[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12793]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    ACTING AGAINST CORPORATE ABUSES

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I am often admonished for urging the other 
body to take up action on a bill, and yet I just heard a dialogue 
between the minority whip and the majority leader on urging us to take 
up a Senate bill.
  I was on the floor yesterday when that bill was under consideration. 
Ironically, Senator John McCain from Arizona had a very, very important 
provision in that bill that would have accounted for stock options, 
which is one of the biggest problems in the accounting of corporate 
income and expenses. He was blocked by the majority, the Democratic 
majority, from accepting his amendment that would have brought to light 
how these stock options are treated.
  Now, in fairness, we are willing to consider a bill urgently to clean 
up corporate abuse, accounting abuse; but they cannot have it both 
ways. They cannot say it is a perfect bill that has been produced by 
Senator Sarbanes without acknowledging that they failed to address a 
very important option test, accounting for options, which has been the 
fundamental root of the problems. WorldCom, Enron, all of these options 
that were allowed by the corporations had faulty accounting techniques 
applied.
  So I commend Senator McCain for introducing that, and I urge those on 
the other side to consider it as well.

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