President-elect Donald Trump announced former Bush administration Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner and cryptocurrency peddler Paul Aktins as his selection to chair the SEC. Aktins, an anti-regulatory conservative, who previously slammed unions, has spoken out against the investor-demanded climate disclosure rule, claiming it should be struck down by the courts. Aktins has known ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Financial Officers Foundation, right wing groups pushing costly anti-climate and anti-sustainable investing campaigns.
Atkins founded Patomak Global Partners, a financial consulting firm advising on regulatory issues, and has long been a key figure in Republican capital markets policy. If confirmed, Atkins could significantly reshape the SEC’s regulatory priorities, leaving U.S. climate-related disclosures far behind state and international peers and exposing Americans’ savings and pensions to greater financial risk, if the rule withstands legal challenges.
In response to Trump’s nomination, issue experts shared the following statements:
“Everyone — and especially investors — should be concerned about Paul Atkins’ role in the widespread concealment of climate-related financial risk in the capital markets and his support of corporate polluters like the American Petroleum Institute to undercut SEC's critical investor protection efforts. The Senate should reject his nomination.” - Ben Cushing, Campaign Director for the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign.
“Donald Trump’s nomination of Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission is a huge gift to the crypto industry, as evidenced by the immediate jump in Bitcoin’s stock price. Atkins has long championed fraudulent and environmentally disastrous digital assets whose only identifiable reason for existing is to facilitate criminal activity. If Atkins is confirmed by the Senate, crypto grifters will surely rejoice at their newfound freedom to swindle, but most investors in the U.S. will be much less safe.” - Kenny Stancil, Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher.
“Paul Atkins has a long history of being on the side of Wall Street and corporate insiders, not the public, middle class investors, or workers. He’s also championed reckless and speculative finance—most recently the crypto industry—while simultaneously arguing firms shouldn’t be harshly punished when these schemes collapse and cause financial harm.” - Andrew Park, Associate Director for Private Equity and Capital Markets at Americans for Financial Reform.
“The nomination of Paul Atkins to head the SEC is in line with President-elect Trump’s commitment to dismantle ESG, as outlined in his Project 2025 agenda. Atkins’ mission to roll back accountability and transparency should raise alarm for the future of responsible investing. His leadership would put the current SEC climate risk disclosure rule in danger and surely put a stop to any progress on ESG, which are critical for building a resilient American financial system, protecting the financial security of America’s retirees, and maintaining America’s leadership on the global stage.” - Kyle Herrig, Unlocking America’s Future Spokesperson.
“Crypto companies’ unprecedented political spending apparently just bought them control of the nation’s investor protection police. Any sentient being — let alone a securities markets expert — should understand that bitcoin is ‘thin air,’ as Trump himself once put it. That Paul Atkins has made a living promoting such a scam doesn’t bode well for his reflexes as a shepherd for investor protection. As an SEC veteran, industry consultant and lobbyist, Atkins will be keenly able to reshape the SEC, either to vandalize or improve investor protections. We obviously hope he understands that, if confirmed, he will be expected to work on behalf of average Americans, not his consulting clients, crypto or otherwise.” - Bartlett Naylor, Financial Policy Advocate for Public Citizen.
“Paul Atkins, President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the SEC, is smart, experienced, and capable. Unfortunately, he is also a deregulation zealot and industry cheerleader who, as a Commissioner at the SEC from 2002-2008, supported deregulation that contributed to the devastating 2008 crash. Learning nothing from that, he formed a consulting firm after leaving the SEC to represent clients fighting against the re-regulation of the financial industry to protect investors and prevent another crash. On top of his deregulation ideology, he has also opposed holding lawbreakers meaningfully accountable. The United States’ capital markets are the envy of the world and provide the jet fuel for our economy and prosperity. Investors worldwide send their money to the US because they have faith and trust in those markets which is because they are well-regulated and well-policed. That’s the SEC’s job and, if it again abdicates its mission as it did when Mr. Atkins was a Commissioner in the years before the 2008 crash, then investors, markets and financial stability will suffer. In fact, combined with other actions President-elect Trump has said he will take, there will almost certainly be another financial crash, which will likely be worse than 2008. Remember that the deregulation of banks during the first Trump administration directly caused the 2023 banking crisis. Like every agency, the SEC isn’t perfect and can be improved. But the industry isn’t always right and not every regulation or enforcement action is bad. Striking the right balance based on facts and data is key. It would be even better if it was informed by history, including a careful reading of the history of the 1929 crash and the aftereffects, which included generations of Americans who had lost faith in the US markets, which suffered for decades as a result. Investor trust is hard to gain, but easy to lose and, once lost, incredibly difficult to regain. That – and America’s prosperity – is what is at stake if the SEC fails to do its job, if deregulation is always the answer, and if policing the markets is no more than coddling lawbreakers. The US markets are the envy of the world but are not preordained to remain so. That only happens as a result of choices leaders make, the Chair of the SEC foremost among them.” - Dennis Kelleher, President, CEO and Co-founder of Better Markets.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.