H.Res. 645

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

First, I would like to comment on voluntary compliance. It has been mentioned here several times. Voluntary compliance programs are usually directed at large employers, not small. This is not where the deaths are occurring. In construction, half of all deaths occur among small firms in construction, many with fewer than 10 workers. Big corporations have understood for some time now that it is to their advantage to have a workplace that is safe, with maximum benefits and working conditions. And big corporations are seldom guilty of willful violations; it is the small employers. I must say that an attempt has been made here to make it appear that small employers have some special virtues, but small employers can be demons often.

I recall my father working in a mill where the straw boss, they called him, told the workers if they would go to the toilet, which was pretty much in the middle of the floor anyhow, a cubicle that you could see the feet and it was open at the top, if you go to the toilet and he does not smell anything, come on out.

I can recall working at a restaurant when I was in college where the employer, the owner of this small business, felt he had a right to pat any woman on the behind regularly, and they were too afraid to complain because they wanted to keep their jobs.

You might say that those were extreme conditions, that is all over; that happened when you were in college many years ago. But in New York we have sweatshops which are as bad as any sweatshops the city has ever known in the 1930s, the 1920s or any other time. It is just that the people in the sweatshops now happen to be Asians mostly, Asian workers who are being exploited.

There is no great virtue in small businesses automatically. Yes, the majority comply, but there are too many who still do not comply, too many who, as I said before, are interested only in squeezing the maximum profits from the situation; and their biggest cost is the labor cost, labor cost in terms of wages, labor cost in terms of conditions that must be established by law for workers.

We refuse to discuss the minimum wage on this floor. We refuse to discuss it in the context of a bill to increase the minimum wage. But today if we are going to talk about workers and worker safety, I think we ought to point out that it is the workers who are making the least amount of money whose safety is jeopardized most. They are the vulnerable ones in conditions that nobody else wants to work in, immigrant workers who take the lowest pay and working conditions where no one else will work.

This is the second quarter of a four-quarter marathon, as I said before. I have heard it called the More Injuries and More Death Marathon Act. It is a covert approach to what the majority Republicans tried when they first took power in 1995. This is covert. This is guerilla warfare, one might say, undermining OSHA from the back, undermining OSHA with sweet words.

Back on June 14, 1995, we had the first taste of what the majority Republicans really wanted to do about OSHA. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) introduced H.R. 1834, and that was a massive overhaul of OSHA to weaken the law and favor law-breaking employers. If you were to go back and retrieve that bill, you could see that most of it was put there in one bill, and it was a frontal assault. It had the same objectives that today's assault has.

There have been 14 of these significant bills introduced since the 104th Congress, I think half of which have been introduced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) which are significant in terms of looking at the record of how OSHA has been under attack. Since this House went under the leadership of the Republicans, OSHA has been the target, it has been an obsession, and none of these bills are in favor of increasing any measures to protect workers.

We cannot review and view these bills today in the context of just one bill at a time or even the four bills. The four bills have to be reviewed in the context of the overall policy of the Republican majority toward working families, the overall assault against working families.

We have to have this in context. We have to look at the figure of the 6,000 Americans per year. That figure has been there for some time, averaging about 6,000 per year who die every year on the job.

The little display up front is an example of a centerpiece for a quilt we want to make as a memorial to these workers. We do not want either party to forget what is happening to working

families in this country. In many respects, the failure to increase the minimum wage is one of them, but certainly with respect to health and safety, we must do more to make it known and to put it on the front burner in the minds of Americans as evidence of what is happening in the workplace.

This is not unrelated to other developments like outsourcing, a major development which goes after workers at higher levels, technicians, computer people, scientists, engineers. Their salaries and their working conditions are such that they are found to be offensive and not producing ample profits, so their jobs are going to be taken away completely and contracted out to other nations.

There are a large number of businesses that cannot be contracted out and most of them are small businesses. Construction is one. We can never take construction overseas; that has to happen here. The construction industry, in particular, needs the protection of people who want to weaken OSHA. The construction industry, in particular, is a culprit in employing and exploiting workers at the very bottom.

