This week the House is scheduled to vote on legislation – H.R. 2357, the “Accelerating Access to Capital Act” – that would weaken the regulatory requirements for public and private offerings of early stage start-up companies. The bill is based on the unproven and illogical premise that we can promote healthy, sustainable capital formation by stripping away protections from the providers of capital. Each of its three major sections would have the effect of reducing the transparency essential to healthy capital markets and weakening the regulatory oversight needed to maintain the integrity of these markets, increasing the risk of fraud and market manipulation. As such, the bill would not only place investors at risk, it would also undermine the very capital formation process it claims to promote. CFA therefore urges members of Congress to vote no on this bill.