I guess since the Securities and Exchange Commission made clear it would not delay Sarbanes-Oxley 404(b) compliance for small businesses again, members of Congress decided to take a different approach.

Compliance Week's Melissa Klein Aguilar says an amendment brought by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.,  passed the House Financial Services Committee on a voice vote and will go before the full committee for a role call vote Wednesday, Nov. 4. The legislation would require the SEC and the Government Accountability Office to conduct separate cost-benefit studies of 404 compliance for SMBs before the smaller businesses would be responsible for compliance.

Did no one notice the SEC has been conducting a cost-benefit analysis for months now? Now that it's finished, why do we need more? Investor advocates are understandably unhappy.

The second piece of legislation on the topic, which was proposed by Rep. John Adler, D-N.J., would have gone so far as to exempt all companies with less than $700 million in market capitalization from 404(b) compliance requirements altogether. That one, however, did not fair so well. It failed on a voice vote, Aguilar says.