Darrell Issa: “My amendment quite simply makes this bill better. Since 2011, almost 5 years, virtually every single public company has…”

“My amendment quite simply makes this bill better. Since 2011, almost 5 years, virtually every single public company has reported financial statements to the SEC by electronic, searchable, readable data format, often called XBRL. {time} 1545 This searchable data allows the investor community to look through data in a way they never could under paper, and its accuracy is as good or as bad as the source material that goes onto that paper. Now, both the author of the bill and myself agree on one thing: printing paper and sending electronic format is outdated. There is no question at all that the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is long overdue to convert to an all-electronic filing. As a matter of fact, for most of the people that will be listening and watching today, they are already electronically filing their income tax and then printing out a paper copy to stick in a drawer. The idea that a public company who spends two, three, four or more millions of dollars in compliance every year would file paper, and then that paper would be electronically scanned, sent to India, converted to data, and then analyzed by the investment community is truly about the most backwards way one could imagine doing it. What my amendment to Mr.…”