The election is over, and the national guessing game has begun about who will be the next Treasury secretary. Of course the attention is focused on the Treasury post: nothing is more urgent than instilling confidence in the financial system at this very moment, if any other post-election promises are to be fulfilled.

Much less focus has been placed on who will be the next SEC chairman, however. It's a given that current chairman Christopher Cox will be gone. His replacement's name, however, hasn't generated the same kind of speculative fervor as the replacement for Henry Paulson. Nevertheless, events continue to bubble at the SEC offices.

Last week, the SEC announced that John White, director of the Division of Corporation Finance, will be leaving the Commission at the end of the year. White has been a prime mover behind the SEC's plans to scrap GAAP and adopt international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

On Friday, Chairman Cox delivered a speech about international enforcement cooperation, and focused on the Commission's international efforts in subprime loan investigations. Though the topic was international in scope, there was nary a word about the forthcoming IFRS "roadmap."

Not everybody is so quiet about the pending arrival of the roadmap. Accountancy Age, a British trade journal, proclaimed that it would be released last Thursday or Friday. Maybe they're just slightly ahead of their time.

No matter - the situation at the SEC bears watching. Whoever is named to the top post may give a significant clue about the future of the Commission: will it be someone who can reinvigorate it so that it's leading those it regulates instead of mopping up a mess after it happens? Or will it be someone who will shepherd it into another agency that takes over its functions? Let's hope for the former and not the latter.