E.C. in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan. She was reappointed by President George H. W. Bush and left when President Bill Clinton selected her to be the chairwoman of the C.F.T.C., a job she held until 1996.

Her most recent job before rejoining the government was as head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees Wall Street regulation on behalf of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ms. Schapiro acknowledges that it will take time to restore the S.E.C.’s credibility.

“I recognize that we could all be defined by what we missed rather than what we find,” she said. “That’s why I’m intensely impatient about addressing these issues.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/business/23schapiro.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&dbk