Date: 2002-07-25
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the conference report on- H.R. 3763.- the "Corporate and Auditing Accountability. Responsibility. and Transparency Act of 2002." The fact that the U.S. Congress isresponding so quickly and strongly to the corporate scandals that are unfolding each day demonstrates how serious the problem is and the danger to the entire U.S. economy. Much of the focus has been on the huge salaries. giant golden parachutes. and obscene loans. all for the executives who were mismanaging many of these corporations. But that relentless greed has led to financial ruin for tens of thousands of employees and shattered the retirement. security of hundreds of thousands of others. Throughout the 1990s. Wall Street kept telling everyone that the stock market could be an ever expanding pie and everyone would be a winner. People who had never bought a stock in their lives were convinced to invest. and often. invest with inadequate information about how to do so and protect their economic security at the same time. But little by little. many companies had to lie and steal to keep the myth going. And now we are all paying the price. I hope the bill before us will stem the tide. I hope Wall Street and Main Street will wake up and learn to play by the rules once again. And lets be clear: this. bill establishes much tougher rules. There is no magic way to make money. Companies have to earn it. They have to make products that people want to buy.- They have to treat people fairly. You cant cook the books and pretend you have profits. Corporate America has to go back to the basics and earn the trust of the American people again. I particularly want to comment on the effect the stillunfolding corporate scandals have had on our pension system and the work still before Congress. Part of todays problem has also involved companies using their pension plans like company bank accounts. That behavior must stop. and Government regulators must do a better job to ensure it has stopped. Pension plans are the employees money. Workers should have involvement and be provided full information on how their pension plan is operated. The bill before us requires pension plans to provide 30 days advance notice of any restrictions on the sale of employer stock or other plan investments. A proposal first included in the pension reform bill proposed by Democrats on the Committee on Education and the workforce. I am glad that the bill toughens current ERISA criminal penalties for ERISA violations. I am glad the bill cracks down on insider trading and loans to corporate officers. a provision first proposed in legislation I recently introduced. But. we need to go even further. It is time for the Congress to pass strong pension reform to protect the retirement security of all employees. We need to give workers a right to control their own pension funds. We need pension funds and mutual funds to demand better corporate governance. We need to look more aggressively at the adequacy of our retirement system. American workers will not be able to retire if their 401(K)s continue to be treated as piggy banks for Wall Street. We have a lot of work still ahead of us. but today is a great step forward. I urge the Congress to continue to be vigilant and ensure that corporations play by the rules and act fairly.