Jay Inslee: “we hope that the first legislation passed in this House in the post-Enron world should not be to make the world safer…”

“we hope that the first legislation passed in this House in the post-Enron world should not be to make the world safer for Enron. My friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), challenged me earlier when I said that this could make the world safer for Enron. Well, we just did a little bit of research about that over the lunch hour and found a case called Bullock v. Arthur Andersen, et al. It is a case in Washington County, Texas. If it were to be certified as a class action under this legislation, the defendants, who include some names Andrew Fastow, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, would be given the privilege by your legislation to force this to be removed to Federal court away from Washington County. Now, that is exactly one of the reasons why we think this is the wrong approach. And even if you exempted Enron in its entirety, Enron is an example of why we are going the wrong way because of all the other companies that potentially could be liable.”