Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004

Mr. Speaker, lately, in a rare turn of events, House Democrats have adopted the old adage of Republican leaders and, in floor communications, they have posed the famous question from Reagan, Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?

Well, when the quote came, I think Democrats have found a moment of despair. We will welcome their call for comparison of today's economic, international and domestic status to that of 4 years. Yes, we are better off now.

Just look at the war on terror. The attacks on September 11 awakened the Nation to the threat of terror. Republicans have a clear strategy to keep Americans safe and to spread freedom and peace throughout the world.

In the past 3 years, we have seen great progress. Afghanistan is free, Libya is now disarmed, Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. Iraq is becoming a free country, making the heart of the Middle East more stable and America more secure.

The Republican-controlled House quickly passed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. All border activity has been consolidated into the Department of Homeland Security, a single agency, doing away with the fallible INS, or Immigration and Naturalization Service, that allowed the September 11 hijackers to slip through our borders, rent apartments, find employment and train in flight schools, only to have their visas approved by INS after they carried out attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

The Department of Homeland Security is implementing background checks on 100 percent of applications for U.S. citizenship and has registered over 1.5 million travelers into the United States VISIT program.

Over 500,000 first responders have been trained in weapons of mass destruction, awareness and response since September 11, 2001.

The USA PATRIOT Act has broken down unnecessary barriers between intelligence and law enforcement officers, ensuring that the best available information about terrorist threats is provided to people who need it most.

After two rounds of across-the-board, Republican-led tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, America's economy is strong and growing stronger, and we have overcome the triple shock of terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and recession.

Americans are seeing the benefit of the Republican progrowth agenda. In the eighth straight month of growth, the economy created 288,000 jobs in April, bringing the total increase since August to more than 1.1 million jobs created.

The real gross domestic product has grown at its fastest rate in almost 20 years over the last three-quarters. Productivity has grown at its fastest rate in 40 years. Homeownership is at an all-time high, 68.6 percent, with substantial gains among minority homeowners. We have the highest total number of people working in the history of America. Let me repeat that. We have the highest number of workers in the entire history of America on the payroll today. Unemployment today is at its lowest rate, lower than at the average of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The average earnings by American workers is up, higher than it has ever been before. These are high-paying jobs that are coming to America. Manufacturing jobs have also increased for the first time in a long time, 1.1 million jobs in total since August.

Now, we have had some really good news on the economy, but we need to do much more; and we will talk about that later. First, let me talk about health care. Republicans have been working to see that the rising costs of health care are capped and lowered, accessibility to quality care is expanded, and jobs for more Americans are created in the process.

Millions of Americans are benefiting from lower prescription drug costs and increased access to health care. In December 2003, a prescription drug benefit was signed into law that will make Medicare prescription drug coverage available to millions of seniors and people with disabilities for the first time since Medicare's inception.

Health savings accounts were signed into law to give employees more control over their health care decisions and the opportunity to save tax-free income for future health care costs.

The number of children enrolled in the State Children's Health Insurance Program increased from 4.6 million in 2001 to 5.8 million in 2003.

Now, let us talk about education. Under President Bush and the Republican-led Congress, No Child Left Behind was signed into law to ensure that all students become proficient at reading and math and to close the achievement gap that exists between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Students, teachers, and parents have seen the prospective effects of accountability, challenge, and incentive.

No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, funding for K through 12 has increased by 35 percent, and title I funding has increased 41 percent, the largest investment in education to date. While only 11 States are in full compliance with previous Federal education accountability standards in January of 2001, NCLB ensured that by June 2003 all 50 States had approved accountability plans to ensure that students become proficient in reading and math. Under NCLB, math scores have increased by 9 points for fourth graders and by 5 points for eighth graders since the 2000 National Assessment of Education Progress.

Under a Democrat watch, we would not be better off. With the Democrats in the majority, 34 million working families would not have received an average of $1,549 in tax relief each year; 47 million families would not have received the $1,000 child tax credit last summer for each child; 35 million Americans would still be paying the unfair double taxation on dividend income, discouraging them from investing in our economy; the defense of our homeland would still be spread among 22 different Federal agencies; 50,000 highly trained Federal screeners would not be protecting America's airports; 24 million Iraqis would still be living in fear under Saddam Hussein's hostile regime; more than 15 million Afghan citizens would still live under the oppressive brutal regime of the Taliban; two-thirds of al Qaeda's top leaders would still be on the loose, plotting attacks, while congressional Democrats treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem; millions of seniors would not benefit from access to discounted prescription drugs, and an eventual prescription drug benefit under Medicare; and millions of American employees would not be able to save pre-tax income towards future health care costs in personal health savings accounts.

The largest number in education to date, a 42.5 percent increase in funding, would never have seen its day in American classrooms; and only 11 out of 50 States would meet acceptable accountability standards in education today.

But things are better off under Republicans this year than they were 4 years ago. Now, every day we hear about how American jobs are going overseas. We have a chart here that reflects some of the issues that are going to be coming up and that I want to start talking about. But there is a reason why jobs have been going overseas. It is not Benedict CEOs, as we have heard before. It is not the wage levels in America. The responsibility lies right here in Congress.

Over the last generation, Congress has passed laws that have come back to haunt this generation and future generations, unless we act now. Republicans have divided these barriers that prevent Americans from keeping and creating jobs into eight categories. We have already acted on two of these categories. The first one was health care security. We have voted to limit health care costs and help provide health care security in America. This week we have dealt with the cost of bureaucratic red tape in our Bureaucratic Red Tape Termination group of bills, these five bills which I will discuss later on.

In the weeks that follow, House Republicans will bring up to the floor and vote on issues that address lifelong learning, so that we can have a skilled and talented workforce that focuses on math, science, and engineering skills.

We are going to deal with trade fairness and opportunity, so that we have fair trade policies to help assure jobs here in America. We are going to deal with tax relief and simplification so we can provide tax relief and tax simplification for Americans. We are going to move forward on an energy self-sufficiency and security plan. And we are going to encourage research and development by bringing legislation to the floor for research and development innovation. And we are going to end lawsuit abuse and deal with litigation management, which is the last issue we will deal with.

This is how we will make America more competitive. This is how we are going to ensure that our children and grandchildren have a strong economy, with opportunities to get a job if they want or start a business if they choose.

This week, we focused on bureaucratic red tape, and I want to read some facts. There are 65 words in The Lord's Prayer. There are 286 words in the Gettysburg Address. There are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence. And there are 26,911 words in the Federal regulation governing the sale of cabbage. This was made in a speech by FDIC Vice Chairman John M. Reich. He said this because he wanted to emphasize that bureaucratic red tape termination is vital for U.S. competitiveness in a global economy.

Bureaucratic red tape termination means less government not only by granting the freedom to allow Americans to pursue their dreams, but it also means providing space for businesses to thrive. Instead, our Federal Government has become a creeping ivy of regulations that strangle enterprise. Unrealistic, impractical, unnecessary environmental prohibitions, OSHA mandates and the like are literally driving our industries and small businesses and our health care system to a grinding halt.

How can we expect our economy to develop when bureaucracy prevents businesses from starting or expanding; when doctors cannot even keep up with the ever-changing codes, and teachers are forced to spend more time filling out paperwork than teaching in the classroom? The total compliance burden on our economy of environmental,

economic, workplace, and tax compliance regulations is $850 billion; $160 billion on manufacturers alone, which is the equivalent of a 12 percent excise tax.

Of the $860 billion, we can see in the chart that it is spread between four categories: tax compliance, the total is $132 billion; workplace compliance is $84 billion; environmental regulations are $201 billion; and economic regulatory costs are $444 billion.

Now, if we compare that $860 billion to the gross domestic product of Mexico, we can see that the $860 billion is higher than the $574 billion that is the entire gross national product of Mexico. Our regulatory burden is higher than the $701 billion, which is the entire gross national product of Canada. It is a tremendous burden on our businesses.

The regulatory costs compared with individual income taxes and corporate taxes and corporate pretax profits, here again is the $860 billion of regulatory costs, the total individual income taxes that were paid last year were $949 billion, the corporate income taxes were $201 billion, and the corporate profits were $699 billion. So we can see this is a tremendous regulatory burden on our businesses, and it is keeping us from creating and holding jobs here in America.

But the Bush administration has made great strides in curbing the growth of regulations and is making a concerted effort to review existing regulations to the extent possible. They have utilized the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and its administrator, Dr. John Graham, more than any other administration. We must support them in our efforts and encourage them to do even more.

Congress should also do a better job of oversight. Too often my colleagues and I are overburdened with committee work and we do not have the time or the staff to completely review how agencies operate within what cumbersome and unnecessary regulations they are placing on our citizens. I hope, myself, to work with leadership and refocus the committees' efforts to take time to review what is in place as we do the work that must be done immediately.

I have come up with a bill called CARFA, that I will explain more later, but it is called the Commission on Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies. It is a base realignment-type committee, a BRAC-like effort. BRAC was used for the military to determine which bases should be closed. CARFA would be used by this commission to find out which parts of the Federal Government should be closed, but I will explain more about that later.

House Republicans are taking on these problems of regulations and overburdening of rules. Over the last generation, legislation has been passed with good intentions, but the disastrous consequences have come in the form of these regulations and policies. These regulations and policies have made it difficult to stay competitive; and Congress, the Republicans in Congress, intend to do something about it.

We divided these into eight categories, and we are going to continue for the next 6 weeks, after we return from recess, to take one issue a week in order to reach the compliance that we need. Our goal is more high-quality, high-paying jobs today and for future generations.

The Heritage Foundation asserts that regulatory costs are killing our jobs. They say that reducing the regulatory burden would do much to speed the economic recovery and create jobs as well as help consumers. There are opportunities for reform in a number of areas, ranging from the burdensome telecommunication rules that are slowing progress for the next generation of Internet technologies, to unnecessary costly environmental regulations that make economic growth difficult. It goes to outdated workplace regulations that also discourage job creation.

OMB, or the Office of Management and Budget, recently reported to Congress that the annual cost to society of major Federal regulations, just issued between 1992 and 2002, in other words for a decade, are estimated to range between $38 billion and $44 billion. Now these are dollars that are going to compliance and not towards investment. This estimate suggests that Americans spend about $1.50 in compliance costs for every dollar in tax costs devoted to regulation.

For firms employing fewer than 20 employees, the annual regulatory burden in 2000 was estimated to be $6,975 per employee, nearly 60 percent higher than the $4,463 estimated for firms with more than 500 employees. In other words, it is the most difficult for small businesses.

Instead of spending more on wages or health care for these employees, they have to spend nearly $7,000 per employee just complying with the paperwork that the Federal Government requires.

