[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12414]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CORPORATIONS MUST OPERATE WITH FAIR PLAY

  (Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DeLAURO. Corporate scandals: Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Rite-Aid, 
Xerox. These are part of a much bigger problem. People in powerful 
positions acting irresponsibly, hurting investors and employees, 
jeopardizing people's pensions and retirement systems, and they are not 
being held accountable. In fact, they are being rewarded.
  It begs the question: How do we explain in this period that so many 
of our leading companies, like Stanley Works in New Britain, moves its 
corporate headquarters to the Bahamas to take advantage of a loophole 
in our tax laws? How do we explain to our children in these times that 
a WorldCom can create phony profitability along with CEOs' salaries 
rising which costs in an instant 17,000 jobs? How do we explain the 
executives of Enron who cash out for billions leaving their employees 
with worthless pensions? What values did these high executives bring to 
work every day? These are the people who told us to run the government 
like a business.
  Democrats support legislation that would require honest accounting, 
independent investment advice, sensible regulation, and criminal 
penalties for those guilty of corporate wrongdoing.
  We can have economic growth without corporate crime. That was not the 
legislation that was passed in this House by this Republican majority. 
Support the Sarbanes legislation in the Senate.

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