The full House passed by vote a 370-48 late Wednesday H.R.
5914, the Empowering States to Protect Seniors from Bad Actors Act, bipartisan
legislation to create a grant program, implemented by the Securities and
Exchange Commission, that would work closely with state securities regulators
to protect older investors.
The bill would move the responsibility for administering the
Senior Investor Protection Grant Program established by Section 989A of the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act from the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau to the SEC.
“Uncertainty around the CFPB’s funding authority has
sidelined the program for more than a decade,” according to Reuters.
The bill would also establish an interdivisional task force
within the SEC to review grant applications and oversee the administration of
the program.
It would authorize $10 million annually in spending for
fiscal years 2023 to 2028.
State securities regulators and state insurance regulators
will be eligible for the grants. The amount of grant funding that could be
awarded to any single “eligible entity” would be capped at $500,000.
Melanie Senter Lubin, Maryland securities commissioner and
president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, told
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday in a letter that passage of the bill would
“place the interests of investors front-and-center.”
The grant program would “enhance existing efforts by state
securities and insurance regulators to protect senior investors and
policyholders from financial fraud,” NASAA explained.
Lubin said the bill would also “create more opportunities
for federal and state securities regulators to communicate and coordinate in
their efforts to protect senior investors.”
The House also passed late Wednesday The Small Business
Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Act, H.R. 935, which codifies an
administrative action by the SEC that exempts certain merger-and-acquisition
brokers from securities registration requirements. The bill passed by a vote of
419-0.
The exemption does not apply to certain brokers, including
those that provide financing related to the transfer of ownership, engage on
behalf of any party in a transaction involving specified shell companies, or
are subject to suspension or revocation of registration.
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