Political Quotes

“I thank the ranking member for yielding. I do need to point out, while this bill had passed by a voice vote, it does not mean that it did not have opposition, and I rise today to express my concern with this bill which would establish this whistleblower incentive program at the PCAOB. Now, my opposition to this should not be interpreted as opposition to a whistleblower--in fact, it is the opposite of that--or a whistleblower program, but there are a number of reasons why I believe, and I think are clear, that this is a redundant program that is already covered in other ways. First, the bill is at odds with established principles of confidentiality that exist within the auditing profession. State laws and professional standards require accounting professionals to maintain the confidentiality of client information received in the course of performing an audit. This bill purports to exclude from whistleblower status any person who gains the information while performing audit work. However, the exclusion is muddled by an unclear and potentially broad exception. As a result, it is very possible that personnel performing audits may try to garner bounties by blowing the whistle on their audit clients, contrary to their professional obligations.…”