David Weldon: “Enron was a great tragedy; it was a tragedy for the employees, for the investors, and it was a tragedy for the American…”

“Enron was a great tragedy; it was a tragedy for the employees, for the investors, and it was a tragedy for the American public. It was a tragedy for our Nation. We clearly need legislation. We need legislation that will give investors better access to information necessary to judge a firm's performance, the financial risk, the condition of that company. We need legislation that will give investors prompt information that is critical to decide whether or not they should make an investment. We also need legislation that will deal with dishonest and unscrupulous CEOs, legislation that will bar them from serving as an officer of a company, that will force them to disclose critical information about what they are doing when they buy or sell stock in that company. This legislation before us addresses all of those issues. It would be a greater tragedy if we were, in this body, to introduce legislation that would create unnecessary and burdensome red tape for American industries, that would nationalize the accounting industry. It would be inappropriate for us to put forward legislation that would create ambiguous and difficult-to-understand standards. This is a good bill. I urge all colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.”