Over the last decade, small firms have accounted for 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy. During and coming out of the last two recession periods, 1990 through 1992, and 2000 through 2001, small businesses created all of the new net jobs.

According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the budgetary cost to taxpayers for funding regulatory agencies topped $25 billion in 2002 alone. The Code of Federal Regulations extends 19 feet. If you can imagine that, that is more than three times my height. If it was stacked from the floor up towards the ceiling, 19 feet high. From 1991 to 2000, the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations increased 28 percent.

This Republican Congress has made regulatory reform a priority. It started back in the 104th Congress when we passed the Federal bureaucratic reforms under the Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act, which was part of the contract with America. That, among other things, has Federal agencies assess the risk and cost imposed by regulations.

To mark the passage of H.R. 1375, the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act, had a myriad of bills and amendments that aimed at cutting red tape. According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of rules issued each year, proposed and final, declined sharply during the Reagan administration, and dropped even further during the Bush administration, rose slightly during the Clinton administration, and has declined even further during the first 3 years of George W. Bush.

The average number of rules issued each year during the current Bush administration is 6,712. It is just over half as many issued, on average, each year during the Carter administration; that was 12,325. They have utilized the Office of Information Regulatory Affairs to do this through Dr. John Graham, and the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has gone out of its way to stand up for small businesses and encourage fellow agencies to reduce the red tape and the regulatory burdens.

Bolstered by the President's commitment to remove regulatory barriers that can stifle entrepreneurial growth and job creation, it has incorporated the views of small businesses into hundreds of agency decisions. Those efforts have changed regulations and curbed new mandates resulting in over $31 billion of savings. Those savings have been reinvested back into the economy, and we are starting to see the improvement with a number of jobs. I support the administration's efforts and encourage them to do more.

Let me talk about competitiveness, because compliance costs can be regarded as the silent killer of manufacturing competitiveness. According to the Heritage Foundation, a global CEO survey shows six of ten company heads view regulations as a serious threat to the growth of their business, topping exchange rates, corporate governance issues, and even terrorism. Small business is leading America's economic recovery, but an overwhelming burden of Federal paperwork rules and regulations threatens their competitiveness and their ability to spur job creation.

Regulation imposes its heaviest burden on small- and medium-sized businesses because it is even harder for them to handle the necessary paperwork and overhead costs, and the attorney and the accountant fees that go along with it. Richard Vedder, an economist at the Center For the Study of American Business, finds that Federal regulations cause $1.3 trillion in economic output to be lost each year.

In order to give an idea of what a trillion dollars is, let us assume you started a business the day after Christ

rose from the dead, and you made a million dollars that day and each day until today. In other words, your profit was a million dollars a day for nearly 2,000 years; by that time you would not yet have made a trillion dollars. You would only be three-quarters of the way to earning a trillion dollars.

So the cost of $1.3 trillion to economic output is a tremendous cost to our economy. This is roughly equivalent to the entire output of the Midatlantic region which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

According to a study done by the Manufacturing Alliance, entitled ``How Structural Costs Imposed on U.S. Manufacturers Harm Workers and Threaten Competitiveness,'' in terms of compliance, three areas of regulation are hit particularly hard: consumer safety, workplace safety and environmental protection.

The total compliance burden is the $850 billion we have been talking about. And again, for manufacturers, that is equivalent to a 12 percent excise tax. That means we are 12 percent less competitive. If we could cut that in half, we could make ourselves 6 percent more competitive worldwide.

The burden on the pollution abatement expenditures alone reduces the cost of competitiveness by 3.5 percentage points, in comparison with our nine largest trading partners.

In a recent working paper by the Mercatus Center, which surveyed 100 manufacturing companies and estimated that the total cost of complying with the 25 statutes and executive orders, just 25 statutes and executive orders that encompass workplace regulation, it was about a $32 billion cost in the year 2000. That is equivalent to a 1.6 percent excise tax on manufactured goods.

In addition to the problem of adding to the number of uninsured and employers losing work due to the inability to provide coverage, health care costs are making America uncompetitive in the global market as well. While I do not advocate socialized medicine, most foreign nations provide health care coverage through their government and this is a huge cost that our companies have to worry about, but foreign companies do not have to worry about.

The National Association of Manufacturers calculated that the benefit costs put American companies at a 5.5 percent disadvantage compared to our nine largest trading partners. Not only does the United States spend more on health care annually, but 7.7 percent of our gross domestic product is the private sector contribution to health care coverage, and that far exceeds those of our foreign competitors. If we add the public sector to that, it is 14 percent of our gross domestic product.

America has been blessed with the best health care system. However, we must keep working to make it available and affordable, and the bureaucratic red tape tied to it is driving the cost of health care up. The Kansas Hospital Association has told me that for every hour of health care they provide, there is an additional hour required for paperwork compliance. We must improve access to health care and reduce the demands on paperwork so the quality of health care does not diminish.

Now, this week we have dealt with four OSHA bills and one paperwork reduction bill and we are committed, the Republicans are committed to reduce the cost of bureaucratic red tape. Congress established OSHA in 1970. OSHA, which is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA's mandate was to ensure for all workers safe and healthful working conditions, I am quoting from the original law which says, ``by encouraging employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the number of occupational, safety and health hazards at their place of employment.''

Yet, unsurprisingly, OSHA's 30-year record has been marred by failure. According to the regulatory analysis performed by the Cato Institute, while OSHA's supporters cite evidence attesting to the agency's effectiveness, the vast majority of studies have found no statistical significance in the reduction of workplace fatalities or injuries due to OSHA. Interventionists are hard pressed to maintain that OSHA meets even the minimum criteria for any government program. That criteria is, does it have any desirable effect on the problem it is supposed to solve.

OSHA's failure has been bad for business. A 1995 study by the Employment Policy Foundation found that 19 percent of the productivity slow-downs in the 1970s was directly attributable to regulations imposed by OSHA, and nearly half of those slow-downs in long-term productivity can be explained by rising governmental regulatory activity.

OSHA's poor track record even forced Vice President Gore to admit that the agency ``does not work well enough.'' Yet despite its failures, OSHA continues to intimidate businesses with the heavy hand of regulation, and it continues to make us worse off. As with almost any form of persistent government meddling, regulation stifles the very forces that drive growth and enhance prosperity here at home.

OSHA was created to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for workers throughout our Nation. Over the past 30 years, America's workplace has become safer and more secure than any time in our history, much of it through initiatives through the private sector. But in the last 3 decades, OSHA has developed an affliction which many Federal agencies share. Those same Federal agencies, while created to do good, have become unwelcome visitors, bearing gifts such as regulation and misguided oversight. The affliction to which I am referring is an insatiable appetite for too much control of the day-to-day lives of American workers and the companies they have worked hard to build.

This is particularly true in the residential construction industry. A few months ago, OSHA seemed to unfairly target the residential industry in Sedgwick County, Kansas. In June, I was contacted by the home builders from Wichita who were terrified by the prospect of having to stop work in order to avoid fines by OSHA. OSHA had targeted three counties in Kansas and they flooded these OSHA employees into those areas.

My constituents told me that OSHA was planning to fine builders for having plastic coffee cups on the ground and workers' failure to wear ear plugs while operating a wet-vac. These fines could be as high as $50,000, and would effectively put these small businessmen out of business.

OSHA claimed these reports were exaggerated, but there is no way I can exaggerate the impact of OSHA's hostility and excessive regulation on the fragile economy in Wichita. Allow me to explain, and prevent further harm to the small business sector.

As the Air Capital of the World, nowhere else do you find so many top-name general aviation aircraft manufacturers located in such close proximity. We also manufacture structural components for large commercial airlines. It has been said that what Detroit is to the automobile and what Silicon Valley is to the computer chip, Wichita, Kansas, is to the airplane.

Wichita proudly claims as corporate residents the Boeing Company, Cessna, Raytheon, Bombardier Aerospace's Learjet division. As a result, Wichita supplies components of two-thirds of the world's commercial airlines and manufactures 60 percent of the world's general aviation aircraft.

As you are aware, the aviation industry is the first to feel the effects of an economic downturn and the last to recover from it, and that is exactly what happened after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Wichita and surrounding area lost more jobs as a percentage of the total number of jobs than any other community in the United States. That resulted in the layoff of over 12,000 aircraft manufacturing workers.

The last thing Wichita needs is a Federal agency running around harassing small business and operating as though it would rather push paper and impose fines than working with employers to create a safe and healthy work environment.

In the case of the residential construction companies, OSHA chose surprise visits, ill-conceived compliance guidelines, and an adversarial demeanor to achieve everyone's goal of a safer, more secure workplace. Many small contractors were forced to stop working in order to avoid unfair fines which could have been as much as $7,000 per infraction, no matter how insignificant the infraction was.

Under this approach, OSHA was doing more to hurt employees than to help them by threatening the ability of the men and women in the residential construction industry to make a living. The work environment was safer; it was safe because there was nobody there. They were afraid to go to the work site in fear of being find by OSHA.

The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) has been a leader in the fight to keep American businesses competitive without sacrificing workplace safety and health protections. As a part of our Bureaucratic Red Tape Reduction Week, the gentleman brought to the floor this week several bills which are aimed at establishing the basic principles of fairness, reducing regulatory burdens and expediting administrative reviews that will increase business productivity among America's small businesses.

These four bills are H.R. 2728, the Occupational and Safety Health Small Business Day in Court Act; H.R. 2729, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Efficiency Act; H.R. 2730, the Occupational Safety and Health Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act; and H.R. 2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act. I am pleased to say that the House passed all four measures despite overwhelming Democratic opposition to the measures.

As we continue to focus on Bureaucratic Red Tape Termination week, I would like to share with my colleagues legislation that I will be introducing to assist small businesses in their latest battle against Big Government. My legislation accomplishes five goals. First, the bill will streamline the amount of time businesses have to contest citations and the amount of time OSHA has to issue citations. Today, businesses have 15 days to contest citations while OSHA has 6 months to issue them. Under my bill, OSHA will have 30 days to issue citations and provide employers with 30 days to contest it.

Secondly, this legislation allows businesses the right to correct OSHA violations without immediate monetary penalty. Under my plan, safety would be improved because employers would be given the incentive to promptly correct conditions that violate OSHA standards, except in the case of willful violations where the employer had knowledge of the violation and made no reasonable effort to correct it.

This section of the bill would give employers 72 hours to correct a violation following an OSHA inspection. Once corrected, the employer must provide an abatement certification to OSHA of the correction. Upon completion of the correction and certification, OSHA would not issue a monetary penalty for the citation, although the citation would be kept on record.

