Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017

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

I listened intently to my colleague's opening remarks, and he seemed to try to justify the passage of the REINS Act, which I rise in opposition to, by the way, by saying that it has been the Obama administration's job-killing regulations that have put our economy in its position, which is one that is not good.

Despite trying to convince the American people of that allegation, the American people are aware of the facts. They are aware of the fact that, 8 years ago, when President Obama came into office and under a Republican stewardship that used trickle-down economics as its model, this economy neared that of the Great Depression's. In fact, we call it the period of the Great Recession. This country almost went into a depression, and it went into a Great Recession because of George Bush's and the Republicans' policies of trickle-down economics, which Daddy Bush--George Herbert Walker Bush--once referred to as ``voodoo economics,'' and he was right about that.

Let's look at where we were then and look at where we are now and ask ourselves: Are we not better off now than we were then?

There are not many voices that could say, No, we are not better off now than we were then, because they know, since then, there have been 81 straight months of positive private sector job growth.

They know that over 15.6 million new jobs have been added to our economy by President Obama. They also know that 30 million more people have health insurance and access to the healthcare system now than they did back then. They know that regulations had to ensue from the passage of the Affordable Care Act in order to enable those 30 million people to have coverage now. That is why they want to introduce this legislation to cut regulations. They want to try to hurt the Affordable Care Act. They also know that regulations had to spring forth from the Dodd-Frank, Wall Street regulation, legislation that was passed in this body. They know that those regulations have protected the finances and the financial security of Americans who are doing far better now than they were 8 years ago when President Obama took office.

The American people know that they are much better off now. They know that bankruptcies have gone down. They know that foreclosures have gone down. They know that they have better jobs. They know that things are better now than they were back then.

You will remember and the American people will remember that on the very day of President Obama's first inauguration, Mitch McConnell and a cabal of Republicans met from both the House and Senate, crying in their beers at a Capitol Hill bar. They embarked on a strategy to-- what?--make sure that President Obama would be a first-term President. So they resolved to oppose everything that he proposed, and they certainly did. Despite unprecedented opposition from the Republicans' just saying ``no'' to everything, the American people know that they are in a better position today than they were at this time 8 years ago when coming into the Obama administration.

The Republicans want to introduce legislation to do away with the rules and the regulations concerning the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank legislation, which has protected the financial security of Americans over the last 8 years. That is why they come forward with this so-called jobs bill. This regulatory reform bill called the REINS Act is not going to produce or create one single job. What it will do is cut measures to protect the health, safety, and well-being of Americans.

This misguided legislation would amend the Congressional Review Act to require that both Houses of Congress pass and the President sign a joint resolution of approval within 70 legislative days before any major rule issued by an agency can take effect. In other words, this bill would subject new major rules to nullification by Congress through an unconstitutional legislative veto by one Chamber of Congress.

Following Republican attempts earlier this week to gut ethics and oversight rules that are necessary to police corruption, it is telling that the REINS Act is the next bill that the House would consider in the 115th Congress. Americans should understand what the game plan is of the Republicans. They want the fox to guard the henhouse. That is why the very first act that they tried to get passed was reform of the House ethics regime. They wanted to neuter it, place it under the control of the Republican-controlled House Ethics Committee, where it would then languish and die like a prune on a vine that was unwatered.

That is the first thing they came up with, and the American people called them on it and wouldn't let them pass it. So they have postponed it. America needs to keep their eyes on this Congress to make sure that they don't follow through with that measure that would install the foxes over the henhouse. What they want to do is install the corporate foxes over America's henhouse with this REINS Act.

The REINS Act is central to the Speaker's so-called Better Way agenda, which is really only a better way for rich, corporate elites to further insulate themselves from public accountability and is emblematic of the same tired and crony-capitalist proposals that have been kicked around by opponents of environmental and public health protections since the 1980s. In fact, in 1983, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was then a counsel to President Reagan, criticized a similar proposal as unwise because it would hobble agency rulemaking by requiring affirmative congressional assent to all major rules and would seem to impose excessive burdens on the regulatory agencies.

