U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials on Thursday defended the agency’s efforts to propose rules on market structure amid Republican attacks on the SEC’s rulemaking process and purportedly reticent responses to congressional inquiries.

“High-quality economic analysis is an essential part of SEC rulemaking,” said Jessica Wachter, director of the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, or DERA. “It helps ensure, among other things, that decisions to propose and adopt rules are informed by the best available information about a rule’s likely economic consequences and it allows the Commission to consider a rule’s potential benefits and costs when determining if a rule is in the public interest.”