Third, my bill addresses the multi-employer citation policy issue by more narrowly defining the multi-employer citation policy at OSHA.

OSHA's recent enforcement of this policy has potentially overstepped their statutory authority that was authorized by Congress in the Occupational Safety and Heath Act. The legislation that I will be proposing clarifies to whom OSHA can issue citations on work sites where multiple employers are operating and allows OSHA to issue citations for a violation only to the employer who has exposed their employee to that given condition.

Fourth, my legislation will change the criteria for issuing subsequent repeat citations by stating that ``other than serious'' citations cannot be used as a basis for repeat or subsequent citations.

Finally, the bill will require OSHA inspectors to provide to employers a written statement or summary at the conclusion of the inspection that lists the items which OSHA inspectors noticed during the inspection. OSHA must then use these summary items as the basis for their citations. Requiring a summary at the end of the inspection would provide employers with prompt notification of hazardous conditions on their job site, thereby improving safety on the work site by providing employers with the opportunity to correct hazardous conditions immediately.

Currently, employers are often unaware of what the inspector's concerns were until they receive the citation, sometimes up to 6 months after the inspection. The bill also includes the added benefit of providing OSHA with the incentive to ensure that their inspectors are well versed and educated on OSHA regulations prior to conducting the site inspection.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that OSHA's first approach to those who provide jobs in our communities should be cooperative and not combative. This agency should be driven to work with, and not against, America's businesses.

Since 1971, OSHA's safety guidelines have accomplished some decline in occupational injuries and illness rates, and workplace fatalities have been cut in half. And I am convinced that it is possible to continue job protection for the American worker while at the same time create a climate for more jobs and economic growth.

The fifth bill that was passed this week to reduce bureaucratic red tape and paperwork was called the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act. It was H.R. 2432, and it requires the Office of Management and Budget, in concert with the Internal Revenue Service, to conduct a review and then report to Congress on possible actions to reduce tax paperwork burden imposed on small businesses. H.R. 2432 provides Congress with a needed permanent analytic capability to serve as a check and balance on the executive branch's cost-benefit estimates of its proposed and final regulations and their consistency with congressional intent. Under the current law, OMB is required to submit an annual regulatory accounting statement with the President's fiscal budget.

To date, the usefulness of these reports has been undermined since they have not been integrated with the budget. In other words, they do not permit Congress to review simultaneously the on-budget and off- budget costs associated with each Federal agency and each Federal agency program that imposes regulatory or paperwork burdens on the public. H.R. 2432 improves the utility of these reports to Congress by ensuring we have this simultaneous review.

Currently, there is no end to regulatory burdens imposed on the public including both large and small businesses, but H.R. 2432 requires the first-ever multi-agency study of regulatory budgeting to determine if agencies can better manage regulatory burdens on the public. This is a good government bill which makes incremental improvements in the existing processes governing paperwork and regulatory reviews, including strengthening tools for those of us here in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I also want to discuss another tool that I think can be used in eliminating unwanted and unneeded regulation and regulatory bodies in our Federal Government, and that is the creation of the Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies or CARFA.

It is certainly no secret that the Federal budget is filled with examples of duplicative, inefficient, and failed Federal agencies and programs. Many of these programs and agencies share regulatory oversight which very often ties the hands of businesses and employers due to the outrageous compliance costs these businesses must bear. I have introduced legislation that I believe would eliminate much of the fraud, abuse, and unnecessary regulation that persists in our Federal Government in a politically visible manner.

It has become increasingly clear that Congress's normal procedures cannot address the spending and waste problems that persist within our Federal Government. Time and again we see congressionally authorized programs become institutionalized, ultimately becoming a permanent fixture at the expense of taxpayers. This ties up precious Federal resources that could be used towards paying down the national debt or higher congressional priorities. By cutting out unnecessary Federal programs and agencies, we will send a strong message that we are serious about exercising fiscal responsibility and controlling government spending.

A first step towards a stable financial future for this country certainly can be found in H.R. 3213, the CARFA bill, which is also known as the Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies Act. CARFA is based on a process with an established record of successful program elimination and

prioritizing of spending. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission, or BRAC as it is called, is similar only it deals strictly with military bases, whereas H.R. 3213 will establish a commission to conduct a comprehensive review of Federal agencies and programs and recommend the elimination or the realignment of duplicative, wasteful, and outdated functions.

CARFA provides for a disciplined spending review process for nondefense, nonentitlement programs. Congress will simply have to vote up or down on the commission's recommendations in their entirety. The congressional log-rolling that normally bogs down the process will be short-circuited. In this way, real reform can emerge and the deficit and debt program can be brought under control. H.R. 3213 offers Congress and the administration a unique opportunity rather than simply re-fund and increase funding for every Federal program. CARFA will eliminate unproductive, duplicative, and outdated programs.

Here is how CARFA would work. The commission would consist of 12 members appointed by the President no later than 90 days after the enactment of this bill. Members would be appointed for the life of the commission and would be required to meet no later than 30 days after the date on which all the members of the commission have been appointed. CARFA's duties would then include conducting a top to bottom review of all Federal programs and agencies, excepting the Department of Defense and any agency that solely administers entitlement programs.

CARFA would seek to identify those programs or agencies that could be considered duplicative in mission, grossly wasteful or inefficient, outdated, irrelevant, or simply failed. The assessment of these programs would be based primarily on the achievement of common performance measures, financial management, and other factors determined by the President. No later than 2 years after the enactment of this act, the commission would be required to submit to the President and Congress a plan with recommendations of the agencies and programs that should be realigned or eliminated and propose legislation to implement this plan. CARFA would require congressional consideration of the review's findings under the expedited legislative rules. In short, Congress would be voting up or down to continue or stop wasteful spending.

CARFA's main focus would be to make our government smarter and more effective and also to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to support programs such as the Federal Tea-taster, who until 1995 headed the Board of Tea Experts, which was created by the Imported Tea Act of 1897. Until this program's elimination just 8 short years ago, the Federal Government was spending $120,000 in salary and operating expenses per year to taste tea.

Obviously, this is only one example of the type of program that CARFA would target, but I am convinced that our Federal Government is replete with programs such as this that make a mockery out of our hard-earned tax dollars and that dramatically increase the costs of doing business in this country. Other examples of government waste that CARFA would target include surplus lands owned by the Department of Energy, which if sold would save taxpayers $12 million over 5 years. In addition, eliminating four duplicative bilingual education programs at the Department of Education would save taxpayers $800 million over a 5-year period. We could save $1 million every year by simply eliminating overlapping responsibilities and reducing administrative positions at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The examples of inefficiency and wasteful government practices that CARFA could target are far too numerous to cite in this short amount of time. However, it is clear to me that the need for CARFA is very real.

The strict time limits governing the commission which would expire shortly after submitting its findings would ensure that its costs are kept to a minimum. I believe that the savings that would occur as a result of the commission's findings will more than justify the minimal expenses the study might incur. In addition, it is worth noting that CARFA requires that all funds saved by implementation of this plan can only, only, be used for supporting other domestic programs or paying down the national debt.

H.R. 3213 offers Congress and the administration a test: Can we address a real and present problem by adopting a method that has been successful in the past? CARFA is a realistic plan that will make genuine reform possible. We welcome support of this politically viable solution to government spending gone awry. If the CARFA commission comes to fruition, it will give Congress arms-length distance to do the right thing and vote down ridiculous, redundant, and outdated programs. Over 65 of my colleagues in the House have agreed to cosponsor this legislation, and our numbers are growing stronger. We hope to see the CARFA commission hard at work cutting wasteful spending and eliminating burdensome overregulation by this time next year if not sooner.

So in summary, Mr. Speaker, we have seen that, over the last generation, Congress through good intentions has created barriers to keeping and creating jobs in America. Republicans in the House have come up with a plan of dividing these barriers into eight issues, and over a period of 8 weeks we are going to address each one of these issues with the purpose of creating high-quality, high-paying jobs right here in America and bringing jobs home, jobs that we have lost due to the acts of Congress and the regulations and policies and rules that have followed these acts of Congress.

Again, Mr. Speaker, those eight issues are health care security, bureaucratic red tape termination, lifelong learning, trade fairness and opportunity, tax relief and simplification, energy self-sufficiency and security, spurring innovation, and ending lawsuit abuse.

Last week we dealt with health care security by passing health care liability reform and by passing Flexible Savings Accounts and Medical Savings Accounts.

This week we have dealt with bureaucratic red tape termination. We passed four bills relating to OSHA and the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvement Act 2030.

Next week we are in recess, so the following week we are going to deal with lifelong learning. It is our intent during that week to focus on those types of training and education that we believe will bring more jobs into America. We want to focus on math, on science, on engineering. We want to develop a system where we can teach our young men and women to be technical in their training, so they can be innovative and ready to accept the jobs that will be created by reducing these other burdens. So lifelong learning will be the week next after we are on recess.

So, Mr. Speaker, these eight issues are going to be dealt with. They are not easily overcome by businesses, small and large, because they are things they cannot control. Businesses can control wages, they can control overhead, but they cannot control their health care costs, they cannot control the bureaucratic red tape that burdens them down every day, they cannot control the trade issues and policies, they cannot control the energy policy we have and they cannot control the lawsuits that come and haunt them. So we intend to address these issues.

This is the debate that we should be having on the floor of the House now. This is how we are going to secure a future for our children and our grandchildren. We are going to, if successful, create a strong economy in the future, where they can either start a business or get a job.

For those who are in opposition to these issues, I want to ask you, why would you oppose an energy policy that would create 700,000 more jobs in America? Why would you oppose reducing red tape so we can create additional work in areas where we do not have jobs now? Why would you want to oppose lawsuit reform, because right now it is driving jobs overseas?

The Republicans in the House want to bring jobs back into America. This is our plan. It is the most aggressive and organized plan that we have ever had for bringing jobs back to America. I am very proud to head up this effort through a Jobs Action Team.

Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to be successful in bringing jobs back.

Mr. Chairman, today we are debating a bill that claims to improve Federal regulations, reduce red tape and paperwork. Unfortunately, the substance and the timing of this bill make it clear that we are engaged not in public policy but in public relations.

This bill is part of the congressional Republicans' Hire Our Workers plan, also called the HOW plan. This is a public relations strategy designed to make the public think that Republicans in Congress have a plan to increase jobs and revive the economy, but in reality the plan is all show and no substance.

My Republican colleagues are going to spend a lot of time today talking about their opposition to paperwork, but here is what they will not tell us. The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have presided over record increases in paperwork. President Bush consistently rails against paperwork. He urged paperwork reductions as a Presidential candidate, as President-elect, in every year of his administration, and on at least seven separate occasions thus far this year. Just 2 months ago, President Bush said: ``We need to stop harassing small business owners and entrepreneurs with endless amounts of regulation and paperwork.''