In addition to being an unmitigated disaster for public health and safety, proposals like the REINS Act will actually do major harm to regulatory reform attempts, as the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in 1981. Then a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Justice Scalia cautioned: ``Those in the Congress seem perversely unaware that the accursed `unelected officials' downtown are now their unelected officials, presumably seeking to move things in their desired direction; and that every curtailment of desirable agency discretion obstructs (principally) departure from Democrat-produced, pro- regulatory status quo.''

Now, it is not often that I quote Justice Scalia, but, ironically, I do so today.

The REINS Act also imposes deadlines for the enactment of a joint resolution approving a major rule that could charitably be referred to as Byzantine. So as not to use too lofty language, I will just declare that this thing is like throwing a monkey wrench in a well-oiled machine.

Under new section 802, the House may only consider a major rule on the second or fourth Thursday of each month. In 2014, for example, there were only 13 such days on the legislative calendar. I think on the legislative calendar for 2017, there are only about 13, maybe 14 or 15, such days where we could consider these major rules on this legislative calendar. I would point out that there are approximately 80 such rules of importance that come through in a typical year.

Furthermore, under new section 801, Congress may only consider such resolutions within 70 legislative days of receiving a major rule. This creates a lot of red tape that threatens to end rulemaking as we know it, and that is the exact, precise intent of this Congress. Even if agencies reduce the number of major rules in contemplation of a bill's onerous requirements, Congress would still lack the expertise and policy justifications for refusing to adopt a major rule.

As over 80 of the Nation's leading professors on environmental and administrative law noted in a letter in opposition to a substantively identical version of this bill, without this expertise, any ``disapproval is therefore more likely to reflect the political power of special interests, a potential that would be magnified in light of the fast-track process.''

Lastly, by flipping the process of agency rulemaking so that Congress can simply void implementation by not acting on a major rule, the REINS Act likely violates the presentment and bicameralism requirements of Article I of the Constitution.

It is my pleasure to oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the eloquence of the gentleman from the great State of Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), my friend out of the great city of Memphis.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

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

Mr. Chairman, my friend from Texas cites Article I giving the legislative branch authority to make the laws, and no one can argue with that. However, I would point out that Article II, section 3 imposes upon the President, the executive, the obligation to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and so rulemaking comes up under that authority, that constitutional authority. So what we have is a move by the legislative branch to intrude upon and to indeed regulate. And certainly we have that power to do so. But is it wise? Is it prudent? Or does it simply positively impact our campaign contributors, the people who put money into our campaigns? Is that the sole reason why we are doing this?

We need to give care and thought into what we are doing here in Congress in this House of Representatives even though one party has all of the power now. They have the majority in the House, they have the majority in the Senate, and they have an incoming President. It doesn't mean they should go off the rails with a philosophy that is not in keeping with where the American people are.

I would point out to them that there is no mandate that they have, even though they do have control of the legislative branch and the executive branch of government and they have held up, what some say actually stolen an appointment for the U.S. Supreme Court that President Obama was placed in a position to make last February upon the untimely demise of Justice Scalia. So since February, the U.S. Supreme Court has had to suffer through politics being played by the legislative branch in not confirming a presidential appointee, and now they have the opportunity to make that appointment under these conditions.

Even though they have played loose and fancy with the protections of the Constitution and with the well-being of the American people and indeed our Republic by playing these political games, I would ask my friends on the other side of the aisle to stop and think about what they are doing and the ramifications of it. Even though you want to get at the EPA to make it easier for oil companies to pollute our environment without regulations to prevent it from happening, is that good for our Nation? Is it good for our children? Is it good for our elderly? How does it leave us with regard to asthma rates which have continued to skyrocket in this country? Do you want to gut the Dodd- Frank Wall Street reform to put us back in the situation where people are losing their homes and banks are being bailed out because they have become too fat to fail? Do we want to put ourselves back in that position again? Well, if we do then we will pass regulations like this one, the so-called REINS Act.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to see my friend, Mr. Trott, leaving the Judiciary Committee. We have appreciated his being there and we hate to see him go, but the gentleman is going on to bigger and better things.

