Stock Options. The Financial Accounting Standards Board found some friends in Washington. A few key government officials spoke on behalf of FASB's proposal that companies expense the fair market value of stock options and against some recent efforts to legislate accounting rules.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee lashed out at Congress for undermining efforts by the accounting standard setter to require that companies expense the value of stock options....

Following a committee hearing on bond market regulation, Shelby [R-Ala.] reportedly told members of the press that the House legislation is "certainly not going anywhere in the Banking Committee."