This is a PR soundbite. Coinbase has milked this one quite extensively. "Woe is us, we're trying to do the right thing but the SEC won't tell us what to do!"
It's not actually accurate.
And when the people responsible for writing become Coinbase's lawyers, not their marketing team, and the rubber hits the road in court, Coinbase says no such thing. This is the actual crux of their complaint, in their own words:
> for many tokens, registering is not possible due to effort involved, or not economically viable.
Coinbase doesn't like the cost of having to register securities for the shitcoin du jour - there's no money to be made.
But the SEC isn't obligated to make a profitable business model for Coinbase.
But it sounds far better to get the crypto club and libertarians up in arms about unhelpful government organizations.