We must keep this package in context. We must understand that the covert warfare taking place here, what I call the poisoning of OSHA, the slow draining of power from OSHA, is accelerated by these seemingly harmless four bills. The Labor Secretary in this administration is openly hostile to labor and to working families. We have a situation where traditionally the Department of Labor has always been considered the advocate for working families and for workers, but this particular Department of Labor, this Secretary, is just the opposite and this administration has no place for labor to have their grievances aired. So we bring them here today at this time and take advantage of the fact that there is at least time to discuss conditions under which people work.

The policy of denigration, intimidation and oppression of the workforce is a policy which yields high productivity. That high productivity has already been achieved, but they want to go beyond that and get higher levels of exploitation and squeeze more from workers to increase the profits. As I said before, all small business owners are not model Americans. They do not seek to protect and take care of their workers in the best possible way.

We are going to have a monument. This is going to be part of an overall quilt which gives you the number of workers per State, gives you the number each year, since 1993 to the present. Like the Vietnam Wall memorial, it dramatically brings home in an individual way the fact that life is sacred. The lives of workers are as sacred as the lives of anyone else.

I said before, we are losing more workers per day than we are losing on the battlefields of Iraq. I do not want the Iraq battlefield casualties to increase. We would like the casualties in both places to decrease. But the life of a worker who is killed in a situation which has willful violations and the death is totally unnecessary, that life must be given more concern by both parties here in this House.

Workers and their families are under attack. We must come to their defense. One way to defend them is to recognize these four bills for what they are worth. They are the very destructive poisoning of the effectiveness of OSHA.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for printing in the Congressional Record the opinions and the statements by four groups: The AFL-CIO, the UAW, the Teamsters and the National COSH Network. These groups oppose this bill. I submit for the Record their statements in opposition.

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial

Organizations,

Washington, DC, May 14, 2004.

Dear Representative: I am writing to express the strong

opposition of the AFL-CIO to H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730

and H.R. 2731, four bills that would erode worker protections

under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. These bills,

which are scheduled for a floor vote the week of May 17,

2004, would change established law and procedures to benefit

employers and stifle OSHA enforcement. They would do nothing

to enhance workers' safety and health protection, while

weakening the OSH Act.

H.R. 2731, Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer

Access to Justice Act--This bill requires taxpayers to pay

the legal costs of small employers (defined as employers with

100 or fewer employees and up to $7 million net worth) who

prevail in any administrative or enforcement case brought by

OSHA or any challenge to an OSHA standard brought by the

small employer against OSHA, regardless of whether the action

was substantially justified.

Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, small businesses are

already able to recover litigation costs where the government

position was not substantially justified. There is no reason

to expand these provisions and create new and broader rules

for purposes of the OSH Act. The bill will drain resources

away from an agency that has perpetually struggled to do its

job with the limited resources available to it. If enacted

into law, H.R. 2731 would have a chilling effect on both OSHA

enforcement and OSHA standard setting, because attorneys'

fees would be available to prevailing employers in both types

of actions. OSHA would be hesitant to cite small employers

for violations of the OSH Act unless there is absolute

certainty that the enforcement action will be upheld in its

entirety. No rational public policy would be furthered by

discouraging OSHA from issuing citations that are

substantially justified, but as to which the government

ultimately is unable to carry its burden of proof of every

issue. Rather, the inevitable result of such a rule, which

would penalize the government every time it loses, would be

to chill the issuance of meritorious citations in close cases

on behalf of employees exposed to unsafe working conditions.

Similarly, unless OSHA is certain that a standard will not be

challenged (which they are routinely for any number of

reasons), it would be very reluctant to development and issue

rules any hazard no matter how grave the threat of the hazard

to workers. This bill would further weaken OSHA enforcement

efforts and standard setting to the detriment of American

workers.

Establishments with fewer than 100 employees make up 97.7

percent of all private sector establishments. These

businesses have a higher rate of fatal occupational injury

than do establishments with 100 or more workers. Hampering

OSHA's enforcement ability in these small establishments

would be devastating to workers, resulting in even higher

rates of worker fatalities, injury and illness.

Also significant is the fact that under H.R. 2731,

employers will be able to recover partial attorneys fees if

they partially prevail in an OSHA proceeding. So, for

example, the notorious Eric Ho, who exposed his employees to

asbestos and made them work at night behind locked gates

without providing them any sort of respirators or training,

would be able to recover attorneys fees under this bill,

because the OSHA Review Commission dismissed two of Ho's

corporations as defendants and dismissed 10 of 11 willful

violations of OSHA's respirator and training standards.

