Yesterday, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Citadel Securities President Jim Esposito, Texas Stock Exchange Founder & CEO Jim Lee, and other business leaders and public officials at an event in Miami, Florida called “Welcome to the Boom Belt.” The “Boom Belt” for this purpose is a the fast-growing region of the southeast United States that stretches from Florida to Texas.

In his remarks at the event, Chairman Atkins reiterated the three pillars of his “MIGA” movement, noting:

It is little surprise, then, that shortly after I left the SEC back in the mid-1990s as chief of staff, there were more than 7,800 companies listed on the U.S. exchanges—and by the time that I returned last year as Chairman, that figure had fallen by roughly 40 percent.

This trajectory tells a cautionary tale that we are working to rectify through the three pillars of my plan to make IPOs great again.

First, we are modernizing, rationalizing, and streamlining disclosure reports so that they are meaningful, understandable, and not a repellant to investors. Too many SEC requirements that began as a framework to inform have become instruments to obscure — drifting along the way from what a reasonable investor would consider important to what a regulator might find interesting. That is completely opposite of what should be the case since we are commanded by law to put the investor first.

Our disclosure regime is most effective when the SEC provides the minimum effective dose of regulation necessary to elicit the information that is material to investors, and we allow market forces—not the regulator—to drive the disclosure of any additional aspects that may be beneficial. Materiality, in short, must reclaim its place as the SEC’s north star.

Second, as part of the three pillars of making IPOs great again, we are focused on ensuring that States, and not the SEC, regulate matters of corporate governance. Over time, the agency has used its disclosure authority to attempt to indirectly establish governance standards that state corporate law should and can address. We must stay in our lane as a disclosure agency and not be a merit regulator.

Third [pillar], and finally, we are allowing public companies to have litigation alternatives while maintaining an avenue for shareholders to continue to bring forth meritorious claims. At the SEC, we have been hard at work on executing this plan so that we can shield the innovator from the frivolous—and protect the investor from the fraudulent.

Taken together, these reforms represent something larger than a regulatory agenda — indeed, they herald the SEC’s return to first principles that have made this region’s ascent so remarkable. In many ways, the Boom Belt embodies the best of what we are working toward in Washington. And guided by your example, we are reminded that the most consequential reforms are not those that add to the compliance burden, but those that have the courage to lift it.

– Dave Lynn