Legislators place bet on Sands casino Stock trading in D.C.: Much more needed

While the STOCK Act applies to all federal ofcials, it is not equally administered. Federal agencies like the FDA, FCC, IRS and others have discretion on what is demanded among their staf. The absence of uniformity has created a lack of confdence on the rule’s efcacy to instill public trust that government ofcials who are privy to material and nonpublic information will not use that knowledge to beneft themselves at our expense.

More needs to be done in order to ensure that there are no occurrences nor the appearance of insider trading by government employees.

Legislation currently being considered in Congress ranges from an all-out ban on trading to a “more of everything” approach. This means more uniformity in the administration of conficts-of-interest policies across federal agencies, more resources to the Ofce of Government Ethics, more education so the public can understand the diference between discretionary trades executed by a fnancial advisor versus trades executed directly by the employee, and more transparency in the form of public disclosure on trading activity by federal employees.

Occurrences or appearances of insider trading erode the public trust in government and undermine our democracy by destroying the reputations of the government and its institutions.

Joe Toes, a Manhasset resident, is president & CEO Security Traders Association