For Immediate Release: July 15, 2002

For More Information: Ed Mierzwinski 202-546-9707

Sweeping Senate Corporate Reform Package Passes Overwhelmingly, But Opportunities Missed

Statement of Consumer Program Director Edmund Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG

"Today's unanimous Senate (97-0) passage of a comprehensive corporate reform bill that goes far beyond the weak proposals offered by the President and already passed by the House shows that the Congress is finally paying attention to investors who've had their retirement savings looted. Chairmen Sarbanes (D-MD) of the Banking Committee and Leahy (D-VT) of the Judiciary Committee deserve commendation for moving a sweeping accounting and corporate crime reform bill through the Senate.

Unfortunately, the Senate missed several opportunities that would have given it more leverage for consumers in the upcoming conference with the House. The full Senate failed to even consider important floor amendments that would have strengthened the bill's auditor independence standards and guaranteed that members of its accountant oversight board would be free of industry influence-peddling. Further, the Senate should have included the Shelby (R-AL) proposal to allow victims to sue the lawyers and accountants who act as accomplices to corporate wrongdoers.

Now, the bill moves to conference, a pernicious closed-door process where the deck will be stacked with reform opponents seeking to weaken the final bill. It is critical that the Senate bill, not the House bill, go to the President's desk. It's the minimum reform needed to restore investor confidence and guarantee that the markets pick winners, not cheaters, and that the cheaters get punished."

U.S. PIRG is the national lobbying office for the state Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy groups. For fact sheets, reports and press releases detailing the state PIRGs' full "in the wake of Enron" reforms, see www.enronwatchdog.org/newsroom/.

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