So how do his policies match up? Last year Americans spent 700 million more hours filling out government forms than they did during the last year of the Clinton administration. This was not an accident, and it was not the product of an out-of-control bureaucracy. Most of the increase came from legislation supported by the administration and passed by the Republican majority in the Congress. In fact, the major culprits are the tax bills that President Bush promoted and Congress passed.

The administration and the Republican leadership are putting this bill before the Congress so they proclaim they are doing something about governmental red tape.

They are doing something. They are increasing record levels of the amount of paperwork that we have to deal with.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I released a reported today that documents how paperwork has increased under the Bush administration, and I am going to insert this report with my comments today. What is happening on paperwork is just like what has happened on so many other issues. The President says he is a fiscal conservative, but he has driven our Nation deep into debt. The President says he is behind education, he is the Education President, but he will not fund the No Child Left Behind Act.

And with this bill we see that when the President says he will cut paperwork, what actually happens is that he increases paperwork.

This public relations campaign on paperwork is especially distressing because there are real regulatory problems this Congress is ignoring. These include the increased politicization of science and the undue influence of special interests. But unless we adopt the amendment that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I will be offering, this bill will do nothing to address these fundamental problems. This legislation will not improve the economy, reduce paperwork, or enhance the well-being of this country. It will only make it harder for agencies to carry out their mandates to protect public health, the environment, and other values. This Congress should be taking real action to address real problems.

I urge my colleagues to vote for our amendment when we offer it later in the debate.

House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform--Minority

Staff, Special Investigations Division, Revised May 2004

Government Paperwork Burdens Have Increased Substantially Under the

Bush Administration

(Prepared for Representative John F. Tierney, Representative Henry A.

Waxman)

Executive Summary

President Bush has made reducing the burdens of completing

government paperwork a key item in his economic agenda. In

speech after speech, he emphasizes that ``we must reduce

unnecessary government regulation and red tape so businesses

can focus on consumers and customers, not paperwork.''

Contrary to the President's rhetoric, however, total

government paperwork has increased substantially under the

Bush Administration to an estimated 8.1 billion hours in

fiscal year 2003. Last year, Americans spent over 700 million

more hours filing out government paperwork than in the last

year of the Clinton Administration. The largest annual

increase in paperwork burden ever measured occurred under the

Bush Administration in fiscal year 2002.

Government paperwork increased again in fiscal year 2003.

In its most recent data on paperwork burdens, the Bush

Administration relies on ``adjustments'' to show a nominal

reduction in the federal paperwork burden in fiscal year

2003. However, adjustments in agency paperwork estimates do

not necessarily reflect any actual reduction in the number of

hours that Americans spend filling out paperwork. Focusing on

the real impacts on Americans, GAO reports that ``[d]uring

fiscal year 2003, the total paperwork burden, exclusive of

adjustments, increased again by about 72 million burden

hours.''

Statutory changes promoted by President Bush and enacted by

Congress, particularly to the tax code, are among the largest

sources of the increased paperwork burden. The Administration

is also pursuing new regulatory changes that will impose

additional paperwork burdens on Americans, including

increased paperwork requirements for low-income families.

I. President Bush's Promises To Reduce Paperwork

President George W. Bush has frequently criticized the

amount of ``paperwork'' required by the federal government.

From the very outset of his campaign for the presidency,

President Bush emphasized his commitment to reduce government

paperwork. In an address in Los Angeles in September 1999,

for example, President Bush said:

``The only thing we know for sure is that federal money

comes with a lot of regulations and paperwork. By one

estimate, this consumes about 50 million hours each year--the

equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees just to process the

forms. . . . New layers of federal mandates and procedures

have been added to the old until their original purpose is

long forgotten. It is a sad story of high hopes, how

achievement, grand plans, and unmet goals. My administration

will do things differently.''

Since being elected, President Bush has continued to

promise to reduce government paperwork burdens. He argues

that paperwork ``stifle[s] innovation and the entrepreneurial

spirit,'' and he has said that ``we must reduce unnecessary

government regulation and red tape so businesses can focus on

consumers and customers, not paperwork.''

In a speech last December, President Bush stated:

``And a lot of times government has a tendency to over-

regulate, which is a non-productive cost to these small

business owners who would rather be employing people and

making it easier for somebody to find work, than filling out

reams of paperwork that probably doesn't get read anyway.''

President Bush has repeatedly stated his commitment to

reducing federal paperwork requirements and he made doing so

a key element of his ``Six-Point Plan for the Economy.'' In

September 2003, President Bush stated: ``We need to

continue to work for regulatory relief on small and large

businesses, so that instead of filing needless paperwork,

you're working to make your work force more productive and

to meet the needs of your customers.'' In November 2003,

he stated: ``We've got to cut useless government

regulations. We need to do it at the federal level. . . .

We need to make sure our entrepreneurs are focused on job

creation, not filling out needless paperwork.'' In March

2004, President Bush reiterated these points:

I bet you spend a lot of time filling out paperwork. I bet

not much of your paperwork is ever read. The government needs

to let you focus on your business, on developing goods and

services. It needs to let you focus on hiring people, rather

than spending hours filling out paperwork. In order for us to

keep jobs here at home and expand the job base, we need

better regulatory policy at the federal, state, and local

level.

Just over a month ago, President Bush said: ``We need to

stop harassing small business owners and entrepreneurs with

endless amounts of regulation and paperwork.''

President Bush has also touted actions he has taken to

reduce paperwork. In May 2003, he highlighted the

establishment of a task force on reducing paperwork:

To enhance economic security for working people throughout

the economy we must reduce the burden of regulation and

litigation on small businesses as well. Employers don't want

to spend their time and resources filling out forms or

fighting junk lawsuits. They want to be out on the shop floor

or behind the cash register creating profits and jobs. And

that is why this administration has launched a task force to

find ways to reduce paperwork and small-business owners in

America. We must enact regulatory and lawsuit reforms so that

our business owners can do what they do best: create jobs.

In June 2003, President Bush took credit for an executive

order that purported to reduce paperwork burdens, stating:

``I'm concerned and mindful about what paperwork and

regulations do to small businesses. So I put down an

executive order that requires all federal regulatory agencies

to minimize the burden on our small businesses.''

II. Paperwork increase under the Bush Administration

There is a large gap between President Bush's rhetoric

about the need for paperwork reduction and the performance of

his Administration. According to data from the General

Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget,

the burden of government paperwork on American citizens has

actually increased substantially under the Bush

Administration. At the same time as President Bush has been

promising to reduce paperwork burdens, Americans are actually

spending more time doing paperwork than ever before.

A. The Requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act

The primary tool for measuring and controlling paperwork

requirements imposed by federal law and regulations is the

Paperwork Reduction Act. Collecting information is essential

for the government to collect taxes, administer programs, and

enforce laws. The Paperwork Reduction Act aims to make these

information collections as efficient as possible. It requires

agencies to estimate the time it will take to fill out a form

or otherwise provide information to the government, obtain

approvals of larger information collection requests from the

Office of Management and Budget, and reduce the overall hours

of paperwork by a given percent each year.

Each agency is required to submit a report each year

providing the number of paperwork burden hours that the

agency imposed during the previous year. The annual PRA

reports from each federal agency provide a picture of the

total hours of paperwork required by the federal government.

For the past several years, GAO has analyzed these reports

annually at Congress' request. This report relies on the

analyses provided by GAO, as well as data provided to

Congress from the Office of Management and Budget.

B. Total Paperwork Burdens

The annual paperwork burden today is over 700 million

burden hours higher than it was when President Bush took

office. In fiscal year 2000, the annual paperwork burden

imposed by the federal government was measured at about 7.4

billion hours. By the end of fiscal year 2003, the annual

paperwork burden stood at 8.1 billion burden hours. This is

an increase of nearly 10%.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accounts for more

paperwork than any other federal agency, with 81% of the

total paperwork hours. In contrast, EPA currently accounts

for only 1.8% of federal paperwork burden, and the Department

of Labor, including OSHA, accounts for only 2.0% of federal

paperwork burden.

C. A Record Increase in Paperwork Burdens in Fiscal Year 2002

The first two years of the Bush Administration saw large

increases in the number of hours of paperwork burden. In

fiscal year 2001, the federal government required 7.6 billion

hours of paperwork, an increase of 290 million hours from the

year before.

In fiscal year 2002, the increase in the paperwork burden

was approximately 570 million hours. Almost 300 million hours

of this increase was due to program changes that added or

reinstated paperwork obligations. This was the largest

increase in paperwork since the Paperwork Reduction Act was

amended in 1995. The total paperwork burden for fiscal year

2002 was 8.2 billion hours.

D. Increases in Paperwork Burdens in Fiscal Year 2003

This year, the Administration is reporting a small decline

in the overall number of reported paperwork burden hours from

last year's record high of 8.2 billion hours to 8.1 billion

hours.

According to the General Accounting Office, however,

``[t]his year, the story, while on the surface may appear

encouraging, is not.'' GAO's analysis reveals that the

purported drop in government paperwork is entirely due to

``adjustments'' that ``are not the result of direct federal

government action but rather are caused by factors such as .

. . agency reestimates of the burden associated with a

collection of information.'' GAO concludes that ``[d]uring

fiscal year 2003 the total paperwork burden, exclusive of

adjustments, increased again by about 72 million burden

hours.''

E. Causes of the Paperwork Increases

Much of the increases in paperwork burden since fiscal year

2000 has been driven by statutory changes proposed by the

Administration and passed by Congress.

The largest sources of statutory increases in paperwork

have been the recent tax law changes, which have introduced

substantial additional complexity and burden for individuals

and small businesses in filling out

their tax forms. For example, Americans spent an additional

330 million hours filling out tax paperwork in fiscal year

2002, with the implementation of the Economic Growth and Tax

Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and other IRS regulations.

Similarly, the IRS reports that its implementation of the

Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003

``generated an estimated 113.9 million additional hours of

burden.''

One example of the increased paperwork is the changes to

the taxation of capital gains in the Jobs and Growth Tax

Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. To implement these

provisions, the IRS made numerous changes to Form 1040, Form

1040A, and associated schedules. Among other changes, the IRS

added 13 extra lines to Schedule D, which taxpayers must file

to report their capital gains and losses. Overall, just this

portion of the paperwork changes driven by the Jobs and

Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 increased the

paperwork burden for individual taxpayers by over 16 million

hours in fiscal year 2003. For families with modest incomes

and few capital gains, the increased paperwork burdens

significantly offset any benefit from the capital gains tax

reductions.

