[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 91 (Tuesday, July 9, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H4355-H4356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, it seems like every day we hear 
a new story of executives who misled their investors and their workers 
and stole millions of dollars. These executives are called 
irresponsible. They are accused of mismanagement or unorthodox business 
practices. But these corporate leaders are not unorthodox. They are 
criminals, plain and simple. They have stolen more money than any 
thieves I have ever heard of, and their crimes have real victims. The 
victims of these corporate crimes are workers like the workers at Enron 
who just wanted an honest job with a fair expectation of job security. 
For all their hard work, these workers got 10 minutes to clear out 
their desks. In some cases they were even denied their severance 
packages if they refused to sign documents giving up the right to sue 
Enron for defrauding them.

[[Page H4356]]

  Defrauding workers and forcing them to give up their legal rights is 
not irresponsibility; it is a crime. Even workers who never had 
anything to do with Enron were hurt by the collapse of that company. As 
Enron declared bankruptcy, public employees in 30 States lost anywhere 
from $1.5 billion to $10 billion from their pension plans. Stealing 
money from public employee pension plans is not irresponsibility; it is 
a crime.
  Even those of us who had absolutely nothing to do with the Enrons or 
WorldComs of the world are hurt by corporate crime. The unethical 
behavior of executives at WorldCom, which was recently forced to admit 
it had invented $3.8 billion in earnings, has had a devastating effect 
on the company's stock price. But the stock market as a whole has also 
suffered from the lack of confidence created by widespread corporate 
abuse. Less than 3 percent of all publicly traded companies misstate 
their earnings, but this small group casts doubt on the statements of 
other more ethical businesses.
  A free market system cannot function if investors do not trust 
executives; and, therefore, the crimes of WorldCom and Enron are crimes 
not only against stockholders but against the very system that allowed 
these companies to flourish. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, corporate 
America, it tolls for thee. But this talk of corporate crime obscures 
the real crime that has taken place in this country.
  The crime of Enron, like so many other corrupt corporations, is not 
that they broke the rules; it is that they wrote the rules. On 
everything from energy regulation to tax policy, Enron and its fellow 
energy companies got the best laws money can buy. Enron received a $254 
million check, courtesy of the American taxpayer, when the Bush 
administration changed the rules governing the corporate alternative 
minimum tax. Because with this deficit-laden budget, corporate tax cuts 
come directly from the Social Security trust fund, this was the legal 
equivalent to picking the pockets of senior citizens in order to pad 
the pockets of corporate executives. Enron also was allowed to vet 
candidates for the chairmanship of the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, the Nation's number one energy watchdog.
  Furthermore, companies like Enron and Haliburton are the intended 
beneficiaries of policies from the opening of the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge to the annihilation of the Superfund trust fund, which 
was supposed to ensure that corporate polluters paid some share of the 
cost of cleaning up their mess. The Superfund example gives us an 
especially revealing look at how corporate campaign contributors are 
treated by their friends in government. If I poisoned hundreds of 
thousands of my fellow citizens in order to enrich myself and my 
friends, I would probably go to jail for the rest of my life. If, 
however, Haliburton spills oil all over a pristine area, ruining the 
land and making local residents sick, they do not even have to pay to 
clean it up. The taxpayer gets the bill.
  Even after the collapse of Enron and the exposure of billions in fake 
earnings at WorldCom, this administration and many in Congress are 
working to protect their corporate patrons from any real 
accountability. The Oxley accounting bill, which the House passed on 
April 24, does nothing to protect against corporate abuse and bring 
back public confidence in corporate governance. In some cases, the bill 
even makes it more difficult to enforce auditing regulations. In its 
most glaring failure, this bill leaves the wolf in charge of the 
henhouse by ensuring that no independent agency has any power to 
effectively police.
  I have full confidence this Congress and this administration can work 
together to prevent future Enrons and future WorldComs, and I look 
forward to working with Members on both sides of the aisle to make sure 
that we have corporate ethical governance in this country.

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