I would say to the gentleman that it is surprising to me that the Bloomberg Government reports show that of all of the job cut announcements made by industry during the year of 2016--and that was a year, by the way, which was not unlike previous years. Basically, the Obama administration has created about 1.9 million new private sector jobs per year.

I am just startled by this statistic here for the year 2016 as far as the number of job cut announcements by reason. The reason given for government regulation being responsible for the job cut is 1,580. That is out of 1.9 million new jobs created during the entire 2016 year, 1,580 jobs lost due to government regulation. That's almost as many as were lost due to the listeria outbreak, legal trouble, or grain downturn. Government regulation, 1,580 jobs lost out of 1.9 million created.

So this argument that we keep hearing from my friends on the other side of the aisle that there is a strangulation or a stranglehold on job creation by Obama's regulations, nothing could be more false than that.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have just tallied up the number of jobs that would be created by passage of this legislation. I did that by multiplying by eight the figure of 1,580, which is the number of jobs lost due to government regulation in 2016. If I multiply that eight times, I come up with 12,640 jobs. That is how many jobs would be created by this legislation--a paucity.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, there are approximately 2.8 million civil servants out there. Americans who work for the Federal Government go to work every day. They work hard and play by the rules. They have a good, middle class job. Your jobs are at stake, Federal employees.

There are those who say that we have too many Federal employees. Well, the number of Federal employees that we have now is at the same level as they were in 2004, which was when President Bush was in office. Basically we are at a 47-year low, as far as the number of Federal employees, since 2013.

The Federal regulatory regime, which is just simply Federal workers-- Federal civil servants--is not out of control, but your jobs are going to be lost when these Republicans finish doing what they want to do to these regulations.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining on each side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), my friend.

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

As far as unelected bureaucrats that we have heard people rail against, speaker after speaker today being concerned, those are nothing more than the civil servants that make our government work. They protect our water, protect our air. They protect us, as a matter of fact--the FBI, the law enforcement. These are good people who go to work every day, work hard, like my dad did, for instance. He was a civil servant. I guess you could call him an unelected bureaucrat. He did everything during his job that he needed to do, and he retired with dignity.

There are so many others who work for the post office. They work for TSA, Homeland Security. They are doing nothing but working a job honestly, and they deserve more than to be referred to derisively. We need them.

Mr. Chair, I am in opposition to this legislation. We need real solutions for real problems. In stark contrast, however, the REINS Act attempts to address a nonexistent problem with a very dangerous solution.

We need legislation that creates middle class financial security and opportunity, not legislation that snatches that away.

We need sensible regulations that protect American families from economic ruin and that bring predatory financial practices to an end.

We need workplace safety regulations that ensure hardworking Americans who go to work each day are protected from hazardous environments on the job.

We need strong regulations that protect the safety of the food that we eat and the air that we breathe and the water that we drink.

Unfortunately, H.R. 26 does nothing to advance those critical goals. This explains why more than 150 organizations strongly oppose this legislation, including Americans for Financial Reform; the American Lung Association; Consumers Union; The Humane Society of the United States; the League of Conservation Voters; Public Citizen; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Earthjustice; the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards; the American Public Health Association; the Environmental Defense Action Fund; the Center for American Progress; and the Trust for America's Health. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 26.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Goodlatte amendment clarifies that a major rule is any rule with an annual cost on the economy of $100 million or more adjusted for inflation. This amendment revises the bill's definition for a major rule to include any rule with an annual cost of $100 million or more as determined by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, also known as OIRA.