Secretary of Labor v. Ho, Nos. 98-1645 & 98-1646 (OSHRC,

Sept. 29, 2003).

OSHA needs more, not fewer, resources available to deal

with employers like Eric Ho and to enforce the OSH Act's

protections. H.R. 2731 should be rejected.

H.R. 2730. Occupational Safety and Health Independent

Review of OSHA Citations Act--This bill would work a radical

change in the implementation and enforcement of the OSH Act,

and would undermine the Secretary of Labor's authority to

interpret and enforce the law. The bill would overturn a 1991

Supreme Court decision and say that deference should be given

to the OSHA Review Commission, and not the Secretary of

Labor, in interpreting OSHA standards. The AFL-CIO vigorously

opposes this bill and urges its defeat.

In Martin v. OSHRC (CF & I Steel Corp.), 499 U.S. 144

(1991), the Supreme Court made clear that the Secretary of

Labor, and not the Review Commission, should be given

deference when interpreting OSHA standards and regulations.

In the Court's view, the Secretary of Labor should receive

deference because Congress, when enacting the OSH Act,

designated the Secretary as the policymaking official, and

gave the Secretary the authority and responsibility to

implement and enforce the law. Thus, because the Secretary of

Labor is the person who adopts standards and brings

enforcement actions against employers, she has a much broader

and deeper understanding of OSHA's rules as compared to the

Review Commission, which sees only a small fraction of OSHA's

enforcement cases.

Policymaking, and interpretation of OSHA policies, should

stay with the Secretary. The Commission should not be able to

undo by fiat the Secretary's reasonable interpretations of

her rules. H.R. 2730 should be rejected.

H.R. 2729. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

Efficiency Act--H.R. 2729 expands the number of members on

the OSHA Review Commission from three to five, and mandates

that all members have legal training. Another provision,

removed during the Committee markup on May 5, 2004,

authorized the Chairman of the Commission to delegate to any

panel of three or more members any or all powers of the

Commission and allowed two members to constitute a quorum on

such sub-panels.

The Review Commission has operated with three Commissioners

since it was first formed in 1970. There is no need to expand

the Commission beyond its current membership, and no need to

exclude individuals with relevant training, but not legal

training, from eligibility for these positions. Moreover, it

is no coincidence that Republican members are pushing to

expand the number

of seats on the Commission at a time when a Republican

president would fill the seats.

Proponents say the bill is needed to address the problem of

the Commission at times lacking a quorum to do business. But

with the removal of the provision on sub-panels during the

Committee markup, it is difficult to see how H.R. 2729 would

solve the quorum problem. Three Commissioners would still be

required to have a working quorum. There is no reason to

think that the Commission will be able to retain three active

Commissioners any better than it has been able to retain two.

H.R. 2729 is a solution in search of a problem. It should

be defeated.

H.R. 2728, Occupational Safety and Health Small Business

Day in Court Act--This bill would excuse employers from the

fifteen-day deadline for contesting OSHA citations and

``failure to abate'' notices if they can show ``mistake,

inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect'' as the reason.

The bill's practical effect would be to make numerous excuses

into legal reasons for missing the fifteen-day deadline by

which employers currently must respond to OSHA citations.

This action will only encourage more litigation. The idea of

the fifteen-day requirement is to give all parties a

reasonable timeframe in which to take action, and to ensure

that the case is moved along as quickly as possible so the

cited hazards will be corrected in as timely a manner as

possible.

It is also important to note that the bill excuses

employers from missing their 15-day deadline but does not

extent these same provisions to employees or their

representatives who challenge the period for abatement in a

citation. The one-sided nature of this legislation shows that

it is about benefiting employers, not protecting employees.

Proponents of the bill have pointed to one court case as

justification for this legislation. In fact, the Commission

has a longstanding practice of reviewing any missed deadlines

on a case-by-case basis. H.R. 2728 is another solution in

search of a problem, and it should be defeated.

