On the recordMarch 7, 2012
I thank the gentleman for yielding. I believe the gentleman from Connecticut has made the salient points, but I do want to point out that this ``radical'' amendment, under current law, and current regulation, approximately 60 percent of all businesses are already exempt. They're exempted pursuant to a law that we passed in 2003, Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a bipartisan bill. Sarbanes, Oxley. Bipartisan. All this ``radical'' amendment does is simply say that we're going up from 60 percent to allow 80 percent of the businesses to be exempted from these provisions. Now, I don't think that's radical by any definition. I think that's reasonable. The truth is I have some hesitancies even at these numbers, but I do believe that it's worth trying because it's worth taking a shot to see if some relief will help. At the same time, it is not a wise provision to take a complete step backwards and say to investors that you're going to go in blind, you're going to be exempted from audits. This bill doesn't do that. I don't think that's the intent. The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