The paperwork increases have also hit small businesses.

Together the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of

2003 and the 2000 Community Renewal Act added complexity to

Form 1120S and its associated schedules. These forms are used

by S corporations, which are often small businesses or the

self-employed. Due to these added complexities, S corporation

filers spent almost 12 million additional hours filling out

tax forms in fiscal year 2003.

F. Increases in Future Paperwork Burdens

Additional paperwork increases are likely in fiscal year

2004 and future years under policies being pursued by the

Bush Administration. For example, the Bush Administration

will require labor unions to report extensive new financial

information starting in fiscal year 2004. Under the new rule,

all unions with annual receipts of at least $250,000 will be

required to report almost all of their receipts and

disbursements. It is estimated that roughly 4,500 labor

organizations will have to comply with this requirement, only

65 of which are large international unions. One union, the

Airline Pilots Association, estimates that the required

reports will produce 15,863 pages, or about five-and-a-half

feet of paper, each year.

Based on a survey of unions, the new reporting requirements

were estimated to cost unions somewhere in the range of $700

million to $1.1 billion per year. The same report estimated

that fullfilling the new reporting requirements would require

on average, roughly 353 hours per union employee, per year.

The Bush Administration is also currently testing new

paperwork requirements for low- and moderate-income families

to demonstrate their eligibility for the Child Tax Credit

portion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. This is an important

tax credit for workers in low wage jobs and the recently

unemployed who have children to support.

Under the pilot program that applies to 50,000 individuals,

persons seeking the credit must supply proof from a third

party that the child they are claiming under the Earned

Income Tax Credit lived with them for more than six months in

that year. The individual must produce official records

meeting the proof requirements, an affidavit from a third

party, signed under penalty of perjury, or a letter on

official letterhead from a third party, such as a landlord or

social service agency employee. The IRS estimates that this

new requirement imposes an additional 40 minutes of paperwork

burden for each person filling out these forms.

III. Conclusion

As a candidate, George Bush railed against government

paperwork burdens and promised that ``[m]y administration

will do things differently.'' As President, Mr. Bush

continues to urge reductions in government paperwork burdens.

But in practice, the Bush Administration has actually

increased paperwork burdens. Today, Americans are filling out

far more paperwork under the Bush Administration than ever

before.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes of debate time.

H.R. 2432, the bill that is before us today, is intended to improve the way that Federal agencies create and implement regulations, but in its current form this legislation will do nothing to address the most serious threat to the integrity of the regulatory process: political interference with science.

Without good science for policymakers, we cannot make the best policy judgments. We as policymakers or the regulatory agencies need good science, science that has not been interfered with by politicians. That is why the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I are offering this amendment to establish an independent commission to investigate whether science is being politicized and to make recommendations to Congress to protect scientific integrity.

This amendment responds to the concerns of the scientific community. Twenty Nobel Laureates, major scientific organizations, and leading scientific and medical journals have protested a pattern of political interference with science by the Bush administration. This pattern has involved gagging scientists, suppressing research, and rewriting reports to eliminate scientific answers that conflict with the administration's political or ideological agenda. It has also involved misleading the public and Congress on key scientific facts, manipulating performance measures for ideologically favored programs, and stacking advisory committees, scientific advisory committees stacked with people who will come up with the right political answer.

The Bush administration's interference with science has undermined efforts to protect the public's health, safeguard the environment, and even provide accurate information about the war on terrorism. We have a report that we have prepared called ``Politics and Science in the Bush Administration,'' and it goes through a whole pattern of interference with scientific decisions.

We have heard about the interference with scientific research at the National Institutes of Health. We have heard about suppression of information where the environmental scientist wanted to talk about the global warming issue, but their report was taken out of the overall category of information about environmental problems in this country. We know that this administration favors the kinds of programs that would talk about abstinence for sex for teenagers, and they do not want to really talk about some of the other programs that have a broader perspective, including family planning.

But even in the last couple of days, we have another example where we even are seeing that accurate information that is needed for us to have about the war on terrorism is being stopped. The State Department did a report on patterns of global terrorism; and according to the report, terrorist attacks fell to a record low in 2003. At the press conference releasing the report, Deputy Secretary Armitage said: ``You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight.''

But this is a fabrication resulting from manipulation of the data. In fact, significant terrorist attacks reached a 20-year high in 2003. It is deplorable

that this administration would manipulate data to make it seem like terrorism is less a threat than ever when, in reality, the very opposite is true.

I ask my colleagues today to join me in supporting this amendment. It is supported by a wide range of groups, including the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Respect for evidence and the scientific process is not a partisan issue. I urge that we take the responsible step of supporting an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the politicization of science and restore scientific integrity across the Federal Government.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the August report was updated on November 13, 2003. They are practically identical reports.

Whatever the amendment provides. It does not make too much difference. It is the same report with the same substance outlining the political interference with science by the Bush administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that science has already been politicized by the Bush administration, and that is what our report has pointed out. This report was favorably received in the leading scientific journal Nature. It was cited dozens of times in scientific and medical literature, including the New England Journal of Medicine and Science.

The issue that we pointed out is named the fifth most important story of 2003 by Discover magazine. When we point out how the Bush administration has politicized science, we are accused of being supporters of left-wing organizations and we should not politicize science.

Let us get an independent, bipartisan commission to review whether science has been manipulated and distorted and otherwise subjected to political pressures by this administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

There is no transparency when this administration appoints people to a lead poisoning scientific committee and puts a person on who represents the industry point of view, comes right from the industry, and then comes in and recommends a level of lead that is harmful to kids.

It is not transparency when references to global warming are taken out at the insistence of the White House, the EPA administrator is forced to drop it out of his or her analysis of overall problems.

It is not transparency when we have Web sites that say to women, you should worry about having an abortion because it could lead to breast cancer when there is no scientific basis for it.

What we have is continuous interference in scientific decisions by the political people in this administration.

We need to respond to the concerns that have been raised by 20 Nobel laureates, by Science Magazine, Nature Magazine, New England Journal of Medicine, leading scientific organizations, including the American Academy For the Advancement of Science, by making sure that we have good scientific data, not politicized scientific data.

We are calling for a bipartisan commission to examine this politicization of science that we are now seeing so frequently by this administration, so that we can stop it and let the policymakers make the decision based on good science.

Our country is losing its edge as a leader in science because scientists do not want to work in an atmosphere where an administration wants to just do favors for the right-wing religious extremists who want to stop science that might offend their notions of what they think is appropriate. And they do not want to work for an administration in the scientific area where industry groups that reward this administration with campaign contributions are rewarded by having the science distorted to suit their needs.

I ask for support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise to address H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004. We are talking about this bill today because House Republicans are concerned that they are being criticized for the millions of jobs that have been lost under this administration.

House Republicans have decided that instead of taking action to create jobs, they would make a plan to talk about taking action to create jobs. Each week they have a different theme. This week they are talking about cutting red tape. The bill we are considering, however, does nothing to cut red tape.

As we will hear later from the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), this bill does nothing to reduce the hours that Americans spend filling out paperwork. In fact, the hours Americans must spend filling out paperwork has increased dramatically under the Bush administration.

This bill will also do nothing to improve the regulations issued by the Bush administration. In fact, some provisions of the bill will actually make the regulatory process worse.

I have a letter that I would like to enter into the Record to appear after my statement, Mr. Chairman, from the League of Conservation Voters opposing this bill. This letter states, ``At best, this bill would result in a waste of money at a time when Federal resources are shrinking; at worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections for millions of Americans.''

The League of Conservation Voters also expresses in their letter support for an amendment the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I are offering that would establish an independent commission of distinguished experts to investigate the politicization of science in the regulatory process. The League of Conservation Voters thinks this is such an

important issue that Members may find their votes in the League of Conservation Voters scorecard.

Leading scientists, including 20 Nobel Laureates, have said the political and ideological distortion of science is a major block to effective government action on a wide range of health and environmental issues. This administration is injecting itself into the regulatory process to manipulate science and to manipulate agency regulations to suit industry.

Over and over we hear about agency proposals that are rewritten by the Office of Management and Budget to fit the needs of industry without regard to the expertise of agency scientists and other experts. The administration's proposal on mercury pollution is one recent example. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) will describe these particular problems in more detail at a later time.

We should not be here just talking about cutting red tape, Mr. Chairman. We should not be passing legislation that will weaken important regulatory protections that aim to ensure a safe and healthy environment for our children. What we should be doing is taking positive steps to make the regulatory process better for all Americans.

League of Conservation Voters,

May 18, 2004.

Re: Oppose H.R. 2342, Support the Waxman (D-CA)/Tierney (D-

MA) Amendment

U.S. House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representatives: The League of Conservation Voters

(LCV) is the political voice of the national environmental

community. Each year, LCV publishes the National

Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of

Members of Congress on environmental legislation. The

Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters

nationwide, and the press.

LCV urges you to oppose H.R. 2432, which would require the

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to assess the

feasibility of imposing regulatory budgeting on major

agencies. Regulatory budgeting is a misguided concept that

elevates the interests of regulated industries over all other

considerations. At best, this bill would result in a waste of

money at a time when federal resources are shrinking; at

worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections for

millions of Americans.

Regulatory budgeting caps the costs that government can

impose on the private sector each year, regardless of the

need for public protections. Under this system, once the

``budgeted'' cap has been reached, agencies must cease

fulfilling their mandates--polluters get a free pass,

workplaces go unprotected, and hazardous foods move into

commerce.

OMB should be directed to account for actions that have

taken place over the past three years as scores of critical

safeguards have been weakened, rescinded, or abandoned in

progress. LCV has noted with alarm the accumulating threat to

public health and the environment caused by the rollback of

regulations intended, to prevent destruction of the ozone

layer, reduce air pollution, prevent neurological harm to

children, reduce public exposure to toxins and contaminants,

preserve crucial habitat for endangered species, ensure clean

drinking water.

LCV supports the Waxman-Tierney Amendment to create a

Commission on Politicization of Science in the Regulatory

Process. The Commission would evaluate regulatory activities

to determine the extent to which political considerations

have undermined the quality and use of the science, and

report within 18 months. This commission will address

concerns among scientists and government professionals that

political considerations are unduly influencing regulatory

decisions.

Americans expect that the science used in development of

regulations is not colored by politics. Please oppose H.R.

2432 and support the Waxman Amendment. LCV's Political

Advisory Committee may consider including votes on this issue

in compiling LCV's 2003 Scorecard. If you need more

information, please call Betsy Loyless in my office at (202)

785-8683.

