Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who probably would become chairman of the Senate Banking Committee if Democrats take control of the Senate in the November elections, said Tuesday he wants to make the Dodd-Frank Act stronger next year.

“Many financial regulators are not interested in safety and soundness. They are only interested in market regulation. It has to go beyond this,” the Senator said following a forum at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, in Washington, D.C.

During the event, he criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission for being too slow in adopting and enforcing regulations.

Cost-benefit analyses for federal regulations don’t work because it is too hard to estimate the benefits, Senator Brown told the audience.

His opinion came as he was commenting on a federal judge’s decision to strip MetLife of its designation as systemically important in part because the Financial Stability Oversight Council had not compared the costs and benefits of placing the insurer under stricter oversight.

He said he wants to give FSOC more power to regulate systemically important players in the financial markets.

The potential incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee said the Securities and Exchange Commission should be self-funded and not have to obtain House and Senate approval for their annual spending. However, he acknowledged this change would be difficult to pass in Congress.

As the current lead Democrat on the Banking Committee, Brown said a major responsibility of himself and other Democratic progressive legislators is to give the financial regulators enough cover so they can resist pressure from Wall Street to weaken rules and enforcement.