Anna Eshoo: “These many offerings have been used to help small companies raise capital and test the waters for IPOs, initial public…”

“These many offerings have been used to help small companies raise capital and test the waters for IPOs, initial public offerings. Unfortunately, the regulation A threshold became stuck, as others said, at a 1992 level of $5 million. At that low level, the benefit of a regulation A offering is extremely limited. In fact, only three companies, as has been said this afternoon, have taken advantage of it in 2010. So this threshold, the $5 million threshold, falls far short of what companies need to develop the cutting-edge technologies in today's economy. It's outdated. It fails to serve its intended purpose, and it's why this legislation is needed and why I'm so pleased that, on a bipartisan basis, we are taking action today. We need to raise the initial public offering limit to help provide capital to small businesses. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has again expired.”