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Despite professions of independence, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation has been accused of being sympathetic to the Bush Administration.

To anyone who has ever grumbled about shareholder lawsuits or Sarbanes-Oxley, last fall’s debut of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation should have been welcome. Comprising 22 members from the worlds of business, law, and academia, the CCMR announced that it would examine the effects of regulations on the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets. But both the committee and its first report, released in November, have come in for criticism.

For one, the committee has been accused of being sympathetic to the Bush Administration, despite professions of independence. Critics note that Treasury secretary Henry Paulson publicly praised the committee’s efforts, and that one of its co-chairs, John L. Thornton, was a top executive at Goldman Sachs during Paulson’s tenure there. Meanwhile, the other co-chair, Columbia Business School dean R. Glenn Hubbard, was formerly chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

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