The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), a national consumer watchdog, is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to revamp Regulation Best Interest, calling the investment advice rule “too weak and undefined” to truly protect investors.

In a letter to new SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the federation’s president, Barb Roper, called the investment advice rule “more theoretical than real” and said the new client relationship summary (Form CRS) actually “obscures” the distinctions between advisors and brokers.

“That’s the bad news,” Roper said. “The good news is that we do not believe it will be necessary to scrap these rules and start from scratch in order to deliver the protections investors expect and deserve when they turn to financial professionals for help with their investments.”

She urged the SEC to use its existing rules to create “a more robust regulatory approach” similar to the new fiduciary advice rule that the Department of Labor issued in February, she said.

The Labor Department’s guidance, “makes clear, for example, that superficial conflict mitigation will not suffice; [the] DOL expects firms to take meaningful steps to rein in conflicts present in their business model and not to create harmful incentives that are likely to undermine compliance,” Roper said.

The federation is urging the SEC to use a principles-based definition of best interest, making it clear that brokers must recommend the “best option” from those financial vehicles they have available, based on “a robust analytical process,” Roper said.

“While such an approach would not require brokers to recommend the lowest cost option available, it would require that, before recommending a higher cost option, particularly one that pays them more, the broker would have to have a reasonable basis for doing so. The commission will also need to further clarify how the best interest standard applies to firms that offer a more limited menu of investment options,” she added.

The CFA also wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to work with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to study compensation and incentive practices used by both broker-dealers and advisors and identify conflicts of interest created by the firms themselves or those associated with different product lines, as well as conflicts that are “particularly opaque or complex,” Roper said.

While complaining that former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton worried too much about disrupting the markets, Roper told Gensler that “it will take a firm hand at the top—not just in the chairman’s office, but also in the division director roles—to overcome this deep-seated institutional resistance to reform and deliver the protections investors need and deserve.”