As demonstrated above, these bills undermine the intent of

the Congress when it enacted the OSHAct more than 30 years

ago. Generally speaking, these policies and procedures have

been serving workers well for over 30 years. American workers

deserve a safe and healthy workplace and the full protection

the OSHAct can offer. These bills would surely diminish the

protections provided to workers by the OSHAct. For these

reasons, the AFL-CIO opposes these four bills, and we

strongly urge you to vote against each of them.

Sincerely,

William Samuel,

Director,

Department of Legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), my colleague on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, be allowed to control the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to close for the opposition on H.R. 2729.

As I stated at the outset, neither H.R. 2729 nor any other of these four bills before us addresses the important health and safety concerns of American working men and women. In essence, H.R. 2729 gives us the worst of both worlds, a bigger government bureaucracy designed to accomplish less on behalf of the American worker. Moreover, this bill would mandate legal training as a qualification for appointment to the commission. This diminishes what ought to be a primary qualification as a commissioner and that is expertise in the field of occupational safety and health.

Having stated these clear reasons for opposition to this bill, which I urge my colleagues to follow, I would like to turn my attention once more to the urgent concern about the safety of American workers. That concern is over the protection of workers' lives on the job. At present, OSHA does little more than slap the wrists of employers that are egregious safety offenders. As the New York Times noted in its compelling series on worker deaths, OSHA has a 20-year track record of failing to seek criminal prosecution in a staggering 93 percent of cases they investigated where willful and flagrant safety violations by employers killed workers.

And after you institute this proposal for H.R. 2729, it is just one more little reason why they would have less vigor in prosecuting anybody.

Congress has an important role to play in holding both OSHA and unscrupulous employers accountable. One problem is that under the current statute, OSHA can only issue a misdemeanor penalty for an employer who has willfully caused the death of a worker. A misdemeanor has no deterrent value whatsoever. If you harass a wild burro on Federal lands, you face a stiffer penalty than if you kill an American worker. What signal does this send to a small number of unscrupulous employers who actually build up a history of willfully causing worker deaths? Are we saying to these wrongdoers, do not worry about protecting the lives of your workers because Congress cares more about wild burros than about the men and women in your employ? Pestering a wild burro in a national park can send you to prison for an entire year, but killing a worker only lands you there for 6 months.

More importantly, what signal does that send to grieving family members who are left behind? You cannot receive any justice because Congress does not have a fundamental respect for the lives of your loved ones.

Along with Senator Jon Corzine, I have introduced a bill to make killing a worker a felony offense. I tried to get this bill included in one of these four bills because it is germane, in my opinion; but it was ruled out of order. Rather than a radical departure from current law, this bill is just a moderate adjustment that is long overdue. H.R. 4270 and S. 1272 correct a glaring oversight in Federal policy, and I will describe it in more detail later on.

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. 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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2731. This bill is the most

alarming of the four before us today. By mandating that OSHA pay the attorney fees of any employer with a total net value of under $7 million and no more than 100 workers if they prevail upon appeal, H.R. 2731 would drastically undermine the enforcement of OSHA's mission.

As I stressed in my opening statement, more than 90 percent of all private firms in the U.S. would qualify for attorney fees upon successfully prevailing in an appeal. What could be more universal than that? H.R. 2731 would have an incredibly chilling effect on implementation of the act.

What would this bill mean for American workers? It would mean that unscrupulous employers could risk workers lives with impunity. Focusing on the issue of worker protection, again, I would like to relate some very personal testimony delivered at a forum I held on May 12 on worker deaths, and some of the photos of the people who testified are in front of us.

Patrick J. Walters, whose photo is on the top row, was 22 years old, a plumber's apprentice who was literally buried alive in a trench collapse in June 2002. Patrick had been sent down into a 10-foot deep, rain soaked trench without any training or safety equipment. Moeves Plumbing, a Cincinnati-based employer, had been repeatedly cited already by OSHA over the years for failure to follow basic safety standards for trench work. Although cited and fined for trench safety lapses in 1983, 1984, 1985, Moeves Plumbing took no remedial steps.

Clint Daley, another Moeves employee had been buried in 1989 in circumstances identical to Patrick's. In Daley's case, OSHA agreed to a settlement based on a promise by Moeves to take required safety action, an example of that voluntary compliance business. Two weeks before his death, an OSHA inspector found Patrick and another Moeves employee working in an unstable, unsafe trench that was 15 feet steep. Again, OSHA warnings went unheeded by Moeves and this caused certain, but tragic, results.

