Political Quotes

“I am very pleased to have been a part of the conference committee, and we are finally legislating a corporate responsibility bill. It is long overdue, and if, in fact, the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), our ranking member, had had his way on the House side, we would have had a tougher bill and we would have had it a long time ago. Unfortunately, even though I am very appreciative for the work that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) eventually did on this bill, if he had taken the leadership of our ranking member, we would have had this bill passed out a long time ago, and it would have been even tougher. This bill will make corporate CEOs and others responsible. They will have to sign the financial statements, and they will have to take responsibility. I participated in one aspect of the bill for disgorgement so that these people who are committing fraud will not be able to realize the gains that they would have, to put that money back into a disgorgement account. We are also, in this bill, curbing the practice of the insider loans. We are protecting whistleblowers. We are eliminating conflict of interest and setting up an independent board to oversee accounting firms. This is a good start. We are going to see more of the scenes that we are seeing with Adelphia where corporate giants who have committed fraud are going to be taken out in handcuffs. We are going to have to do more as the days roll along.”