The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs voted today to approve S.143, the Competitive Market Supervision Act, which will reduce securities transaction and registration fees collected by the Securities and Exchange Commission by as much as $8.9 billion over five years.

In addition, the bill would strengthen the SEC by allowing the agency to bring the pay of its employees in line with the higher pay schedules of other federal financial regulators.

"This is a bill that is aimed at trying to ensure that when we set out in law to collect fees to pay for the SEC that those fees are in fact used for the SEC and that the SEC is fully funded," Gramm said. "The bottom line is we're collecting six times as much in fees as we're spending. This is imposing a burden on everybody in America who is trying to save and invest. The average person in a retirement program over their working life pays $1,300 in excessive fees. If those fees were invested in a retirement account, you're talking about some $5,800, which for a working person is a considerable amount of money."

Separately, the committee approved five subcommittees and a budget that sets equal funding levels for Republican and Democratic staff for the 107th Congress.