Lloyd Bentsen: “Enron, Global Crossing, the restatements at Xerox, Sunbeam and others are part of the corporate excesses that have…”

“Enron, Global Crossing, the restatements at Xerox, Sunbeam and others are part of the corporate excesses that have occurred as a result of the exuberant nineties. The bill before us today, I believe, is a good start but, as I said earlier, is by no means a panacea and will not solve all the problems that existed or came about, but at least begins putting us in the right direction to hopefully restore some confidence to the markets. It does establish an oversight function of auditors of public companies. It amends the law to crack down on insider self-dealing, where you had corporate managers really treating public companies as private banks, and I am glad the committee adopted a few amendments I offered to deal with that. It continues the process of eliminating the conflict between independent auditors and the companies they audit. Some will say it does not go far enough, but at least it begins that process. It was strengthened by an amendment that the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) and I offered and, quite frankly, the gentleman from New York's substitute strengthens that even further. It puts the Securities and Exchange Commission on notice and provides them with the resources, and it puts the Congress on notice that there needs to be stronger oversight of the players in the public markets.”