I oppose this amendment because it focuses only on the cost of regulatory protections while completely overlooking the monetary benefits of these critical rules. It also strips OIRA's ability to consider the benefits of a rule in connection with a rule's cost. I don't understand the logic of that.

In 2015, The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog criticized cost-only regulatory estimates as misleading, unbalanced, and having serious methodological problems. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, likewise observed in 2015 that ignoring the benefits of regulation is akin to grocery shoppers deciding to buy no groceries simply because groceries cost money. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Even Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has stated that ``many of these rules we need, they're important for the economy, and we support them,'' conceding that the benefits of regulatory protections must be considered hand in hand with their costs.

Indeed, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the Office of Management and Budget regularly has reported to Congress that the benefits of regulations far exceed their costs. During the three hearings on the REINS Act in previous Congresses, we heard from three distinguished witnesses that the benefits of regulation routinely outweigh their costs, according to cost-benefit analysis done by the Office of Management and Budget under administrations of both parties.

For example, in the 112th Congress, Sally Katzen, a former administrator of the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, testified that ``the numbers are striking: according to OMB, the benefits from the regulations issued during the ten-year period''-- from fiscal year 1999 through 2009--``ranged from $128 billion to $616 billion.''

I will repeat. Benefits from regulations ranged from $128 billion to $616 billion.

``Therefore, even if one uses OMB's highest estimate of costs and its lowest estimate of benefits, the regulations issued over the past ten years have produced net benefits of $73 billion to our society.''

Those are the words of Sally Katzen. That 10-year timeframe encompasses the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.

We also heard in the 112th Congress from David Goldston, a former Republican House committee chief of staff, who testified that ``administrations under both parties have reviewed the aggregate impact of regulations and found their benefits to have exceeded their costs (and not all benefits are quantifiable).''

Their testimony is bolstered by the Office of Management and Budget's 2016 Draft Report to Congress, which notes that estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB over the past decade estimated annual benefits of regulatory protections are between $269 billion and $872 billion, while regulatory costs are between $74 billion and $110 billion.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, once again, because it focuses only on the cost of regulatory protections while completely overlooking the monetary benefits of these critical rules, and for that reason I oppose my colleague's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose the gentleman's amendment, which would require that agencies offset the cost of new rules, no matter how critical or mundane these protections may be, prior to promulgating new rules. This proposal, also referred to as ``regulatory cut-go,'' appears as title 2 of H.R. 1155, the Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act, or the SCRUB Act, that was introduced in the previous Congress.

In the context of a veto threat of that bill, the Obama administration cautioned that this requirement would make the process of retrospective regulatory review less productive and, in the process, create needless regulatory and legal uncertainty, and that it would increase costs for businesses and for States, local and tribal governments, and it would also impede commonsense protections for the American public.

By enacting Federal statutes, tasking agencies with responsibilities, Congress authorizes agencies to carry out matters that are too complex, routine, or technical for Congress itself to administrate. We must ensure that agencies have the proper flexibility to issue new protections without encumbering other regulations with political obstructions. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment.

Protecting the health and safety of our citizens is one of the core responsibilities of our government and Congress, and we trust much of its authority to Federal agencies to implement this obligation. This amendment simply preserves current law with respect to regulations that are designed to prevent the contamination of drinking water by lead.

As the Obama administration has observed, in the context of a veto threat to a substantively identical version of this bill in the last Congress, the REINS Act would delay and, in most cases, thwart the implementation of statutory mandates and the execution of duly enacted laws, create business uncertainty, undermine much-needed protections of the American public, and cause unnecessary confusion. Unfortunately, as I noted in my opening statement, the REINS Act would delay and, worse yet, possibly stop major rules from going into effect that are needed to protect the public's health, safety, and well-being, including those that require us to keep lead from drinking water.

