U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs ranking member Elizabeth Warren urges PCAOB to focus five year strategy on audit quality enforcement and emerging audit risks

Elizabeth Warren, Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, wrote to Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chair Demetrios Logothetis in response to the board’s request for comment on its strategic priorities, urging the next five-year plan to show how the PCAOB will protect investors and maintain audit quality. She wrote that the board’s role is especially important amid what she described as reduced Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement and efforts by the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans to eliminate the PCAOB. The letter calls for standard-setting on auditor independence and audit quality in light of private equity ownership of accounting firms, audit standards for increasingly complex data center arrangements, and the use of artificial intelligence in audit. Warren also asked the PCAOB to address sham audits for crypto firms by PCAOB-registered auditors and to support standard-setting with robust inspections and enforcement, citing a persistently high rate of auditing deficiencies despite a slight decline in 2024. She requested written responses on the PCAOB’s commitment to audit quality and investor protection by May 29, 2026.