Sincerely,

Deb Callahan,

President.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, as I noted, under this administration, we have had the largest increases in the number of hours of paperwork burden ever.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleague to stay around for the amendment that the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I will present to talk about politicization of particular projects and policies.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to be amused by the railing on the other side of all this paperwork burden as if they did not understand that the cause of that was their own administration. The President ran on a platform of cutting back the regulatory burden on businesses; and if you go back in history during that period of time before 2000, you can see speech after speech telling us how terrible the paperwork burden was and what he was going to do to improve it. But the fact of the matter is if you look at the report done for the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and for me, it states clearly, ``The annual paperwork hours today is over 700 million burden hours higher than it was when President Bush took office.'' In the year 2000, it increased by 7.4 billion hours. In 2003 it went up to 8.1 billion hours. It is an increase of over 10 percent.

The Internal Revenue Service accounts for more paperwork than any other Federal agency with 81 percent of the total paperwork burden hours. Yet that is exactly where most of the increases came. The largest sources of statutory increases in paperwork have been the recent tax law changes. They have been introduced and made a substantial additional complexity and burden for individuals and small businesses in filling out their tax forms.

And that, Mr. Chairman, is the reason for the increase.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Yes, I have additional speakers coming.

Mr. Chairman, I have two more speakers on their way over.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate some of the things I may have touched on earlier and maybe one new point. The bill that we are talking about here today really does not reduce paperwork or improve the regulatory process. One of the problems it has, it talks about a study on regulatory budgeting, but yet it does not define the term ``regulatory budget.''

In prior hearings, the subcommittee chairman indicated he thought this was going to set a cap on the cost that an agency's combined regulations could impose on the public. An agency with a regulatory budget would then face an arbitrarily set cap on how much its regulations could cost industry in any given year; and under that system, no consideration whatsoever would be given to why the regulation was needed. Once the agency hit that cost cap, it cannot issue any more regulations even if another regulation is needed to save lives, prevent injuries, protect our environment, or improve homeland security.

One good example of this is the EPA recently announced its new clean air, nonroad diesel rule that, according to the EPA, will cut emissions from industrial and other diesel-powered equipment by over 90 percent. If the EPA had a regulatory budget and had reached its cap for the year, it would not have been able to issue that rule, no matter how necessary the rule or how much pollution it would have cleaned up. That essentially is one of the major problems with this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I think that we cannot allow that type of a study to even start down that path. We do not want to be measuring things just on costs, without factoring in safety obligations and other improvements in homeland security, our environment and preventing injuries.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

I just say, Mr. Chairman, I think we have heard adequate reasons here why this bill comes up short in what would be a help in any sense in types of burden relief. It does have to be a situation where we are concerned about who is responsible.

One of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle raised that issue that we should not be, but hopefully, we need to enlist the support of this administration and a majority here to help get the burden down, and this administration has had record increases in paperwork burdens, mostly because of the Internal Revenue Code changes that they have made, which have substantially added to that situation.

Not only did it not address the recession and not address the job losses, which have been historic, it also failed to do anything about reducing paperwork burdens and, in fact, increased that substantially.

So I think that this debate has made that clear, Mr. Chairman. I would advise folks to please read the report the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I had done and introduced in the Record and vote against this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition; and though I rise to claim the time in opposition, we do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, Congress did create a 3-year pilot program in the Truth in Regulating Act, the so-called TIRA act, of 2000. That required the General Accounting Office to report on economically significant rules, if asked by the chairman or the ranking minority member. Authorization for funding was included in the bill; but, unfortunately, during the entire 3-year pilot program, Congress never appropriated any money to fund the project. Because of this, the pilot program never happened.

The bill before us today would make this pilot project permanent, oddly enough. The amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) would provide authorization of $5 million each year to fund the project; but the General Accounting Office has said it would need $8 million in actual funds,

not just promised funds, in order to perform the extra work required in this provision.

What the General Accounting Office really supports is making this provision a pilot project instead of making it permanent, which seems to make eminent sense, given the fact that the original pilot program was not able to be conducted. We should fund the pilot program and find out whether it even works before we make it permanent.

Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record a May 11, 2004, letter from the General Accounting Office comptroller, David Walker, to the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). In this letter, Mr. Walker writes, and I quote, ``If Congress wants TIRA to continue, we believe it should do so as a pilot project rather than as permanent authority.''

The entire letter is as follows, Mr. Chairman:

United States General

Accounting Office,

Washington, DC, May 11, 2004.

Hon. Tom Davis,

Chairman, Committee on Government Reform, House of

Representatives.

Dear Mr. Chairman: The Truth in Regulating Act of 2000

(TIRA), Pub. L. No. 106-312, 114 Stat. 1248 (Oct. 17, 2000),

became effective on January 15, 2001. (Codified at 5 U.S.C.

Sec. 801 note.) TIRA contemplated a 3-year pilot project,

during which GAO would perform independent evaluations of

``economically significant'' agency rules when requested by a

chairman or ranking member of a committee of jurisdiction of

either House of Congress. The independent evaluation would

include an evaluation of the agency's analysis of the

potential benefits, potential costs, and alternative

approaches considered during the rulemaking proceeding. Under

TIRA, GAO was required to report on our evaluations within

180 calendar days after we received a committee request.

Section 6(b) of the Act, however, provided that the pilot

project would continue only if, in each fiscal year, ``a

specific annual appropriation not less than $5,200,000 or the

pro-rated equivalent thereof shall have been made for the

pilot project.'' Section 6(c) of the Act directed GAO to

submit to Congress, before the conclusion of the 3-year

period, ``a report reviewing the effectiveness of the pilot

project and recommending whether or not Congress should

permanently authorize the pilot project.'' During the 3-year

period contemplated for the pilot project, Congress did not

enact any specific appropriation to cover TIRA evaluations.

The authority for the 3-year pilot project expired on January

15, 2004.

On June 11, 2003, Congressman Ose introduced H.R. 2432

that, in section 5, would make TIRA's pilot permanent. In

August 2003, GAO provided staff of Congressman Ose with

amendments to H.R. 2432 to make clear that the same

limitation enacted in TIRA would continue if H.R. 2432 was

enacted, that is, GAO could not conduct any TIRA evaluations

without a specific appropriation enacted by Congress. (GAO's

proposed amendment enclosed.)

The GAO has conducted no TIRA evaluation. Therefore, in our

view, if Congress wants TIRA to continue, we believe it

should do so as a pilot project rather than as a permanent

authority. Moreover, we cannot support any proposal to make

TIRA permanent, such as H.R. 2432, without the inclusion of

language that makes clear that a specific appropriation must

be enacted before GAO can conduct TIRA reviews. In a recent

GAO report, we noted that the Office of Information and

Regulatory Analysis within the Office of Management and

Budget (OMB) has reviewed approximately 600 ``economically

significant'' rules a year since 1994. While realistically

GAO would only be asked to review selected rules, any

expansion of GAO's scope without additional dedicated

resources would pose a serious problem for us, especially in

light of what will likely be increasing budgetary

constraints. It would also likely serve to adversely affect

our ability to provide the same level of service to the

Congress in connection with our existing statutory

authorities.

TIRA evaluations will require a significant amount of

resources that cannot be absorbed within, for example, GAO's

fiscal year 2004 appropriation, given the substantial present

workload at GAO, our current backlog of pending requests, and

the anticipated need for contracting for specialized

expertise to assist us in our evaluations of particular

rules. Accordingly, we respectfully request that H.R. 24321

be amended to condition GAO's obligation to conduct

independent evaluations on the enactment of a separate and

specific annual appropriation. To cover the cost of such work

we propose an amendment to H.R. 2432 authorizing an annual

appropriation of $8,000,000 for fiscal year 2005.

Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.

Sincerely yours,

David M. Walker,

Comptroller General of the United States.

Enclosure.

amendments to the truth in lending regulating act

Section 5 of Public Law 106-312 is amending by striking

everything after the heading and inserting the following:

(a) There are authorized to be appropriated to the General

Accounting Office to carry out this Act $8,000,000 for fiscal

year 2005.

(b) For each fiscal year thereafter, there are authorized

to be appropriated an amount equal to the prior fiscal year's

authorization plus an amount calculated by multiplying the

prior year's authorization by the change in the Consumer

Price Index as prepared by the Department of Labor for that

fiscal year.

Section 6 of Public Law 106-312 is amended by striking

subsection (b) and inserting the following new subsection

(b):

(b)(1) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in

the General Accounting Office's appropriation for fiscal year

2005 of not less than $8,000,000 for this purpose, the

General Accounting Office shall not conduct in fiscal year

2005 any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act.

(2) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in the

General Accounting Office's appropriation for each fiscal

year thereafter of not less than the amount authorized for

that fiscal year by section 5(b) for that purpose, the

General Accounting Office shall not conduct in that fiscal

year any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act.

The underlying bill that we are considering has other problems also, Mr. Chairman, and I will mention those briefly.

One is the provision that would require targeted agencies to participate in a study on regulatory budgeting. And I talked a little about this in the last session we had. An agency with a regulatory budget faces an arbitrary cap on how much its regulations can cost industry. The benefits of regulation, such as saving lives or preventing injuries, are not even considered under such a regulatory budget.

A study of regulatory budgeting may seem harmless enough, but it actually is not. It is one step down the path of regulatory budgeting that would be a step too far. The underlying bill requires every agency to submit every year to the Office of Management and Budget the annual costs and benefits of all rules and paperwork, to the extent feasible, for the entire agency and every program.

Mr. Chairman, I am concerned the committee report states this provision, and I quote, ``requires Federal agencies to submit annual estimates of the costs and benefits associated with the Federal rules and paperwork for each of their agency programs.''

We have not offered an amendment to strike this provision because the committee majority informed us before we considered the bill that this provision is not intended to require agencies to conduct any extra cost-benefit evaluation beyond that which they already prepare. Expanding the use of cost-benefit analysis would divert resources from the work that agencies are supposed to be doing to carry out their core missions, and it would not add value or improve the quality of decision-making in the regulatory process.

I could go on, Mr. Chairman, with the problems in this bill; but the bottom line is this bill does nothing to improve the regulatory process and could, in fact, result in a worsening of the regulatory process.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will just use the couple of remaining moments to talk about something that both of the last speakers raised.

I think it is important to note that while we are all concerned about paperwork burdens, especially on small businesses, the Internal Revenue Service accounts for more paperwork than any other Federal agency. It is 81 percent of the total paperwork hours. In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency only accounts for 1.8 percent of Federal paperwork burden; the Department of Labor, including OSHA, only accounts for 2 percent of the Federal paperwork burden. So, again, we get back to the point that if we really want to do something about this, we could look at the tax bills that were passed by this administration which increased the paperwork burden 290 million hours in one year and 570 million in another year and continue to be going at a record pace.