After Patrick's death, an attorney for Moeves Plumbing negotiated down the citation from a willful violation to an unclassified. OSHA also reduced the fine down to $30,000 to be paid over 4 years.

At the May 12 forum, Patrick's mother, Michelle Marts, wondered aloud, ``What is it going to take to stop Moeves Plumbing from sending another boy like our son to his death? Patrick did not have to die this way. This absolutely could and should have been prevented. We do not want this to happen to any other family.''

Joey Israel was a 22-year-old laborer who fell eight stories to his death from Philadelphia's Victory Building on December 31, 2003. Employed by HydroProof Systems, he had been promoted from entry-level employee to laborer only 2 weeks prior to his death. All that is known for certain is that before careening to his death, Joey had been told to pull up a 23\1/2\ pound electrical cord hanging from the window. After repeated phone calls to OSHA to ascertain the status report on Joey's case, OSHA responded by stating that HydroProof had not violated any safety rules.

Joey's twin sister, Jaime, insisted upon a personal meeting with the OSHA investigator. She was told that not one of the eight men who were on the job the day her brother was killed had been questioned by OSHA nor had the employer been questioned about the incident. When Jaime questioned how her brother could have been sent alone some 25 feet up in the air on this job, without any prior training or interview, she was told, ``That's the beauty of America.''

Jaime responded at the May 12 forum with the following quote: ``What an awful thing to be told to a mother who just lost her son and a sister who just lost her brother. I believe this is the downfall of America, where, daily, employers risk the lives of untrained men and women who are doing what they have to do to support their families, to make a quick buck and, in a sense, kill for profit. My brother lost his life for a lousy $60 a day, is that what the lives of our loved ones are worth to their employers?''

Scott Shaw was a 38-year-old husband and father of two young sons who was killed on September 7, 2002. Scott died when he fell into the Schuylkill River, moving from the Hopper Barge to the Work Barge. OSHA investigated and found that Scott's company had committed six serious violations. One of these violations focused on the fact that one barge was 8 feet higher than the other. Also, workers had to climb on rubber tires while jumping from barge to barge. However, OSHA combined these violations into one citation with six items. OSHA's total fine for these violations was only $4,950.

His wife, Holly, testified that ``Scott didn't have a life jacket on. He wasn't required by his company to wear one. There were no life preservers on the barge. Scott's death was needless. The company Scott was working for neglected to follow safety regulations.

``As a teacher and as a parent, I know that it is important that a child understand there are consequences to their actions, and they must accept responsibility for what they have done. Adults must face their responsibility, and must be held accountable for their actions. Please don't let another family suffer as we have. The more that companies are actually punished, the more they realize they must practice workplace safety, and must protect their workers.''

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to understand the seriousness of these discussions today.

This is the final quarter of the marathon four bills today. I hope that the fact that they have been packaged together has not caused anybody not to listen. I hope that they understand that we are talking about life-and-death matters.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the needless deaths of Americans by opposing H.R. 2731.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is left.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

(Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the distinguish candidate for President.

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

I want to thank the members of the minority on the committee for their work on this bill. I want to thank the majority for giving us an opportunity to talk about the very real problems that are faced by workers in the workplace.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an item titled Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report, and the second item for the record, Profile of Workplace Safety and Health in the United States.

Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report

The report is a national and state-by-state profile of

worker safety and health in the United States. A combination

of too few OSHA inspectors and low penalties makes the threat

of an OSHA inspection hollow for too many employers. Millions

of workers are still left with no OSHA coverage.

Here are some of the ``highlights'' of the report:

15 workers were fatally injured and more than 12,800

workers were injured or made ill each day during 2002. These

statistics do not include deaths from occupational diseases,

which claim the lives of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000

workers each year.

A 62 percent increase in the number of trench fatalities,

from 33 in 2002 to 53 in 2003.

Fatal injuries among Hispanic or Latino workers decreased

about 6 percent, although the 840 fatalities recorded for

Hispanic workers is the second-highest annual total for the

population. States that saw an increase in the number of

Hispanic worker fatalities in 2002 include Alabama, Arkansas,

Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New

Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,

Washington and Wyoming.

