SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda told lawmakers Oct. 19 he is concerned about the impact of the agency's rule-makings on small businesses as the Senate considers his renomination.
Uyeda began serving as an SEC commissioner in June 2022 to fill a 12-month vacancy, but President Joe Biden has renominated him to serve a full term.
As the first Asian Pacific American to serve as an SEC commissioner, Uyeda said he grew up around immigrant, family-run small businesses.
"My first job was spending my teenage summers with my grandfather on his delivery route, where he drove a small truck bringing fresh produce from the Los Angeles wholesale market to restaurants and retailers, which were often small businesses themselves," he said in his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
"Consideration should be given to appropriately scaling (SEC) rules and implementation timelines, so as not to have a disparate impact on small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities," said Uyeda, who serves as one of two Republican SEC commissioners.
Uyeda has previously expressed concern over the SEC's compliance deadlines, and many industry groups, along with the agency's other Republican commissioner, Hester M. Peirce, have also said the pace of the SEC's rule-making is too fast.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., asked Uyeda during the hearing if he agrees that the SEC "should consider known economic impacts, including the cumulative impact, of concurrent rule-makings."
"Yes, I agree," Uyeda replied. "Each individual rule-making is not in itself in a vacuum, but operates and interacts with many other rules. And we really need to think … how they all interact together."
Uyeda also told Rounds that small broker-dealers and investment advisers would benefit from a longer time period to comply with SEC rules.
Separately, when asked about the merits of cryptocurrency, Uyeda said, "Securities laws that we're charged with enforcing are neutral on the merits of a particular investment."
Uyeda did acknowledge the "back-and-forth" on whether crypto assets fall within the jurisdiction of the SEC or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is one of the central questions surrounding crypto's regulatory landscape.
"I think it is really important — the efforts that are going on in Congress — to provide some more clarity, specifically, as to which regulatory agency's jurisdiction it belongs to," he added.
