10 Dec House Committee Passes More Small Business Bills

Congress has had some good blood flow this month when it comes to smaller public companies and small business. On top of the FAST Act bill we reported on yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee has now approved six new bills on a strongly bipartisan basis that we hope can make it through the rest of Congress and the President’s desk. Here’s a brief summary of what they approved yesterday:

• Registered brokers and investment advisers are added to the list of accredited investors. This passed by 54-2 and includes an amendment to index the income and net worth definitions of accredited status to inflation going forward. It also lets the SEC expand the list to include those who “have demonstrable education or job experience to qualify such person as having professional knowledge of a subject related to a particular investment..” Um, lawyers maybe? CPAs?
• The Small Business Capital Formation Enhancement Act requires the SEC to respond to any findings and recommendations put forth by the SEC’s Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. This is cool since we work hard at the forum to focus on important new suggested initiatives and it would be great to hear how the Commission reacts to these recommendations. This one passed 55-1.
• Another bill establishes the Office for Small Business Capital Formation and the Small Business Advisory Committee within the SEC to help fulfill a part of the SEC’s mission to facilitate capital formation. This passed the committee 56-0.

Hopefully the non-controversial strong support of these will help them become law soon!