The number of fatal work injuries among foreign-born

Hispanic workers increased to 577 in 2002 from 527 in 2001.

Musculoskeletal Disorders continue to account for more than

one-third of all injuries and illnesses involving days away

from work and remain the biggest category of injury and

illness. The occupations that reported the highest number of

MSDs involving days away from work in 2002 were nursing aides

and orderlies (44,421); truck drivers (36,814); and laborers,

nonconstruction (24,862).

As documented in a December 2003 New York Times series,

prosecutions of recklessly negligent employers are extremely

rare. Of the 170,000 workplace deaths since 1982, only 16

convictions involving jail time have resulted--although 1,242

cases involving work deaths were determined by OSHA to

involve ``willful'' violations by employers (violations in

which the employer knew that workers' lives were at risk).

Penalties for significant violations of the law remain low.

In fiscal year 2003, serious violations of the OSH Act

carried an average penalty of only $871 ($856 for federal

OSHA, $885 for state OSHA plans).

2,240 federal and state OSHA inspectors responsible for

enforcing the law at 8.1 million workplaces. At its current

staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA

106 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction

just once.

Between FY 1999 and FY 2003 the number of employees who

work in workplaces inspected by federal OSHA inspections

decreased by nearly 12%. The average number of hours spent

per inspection also decreased between FY 1999 and FY 2003,

from 22 to 18.8 hours per safety inspection and from 40 to

34.7 hours per health inspection. The number of citations for

willful violations decreased from 607 in FY 1999 to 391 in FY

2003. The average penalty per violation and per willful

violation increased in FY 2003 from the FY 2002

level, while the average penalty per serious violation

decreased to its lowest level since 1999.

After three and a half years under the Bush administration,

rulemaking at OSHA and MSHA has virtually ground to a halt.

In December 2003, the administration published its latest

semiannual regulatory agenda, which sets forth its regulatory

priorities and plans for the coming year. Having already

withdrawn 22 pending OSHA regulatory actions from its

regulatory agenda, in its May 2003 regulatory agenda the Bush

administration withdrew the glycol ethers standard and the

tuberculosis standard, leaving few major initiatives on the

regulatory schedule.

OSHA still has taken no action on the Employer Payment for

Personal Protective Equipment standard, which has been

through the rulemaking process and is ready for final action.

The only major regulations still on the regulatory agenda

are for silica, beryllium and hearing conservation for

construction workers. But there is no commitment for OSHA to

propose these rules. This will be the only administration in

history not to issue a major safety and health regulation

during its four years in office.

17 MSHA standards to improve safety and health for miners

have been withdrawn, including the Air Quality, Chemical

Substances and Respiratory standard.

Adjusting for inflation, the FY 2005 proposed OSHA budget

represents a $6.5 million cut over FY 2004 appropriations.

The FY 2005 OSHA budget proposes increasing programs for

voluntary compliance with employer assistance while cutting

training and outreach programs for workers and freezing

standard-setting and enforcement programs. At OSHA, the

president proposes to cut worker safety training programs by

65 percent and to shift these funds to employer assistance

programs.

Since we have had a running commentary here about staying on the point, I would like to comment directly on H.R. 2731 by quoting from the Brotherhood of Teamsters objections:

``Finally, we oppose H.R. 2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act, which would require that OSHA, the taxpayer, pay the legal costs when it loses a case against a small business that prevails in administrative or judicial proceedings, regardless of whether the government's position was substantially justified. We view this as another effort to impede OSHA's and the Department's efforts to enforce the law and provide an avenue for workers to seek redress.

``We see no justification for such an arbitrary departure from the current practice of each party paying for its own litigation costs for only one class of public prosecutions. We know of no other agency, charged by statute to enforce the law, which is impeded from fulfilling its responsibility with respect to a meritorious complaint because it cannot guarantee the outcome.''

If OSHA is forced to guarantee the outcome, it ties OSHA's hands and will rob workers of protections by discouraging OSHA from executing its required responsibilities. Like all of the other items in this marathon package, which I call the More Injuries and More Death Marathon, it stacks the deck against the workers and in favor of the employers.

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