Rule 2a-7 and Independent Directors

The SEC has proposed dropping the requirement that boards of money market funds purchase only securities rating by licensed rating agencies.  The boards themselves have lobbied against the change -- their argument -- we are too dumb to handle the new power.  Even the trade association of independent directors, ICI, wants the old rule.  The lobbying is odd, to say the least, because under the revised rule the boards can still seek and rely on securities ratings they are just not required to do so.  The position of the independent directors ought to make one wonder what it is that these boards do.  We have become so enamored with the director as monitor slogan that the directors themselves can no longer make decisions related to the substantive matters of the businesses they monitor?  Sad.