We should be concerned about that, and we should be concerned again about the regulatory budget aspect that is being suggested in this bill. Again, it does not do enough to take care of the issue of regulations needing to be in place to save lives, to prevent injuries, to protect our environment, or to improve homeland security. All of those things must be factored in every bit as much as the dollar cost. And this whole idea of regulatory budgeting would not allow for that. It would in that sense be counterproductive and against the interests of the American people.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am always amazed to see how frightening it is for our colleagues to be confronted with a nonpartisan study, and that would be by a commission that was appointed by the President and by members of that party and members of this party.

One of the speakers talked about this being political and partisan. Basically, we are in an atmosphere here that is political by nature. It is our obligation, if the President is putting a twist onto different regulations and either avoiding their implementation or manipulating them and missing science altogether, our obligation is to make sure this is set right; and a commission should look at it to make sure that all regulations are either enforced or implemented based on good, hard science and not ideology and politics, as many are accusing the President of doing.

We should not stop with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We should go on to the New York Times that editorialized that ``the administration belittled, misrepresented, altered, or quashed multiple reports suggesting a clear link between greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.''

The Chattanooga Free Press wrote that ``the Bush administration has elevated its political agenda, ideology and vested interests over substantive scientific concerns about the environmental and health consequences of its policies.''

Citing the manipulation of data on caribou in the ANWR and the firing of qualified experts from a lead poisoning advisory committee, the Boston Globe concluded ``at a time when so many issues are grounded in laboratory or field work, this corrupting of scientific evidence misinforms lawmakers and the public and could make scientists unwilling to work for the government.''

And the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that ``the Bush administration is risking public trust in vital government agencies by putting scientific findings through a political and ideological shredder.''

The Kansas City Star declared that ``it is time for a thorough review.''

So it is not just the Democratic Party over here. I would assume there are members in the Republican Party who are sensible enough to want to have a good analysis of this done, and want to put aside all of the political shenanigans of this administration.

Across the country, editorial page after editorial page acknowledges this is the most political White House we have ever had on these issues; and everybody wants it to stop, stop taking these regulations and manipulating them to say something that is not true or accurate. Let us get the science right.

This is the perfect bill for this to be brought forward in. We are talking about regulations, and it is imperative that regulations are implemented in a proper way based on scientific evidence and not politics.

This White House has politicized this, not this party. I would think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if they have a shred of desire to see the integrity of this institution maintained, would join us and vote for this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to start by expressing my thanks to Chairman Davis for his kind remarks and for his generosity in allowing us to proceed on this work. I want to add the compliments to my good friend and ranking member from Massachusetts, who has endured the past number of years through hearing after hearing after hearing and whose insights and suggestions have been most helpful. I am grateful to Chairman Davis for his becoming an original cosponsor of this bill.

As I mentioned in my support for today's rule, last June, with bipartisan cosponsorship, I introduced this bill. It makes incremental improvements in the existing processes governing paperwork and regulations instead of fundamentally changing the role of Congress in its oversight of agency rules.

As to the bill itself, it includes the following legislative changes. First, it seeks to ensure reduction in tax paperwork burdens on small business. It seeks to assist Congress in its review of agency regulatory proposals. And it seeks to improve public and congressional understanding of the true costs and benefits of regulations. My manager's amendment makes no changes to sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the reported bill.

I will discuss the changes to sections 5 and 6, which I included based on specific requests from the General Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget.

As to section 3, let me offer that the overall burden of Federal paperwork and regulatory requirements is staggering and it is a real drain on job growth, productivity, and American competitiveness. Incredibly, Federal paperwork and regulatory burdens have increased, not decreased, in each of the last 8 years. This occurs irrespective of who is in the White House and who is in control of Congress. Currently, the Internal Revenue Service accounts for 80 percent of the total government-wide paperwork burden on the public of over 8 billion hours; that is billion with a ``b.'' To reduce paperwork, section 3 requires that OMB, after consultation with the IRS and two other identified Federal offices, review and report to Congress on actions that the IRS can take to reduce the paperwork burden imposed on small business. For example, the IRS could introduce thresholds below which reporting is not required, they change existing threshold levels, or they could change the reporting frequency, the periodicity at which reports must be submitted.

Section 5 provides for assistance to Congress in its review of agency regulatory proposals. It permanently establishes a regulatory analysis function in the General Accounting Office. In the Truth in Regulating Act of 2000, Congress authorized a 3-year pilot test for this regulatory analysis function, but unfortunately it was never funded. This was partly due to the fact that GAO intended to use contractors instead of in-house expert staff during the test period, which is understandable. They did not want to tool up and then have the pilot test not be funded in the future; so they chose, frankly, a more prudent manner in doing it. The problem is the work never got done because it never got funded. This bill would ensure that the GAO has the in-house expertise comparable to the expertise in the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and that such services can be provided to Congress as proposals come forward.

On the eve of last Wednesday's full committee markup, GAO submitted a letter requesting various changes in the bill. I did not include these changes in my manager's amendment during the markup because GAO had not provided certain information that my subcommittee had previously requested and which was important to the bill.

OMB's current line item budget for OIRA is $7 million. That is an annual budget. But OIRA has multiple functions besides review of agency paperwork and regulatory proposals and analyses. For example, OIRA is responsible for government-wide statistical policy, information policy, and information technology policy. Since GAO had not provided information about the share of OIRA's budget devoted to regulatory analysis activities, after the full committee markup I asked OMB what proportion of its budget is devoted to review of agency paperwork and regulatory proposals and the related regulatory analyses. The estimate came back at 65 to 70 percent.

As a consequence, my manager's amendment authorizes $5 million in fiscal year 2005 and each year thereafter for GAO to perform its independent evaluations at the request of Congress of certain economically significant rules. GAO will be reviewing the various agency analyses such as its regulatory impact analysis and its regulatory flexibility analysis, the regulatory alternatives considered by the

agency, and the legislative history to ensure that the proposed and final agency rules are consistent with congressional intent.

In addition, GAO asked me to include a delayed effective date of 90 days after enactment, and this provision is included in a new section 5(b).

Section 6 requires certain changes to improve regulatory accounting. In 1996 Congress required OMB to submit its first regulatory accounting report. In 1998 and 2000, Congress enacted additional legislation to make OMB's regulatory accounting reports more useful. Currently, OMB is required to estimate the total annual costs and benefits for all Federal rules and paperwork in the aggregate, by agency, by agency program, and by major rule, and to prepare an associated report on the impacts of Federal rules and paperwork on certain groups such as small business.

To date, OMB has issued six final and a seventh draft regulatory accounting report. Each of the seven did not meet one or more of the content requirements under current statute. Part of the reason for this incompleteness is that OMB has not requested agency estimates, as it does annually for its Information Collection Budget for paperwork and for the President's budget, the fiscal budget of the United States. Section 6(a) requires Federal agencies to annually submit estimates of the costs and benefits associated with the Federal rules and paperwork for each of their agency programs. The caveat for agency input to be provided ``to the extent feasible'' was added to ensure that no further burden on or cost to the agencies occurred.

Currently, the economic impacts of Federal regulation receive much less scrutiny than programs in the fiscal budget. Both the introduced and reported bill versions of H.R. 2432 required OMB to integrate its annual regulatory accounting statement into the fiscal budget so that Congress can review simultaneously both the on-budget and off-budget costs associated with each Federal agency imposing regulatory or paperwork burdens on the public.

Current law requires OMB to submit its regulatory accounting report ``with'' the budget instead of ``as part of'' the budget. However, OMB has never submitted its final accounting statement with the budget. In fact, only once has OMB even published its draft in the Federal Register on the same day as the budget was submitted to Congress. Not submitting the regulatory accounting statement at the same time as the budget or publishing it separately from the budget in the Federal Register has precluded a timely side-by-side comparison for analytic purposes of the on-budget and off-budget costs associated with each major regulatory agency and each of its regulatory programs.

Last July, OMB's OIRA administrator testified that ``OMB believes it could be feasible to issue a separate volume with the budget that contains the final regulatory accounting report and perhaps some related budget information for comparison purposes.''

Nonetheless, at the insistence of OMB, in a letter submitted yesterday to the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis), my manager's amendment reluctantly removes the integration requirement, taking from it the ``as part of'' language and leaving it as the ``with'' language. Congress still expects OMB to comply with the law, that is, to issue its final regulatory accounting statement and associated report at the same time as and in a document that accompanies the fiscal budget documents. The House report accompanying H.R. 2432, which is this legislation, provides ample justification for integration, including witness testimony in support of integration and my 9-page April 22, 2004, comment letter to OMB on its draft seventh regulatory accounting report.

Section 6(b) requires OMB to designate not less than three agencies, or perhaps offices within an agency, to participate in a study of regulatory accounting for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 and then report to Congress on this study. These test will determine if agencies can better manage regulatory burdens on the public. My manager's amendment ensures that OMB will consult with key congressional committees, the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Government Reform in the House and the Committees on the Budget and Governmental Affairs in the Senate.

H.R. 2432 focuses on process and should result in needed paperwork and regulatory relief especially for small business, and it will help Congress fulfill its constitutional role as a co-equal branch of government.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would just remind Members that this bill does not speak to any agency in specificity, but only to process.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), who also happens to be the distinguished vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on our side?

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) as to whether he has additional speakers.

Mr. Chairman, we are down to 3 minutes on our side.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes for each side for the purpose of debate on this bill.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. Under the general rules of debate within the Committee of the Whole, how might we address a shortage of time here treating each side equally?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo).

Mr. Chairman, might I inquire, I believe I have but 1 minute left?

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that I have the right to close?

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of the time to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) for the purpose of closing.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, this particular amendment is technical in nature. It conforms the text that was sent over from the committee to the expectations of everybody here on the floor. Specifically, it changes the applicable dates. In section 5, it changes the effective date of the GAO requirement to 90 days after the date of enactment. It deletes the integration requirement of the budget and regulatory accounting statement, and it includes consultation with the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Government Reform of the House and the Budget and Governmental Affairs Committees in the Senate.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. Chairman, might I inquire how much time remains.

If I understand correctly, the gentleman from Massachusetts has the right to close on this? It is my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Regarding the amendment at the desk, it is a technical amendment. It conforms to the actual writing of the bill reported from the committee to the representations we have made here on the floor.

I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his kind remarks on the amendment, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is not the first iteration of this amendment we have seen. We also saw this in committee. While I would describe its purpose as well-meaning and well-intended, my position in the committee and my position today are the same, and that is that this piece of legislation dealing with regulatory processes and paperwork burden is not the proper vehicle to establish a commission dealing with the quality of science that this or any other administration might otherwise wish to entertain.

