SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH AND CAPITAL MARKETS.

SEC. 8002. SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH AND CAPITAL MARKETS.(a) Findings.—Congress finds that—(1) the United States has the most fair, most transparent, and most efficient capital markets in the world, in part due to its strong securities statutory and regulatory scheme;(2) it is of paramount importance for the continued growth of the economy of the Nation, that our capital markets retain their leading position in the world;(3) small businesses are vital participants in United States capital markets, and play a critical role in future economic growth and high-wage job creation;(4) section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has greatly enhanced the quality of corporate governance and financial reporting for public companies and increased investor confidence;121 STAT. 716(5) the Securities and Exchange Commission (referred to in this section as the “Commission”) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (referred to in this section as the “PCAOB”) have both determined that the current auditing standard implementing section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has imposed unnecessary and unintended cost burdens on small and mid-sized public companies;(6) the Commission and the PCAOB are now near completion of a 2-year process intended to revise the auditing standard in order to provide more efficient and effective regulation; and(7) the Chairman of the Commission recently has said, with respect to section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, that, “We don’t need to change the law, we need to change the way the law is implemented. It is the implementation of the law that has caused the excessive burden, not the law itself. That’s an important distinction. I don’t believe these important investor protections, which are even now only a few years old, should be opened up for amendment, or that they need to be.”.(b) Sense of the Senate.—It is the sense of the Senate that the Commission and the PCAOB should complete promulgation of the final rules implementing section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7262).