In July 2010, Congress ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt a resource extraction rule within 270 days (i.e., by April 17, 2011).  The SEC missed that deadline by 1 year, 4 months and 2 days (or a total of 490 days).  In 2013, however, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the rule and sent it back to the SEC.  American Petroleum Institute v. SEC, 953 F. Supp. 2d 5 (D. D.C. 2013).  When the SEC failed for over a year to adopt a new rule, Oxfam America sued the SEC again.  On September 2, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Caspar ordered the SEC to file an expedited schedule for promulgating the final rule.  See Court Rules That The SEC Unlawfully Withheld Action Mandated By Congress.  Apparently feeling no sense of urgency, the SEC waited the full 30 days to file a proposed expedited schedule.

With exceptional cheek, the SEC's is proposing to give itself 270 days to accomplish what it was required to do within 270 days more than five years ago.  In proposing the schedule, the SEC emphasized "the 270-day schedule that the Commission is proposing is an extremely expedited timeframe within which to complete this rulemaking".  Missing from this assertion is any awareness that the SEC has had more than five years already to consider and complete the rule.  The SEC also emphasized its other workload.  Issuers also face an unprecedented level of work, much of it mandated by Congress and the SEC.  However, I doubt that the SEC would allow an issuer to miss a statutory deadline based on a plea of being "too busy".  The SEC also points out that other exigencies may arise.  That happens in the private sector as well.  Would the SEC be as forgiving of an issuer that is five years late?

Finally, it must be noted that the SEC's proposal is hardly a guaranty that there will be a rule within 270 days.  The SEC is only promising that it "will in good faith strive to complete the rulemaking within the 270-day period".