Testimony Before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee

James R. Copland testified in a hearing entitled Protecting Investor Interests: Examining Environmental and Social Policy in Financial Regulation

Chairman McHenry, Ranking Member Waters, and members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for the invitation to testify today. My name is James R. Copland. Since 2003, I have been a scholar with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a nonprofit public-policy think tank in New York City, where I have long been a senior fellow and directed the Institute’s legal policy research. Although my comments draw upon such research conducted for my employer, my statement before the Committee is solely my own.

I am very pleased that this Committee is tackling the injection of environmental and social policy into financial regulation in such an extensive way—holding this hearing, and considering as many as 18 pieces of legislation designed to tackle this subject. This hearing is timely, in light of unprecedentedly aggressive new rulemaking at the Securities and Exchange Commission that exacerbates the trend of centering our large corporate boardrooms on divisive policy concerns; as well as new SEC “staff guidance” that has already led to a precipitous increase in activist pressure on corporate board decision making.

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James R. Copland is a senior fellow and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute. He is the author of “The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America.” Follow him on Twitter here.