“Currently, Congress, investors, and others are being denied critical information about an auditor’s disciplinary process. Investors and companies alike should be aware when the auditors and accountants they rely on have been charged or sanctioned for violating professional auditing standards,” said Reed.

Members of the PCAOB itself have long called for opening up disciplinary proceedings to the public. In 2010 then-Acting Chair Daniel Golezer, with the support of the other board members, directed the staff to develop a proposal to do just that, saying that under the current rules the public is "in the dark about how the Board uses its enforcement authority until there is a settlement of an SEC decision on the Board's sanctions." Current Chair James Doty continued the call in later years, saying that keeping proceedings a secret means that investors are unaware that companies in which they have invested are being audited by accountants who have been charged or even sanctioned by the PCAOB. Further, he argued that the current rules create incentives to litigate board cases regardless of whether they believe they will win as it allows companies to continue their audit practices without any disclosure to clients or investors. He also said that it prevents the public from properly evaluating the board's enforcement program. 

The two senators, Grassley and Reed, agreed. They initially proposed the legislation opening proceedings to the public in 2011, then again in 2015, but the bills didn't go anywhere, much to the lawmakers' chagrin.

"The secrecy provides incentives to bad actors to extend the proceedings as long as possible so they can continue to do business without notice to businesses about potential problems with a particular auditor.  This bill ends the secrecy and brings the kind of transparency that adds accountability to agency proceedings,” said Sen. Grassley in the most recent statement. 

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act had initially been written to include public hearings, but this measure was dropped to secure bi-partisan support for the bill, according to Law360. Critics of the notion of open hearings said that auditing firms rely heavily on their reputations, and if a disciplinary matter later turns out to be unfounded, it can be difficult for these firms to recover, said Law360.