House bill would repeal open data requirements in financial reporting -- FCW

"The House passed a group of five bills Feb. 3 that includes a measure to allow public companies with annual revenues of under $250 million to opt out of filing financial information with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in machine-readable XBRL format. The bill 'provides a voluntary, I repeat, voluntary exemption from reporting an XBRL data format for emerging growth companies and smaller, public companies, the cost and use of which have continually been questioned in our committee,' said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Opponents of changes to the filing requirement argue that by allowing companies to opt out of reporting machine-readable data to the SEC, the bill will decrease financial transparency ..."