Mike Enzi: “I know this is a glaze-the-eyes-over issue. It is hard for me to understand. It is probably hard for me to be able to…”

“I know this is a glaze-the-eyes-over issue. It is hard for me to understand. It is probably hard for me to be able to spell derivatives, let alone understand paragraphs A, B, C, D, G, or whatever they were. This amendment has come up twice before. We voted it down twice before. There have been some changes to pick up a little bit more of a majority. As the letter read by the Senator from Idaho pointed out, the industries that were excluded in this have not bit into it yet. They understand it is a slippery slope and they will come back up and pick them up. The SEC has brought action against these companies. If Sarbanes-Oxley had been in place a year before the time that it was, we would not have had any problem. There are protections out there. So let's not take this advantage away from the small businesses. The proponents of the amendment believe that the trading of derivatives, especially in the energy area, were the cause of the energy problems faced by western States in recent years. Specifically, the proponents believe that energy trading of derivatives by Enron contributed significantly to the energy problems. Unfortunately, the problems that caused Enron to fail were based upon failures in corporate governance and outright fraud. Ironically, we are addressing this amendment after we celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley act in July.”