I would ask the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) just for clarification. The amendment mentions a report dated August 2003, and yet I have a copy here that is updated November 13. Might I inquire as to which report we are working off of?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, are we working off the August report or the November report?

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, regardless of the date, I would still register my opposition on the basis that this regulatory process and paperwork reduction legislation is not the vehicle by which we should properly discuss the quality of science that this or any other administration might wish to use in the deliberative decisions that they make.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I just want to reiterate my rationale for not supporting the amendment. If my colleagues look at the amendment, it refers to a report put out by the minority staff entitled ``Politics and Science in the Bush Administration.'' We have not had that report vetted. It was issued by the minority staff. There has been no input by the majority staff or review.

I daresay that that would be a very, very dangerous template to set for this Congress, because who knows what other committees might adopt majority or minority reports and then just jam them down the other side's throat.

I would urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and instead seek to have it discussed under the purview of the Committee on Science. This particular piece of legislation dealing with regulatory process and paperwork reduction is not the vehicle that should properly deal with this issue. This may well be a very serious issue, but this is not the vehicle where it should properly be discussed.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 645 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us is a rule for consideration of a package of bills, H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730, H.R. 2731 and H.R. 2432, which are all being brought to the floor today by the House Republican leadership, that will help to cut the cost of burdensome regulations for American small businesses and help create new jobs in America.

H. Res. 645 provides for the separate consideration of each of these five measures. Each bill covered under this rule will have its own debate time and the opportunity to be voted on by this body.

Finally, the rule also provides, at the close of consideration of these measures, the Clerk of the House will be directed to combine the text of each of these bills that passes the House under this rule as one engrossed bill and send it to the other body.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to consider a rule for a number of common-sense bills that will eliminate unnecessary paperwork and bring some much-needed flexibility to the regulatory process for American small business. This legislation will also improve worker safety by making it easier for employers to work voluntarily and proactively with OSHA to ensure safe and secure workplaces.

While this may seem like a complicated rule, its effect is quite simple: It will help to cut down on wasteful costs that many small businesses face as a result of burdensome, one-size-fits-all government regulations.

The bills brought up for consideration under this rule will allow small businesses to focus more of their time and energy on competing in the marketplace, providing their customers with better goods and services and creating new jobs all across America, rather than spending their time filling out forms or arguing with some distant, nameless, faceless bureaucrat.

One of the Republican Party's top priorities is to create an environment that empowers small businesses and their employees to succeed, which has been proved by the House's agenda over the last few weeks. Last week, the House took up and overwhelmingly passed legislation to allow low- and middle-income Americans to keep more of what they earn by permanently extending the 10 percent tax bracket created by President Bush's 2001 tax relief plan.

The House also took up the opportunity to pass legislation that improves upon and strengthens Flexible Spending Accounts, addresses the skyrocketing cost of medical liability insurance and allows small businesses to join together to provide their employees with health insurance through Association Health Plans.

This week, the House will be considering yet another tax relief bill on behalf of working families and will expand and make permanent the child tax credit. And we will also be considering these five bills to make it easier for our Nation's small businesses to create jobs that will help sustain our economy's growth.

H.R. 2728, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Business Day in Court Act, amends the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to provide flexibility to employers filling out responses to OSHA citations. Currently, the law sets a strict and arbitrary deadline of 15 days for businesses to respond to an OSHA citation, despite the fact that since the 1980s, a Federal rule of procedure has granted employers relief in cases where an employer filed a late notice of contest because of ``mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect.'' H.R. 2728 would simply codify this common-sense practice in law and give OSHA some direction in handling cases where a business misses its 15-day window.

H.R. 2729, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Efficiency Act, would create greater efficiency at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission by adding two additional members to this board so that it may complete its work in a more timely fashion on behalf of employers and employees all across the United States.

Under current law, the membership of the Commission is set at three appointed members. Two members are required to constitute a quorum, and the Commission can only take action on an affirmative vote of two members, regardless of whether these seats are vacant or filled.

For over two-thirds of its existence, the Commission has been paralyzed by frequent vacancies that have resulted in several critical and well-documented inefficiencies, rendering the entire regulatory scheme devised by Congress for resolving OSHA disputes unworkable.

By creating two new seats on the Commission, Congress can protect against the chance that an extended vacancy on the Commission will prevent this body from resolving disputes in a timely fashion.

H.R. 2730, the Occupational Safety and Health Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act, will provide for the fair and independent review of citations issued by OSHA. Legislative history and practice have made it clear that while OSHA is responsible for rule-making, enforcement and adjudication of issues pertinent to workplace safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission is intended to provide an independent review of OSHA's functions and act as a check on any prosecutorial excess.

This bill would simply restore responsible checks and balances to the current system by making it clear that the Commission's legal interpretations are given the proper judicial deference.

H.R. 2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act, provides for the payment of attorney's fees and costs to very small employers when they prevail in legislation prompted by the issuance of citations by OSHA.

The reason for this legislation is simple: The government should not be able to intimidate small businesses into blindly following their mandates simply because the business thinks it cannot afford to fight in a case where it might otherwise prevail.

This bill will put American small businesses on a more level playing field with large and powerful government bureaucracies and give them the courage to speak up for themselves when they are right by removing the financial penalties that currently exist for defending themselves.

Finally, H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvement Act, reduces Federal regulatory paperwork and red tape by requiring OMB to devote more effort to identifying ways to simplify Federal laws. This bill would also make permanent GAO's authorization to analyze major rules proposed by Federal agencies and require OMB to integrate its regulatory accounting reports with its annual budget report, so that lawmakers can compare the on-budget and off-budget costs associated with each agency requiring paperwork by the public.

Like all the other bills being considered on this rule today, it would help create jobs and allow America's business men and women to spend less of their own time on resources, on complicated regulatory and taxes paperwork that hurts the economy, instead of running their own businesses.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this legislation that Congress has passed and will continue to pass to promote the Republican competitiveness agenda. I think it is important that we come to the floor today with a full discussion on legislation that will give Americans more time to spend running their businesses or with their families or however they choose to spend it.

I think it is important to remember that every single time that we pass one-size-fits-all legislation giving a great deal of authority to the Washington-based bureaucracies, our small businesses bear the brunt of this inefficiency.

OMB recently report to Congress that the annual cost of major Federal regulations issued between 1992 and

2002 are estimated to cost between $38 billion and $44 billion. This means that Americans spend about $1.50 in compliance cost for every one dollar in tax cost devoted to regulation. Moreover, it means that every dollar of direct budget expenditure devoted to regulatory activity, the private sector spends $45 dollars in compliance. This overregulation of businesses puts us at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world and places an unnecessary limit on our economy.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the code of Federal regulations extends 19 feet, and from 1991 to 2000 the number of pages in the CFR increased by 28.1 percent. I am glad Congress is looking at ways to pare back this overwhelming bureaucracy, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule for these five bills to keep American businesses competitive in the global marketplace and to keep American jobs here at home. I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman talking about the true colors that the Republican Party presents not only today but every single day that we are on this floor of the House of Representatives, because our special interest is our taxpayers and the working men and women of this country who keep it going and will continue to work for the special interests of the Republican Party to ensure that America has not only a sound economy but opportunities to where people can live the American dream.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the gentleman that leads our party in this effort, the gentleman who is the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia Beach, Virginia (Mr. Schrock).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we began this debate today by talking about doing the things the Republican Party has as an idea and a vision, about making businesses more efficient and effective and working closer on the things that will encourage not only us to be more productive but to employ more people. The gentleman from Florida earlier asked a very simple question: Who would possibly support this bill? Who are they? Well, I provided the gentleman a list of some 38.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his clarification and accept that.

I would like to run through very quickly the organizations that do support this commonsense OSHA reform, and I am just going to run through a few:

The National Center For Assisted Living, National Council on Chain Restaurants, National Federation of Independent Businesses, United States Chamber, National Restaurant Association, National Retail Federation, National Soft Drink Association.

And, Mr. Speaker, I will submit this list at this point for the Record.

Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of

Representatives,

May 18, 2004.

Organizations Supporting Common Sense OSHA Reforms

Dear Colleague: The House today will consider four common

sense OSHA reform measures (H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730,

and H.R. 2731) to ensure OSHA enforcement efforts are fair

for small businesses that make good faith efforts to comply

with all health and safety laws. These reforms will improve

worker safety by making it easier for employers to work

voluntarily and proactively with OSHA to ensure safe and

secure workplaces. Following are a list of organizations

supporting these reforms:

Air Conditioning Contractors of America

American Bakers Association

American Hotel & Lodging Association

American Farm Bureau Federation

American Furniture Manufacturers

Associated Builders & Contractors

Associated General Contractors of America

American Health Care Association

American Trucking Associations

Food Marketing Institute

Independent Electrical Contractors

International Foodservice Distributors Association

IPC--The Association Connecting Electronics Industries

Management Advisers, LLC

Mason Contractors Association

National Association of Home Builders

National Association of Manufacturers

National Beer Wholesalers Association

National Center for Assisted Living

National Council of Aagricultural Employers

National Council of Chain Restaurants

National Electrical Contractors Association

National Federation of Independent Business

National Funeral Directors Association

National Oilseed Processors Association

National Ready Mixed Concrete Association

National Restaurant Association

National Retail Federation

National Roofing Contractors Association

National Small Business Association

National Soft Drink Association

Printing Industries of America Inc.

Retail Industry Leaders Association

Society of American Florists

Society for Human Resource Management

The American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute

The Brick Industry Association

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Developing better cooperation between OSHA and employers

will improve workplace safety, enhance business

competitiveness, and foster more job creation to spur the

economy. We encourage you to help improve workplace safety

and enhance small business competitiveness by voting YES on

these important OSHA reform measures. For more information,

please contact the Education & the Workforce Committee at x5-

4527.

Sincerely,

John Boehner (R-OH),

Chairman, Education & the Workforce Committee.

Charlie Norwood (R-GA),

Chairman, Workforce Protections Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my colleagues who are listening to this debate, who want to do the right thing for small businesses, that it is always interesting to me that as we enter debates on the floor of the House of Representatives, and one of the biggest debates we have had has been about manufacturing, yet almost every single time as the Republican Party stands up for those organizations that are engaged in manufacturing, about jobs in this country, we vote for those bills and our colleagues on the other side vote against them. Yet all we hear about is loss of jobs.

I would like to say that today this vote is about small business and the ability for small business to compete effectively, efficiently, and to give them more fair footing. I support this rule and I support this underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.