Safety regulations are typically the product of a transparent and accountable process that includes extensive investigation, analysis, and input from

the public and private sectors. It is no answer to say that H.R. 26 contains a limited emergency exception. That provision is insufficient. It merely allows a major rule to temporarily take effect for 90 days without its having congressional approval.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) to present her amendment in her absence.

Mr. Chairman, the Jackson Lee amendment exempts from this bill's onerous requirements the congressional approval requirement of any proposed rule that is made to ensure the safety of products that are used or consumed by children under the age of 2.

This amendment should pass for obvious reasons. If protecting public health and safety means anything, it surely must include the protection of our children. Because of the special vulnerability of young children, any regulation affecting their health and safety must not be delayed. Unfortunately, if this bill passes as written without this amendment, that is exactly what will happen. The young children will be vulnerable to products that are unsafe and that could hurt them. For this reason, Sheila Jackson Lee has offered this amendment, which I support.

An example is a regulation that is meant to protect a child from death or injury from contaminated formula. Such a rule would be impeded--or the promulgation of such a rule and the enactment of that rule would be impeded--by this administration.

This amendment would declare that, in that case, the rule would not apply. It would be exempted from this legislation. Toxic chemicals, dangerous toys, or deadly falls from unsafe products could be avoided. Therefore, this amendment would protect children under those circumstances. Those kinds of rules need to be implemented promptly to save lives.

For that reason, the Jackson Lee amendment deserves your support. I hope that you can support it out of your heart.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the faceless, nameless, deadly bureaucrats out here who mean the public harm, those are our relatives. Those are our mothers, our fathers, who work for the Federal Government. They are the civil servants that serve us. They are not nameless and faceless people of bad will and bad intent. They are good people who go to work every day and try to protect us and protect our children.

All we are asking for with this amendment is for there to be a carve- out to protect the most vulnerable among us, our children.

This legislation is based on the faulty premise that the cost of regulations outweigh the benefits. What is the cost of a benefit when it comes to the health, safety, and well-being of a child?

The people who promulgate these rules mean to protect these children, and this amendment goes to that ability of the regulators to do that. Sometimes regulation is good.

Even though a couple of jobs might go away because of the regulation, isn't it worth the health, safety, and well-being of our children that a couple of jobs could not reach fruition? Everything is not a cost- benefit analysis. Sometimes there is some humanity in the mix that we have to consider.

I urge my colleagues to think about it one more time and be in favor of the very reasonable Jackson Lee amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I offer an amendment to H.R. 26.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 26, which would exempt from the bill rules that improve the employment retention and wages of workforce participants, especially those with significant barriers to employment. Since one of the justifications, or the main justification, for this underlying legislation is to promote job growth from corporate titans at the expense, by the way, of health and safety of Americans, at least, we could exempt from the bill rules that improve the employment, retention, and wages of workforce participants, especially those with significant barriers to employment.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. This economic quagmire was created by misguided Republican policies that put profits ahead of people, resulting in reckless decisions on Wall Street that cost millions of Americans their homes and jobs. In other words, the Great Recession was caused by the collapse of the financial markets due to an unreliability and instability of the predatory lending market, which had taken hold. There was so much paper out there on Wall Street that was worthless because it was based on these homes that people couldn't pay the notes for, and all of that was caused by deregulation, lack of regulation.

Now we have a period with Dodd-Frank coming into play and the financial markets improving, the protection and economic security of American families increasing, being strengthened.

Now, at the beginning of this Congress, we get legislation to gut the Dodd-Frank regulation and other regulations that would protect people from excesses of the corporate community. I am just asking, in this amendment, that we don't let it apply in the case of situations where the bill improves employment retention or wages or workforce participants, especially those with barriers to employment.

So, according to leading economic indicators, private-sector businesses have created more than 15.6 million new jobs. The unemployment rate has dropped to well below 5 percent to the lowest point in nearly a decade, and incomes are rising faster, while the poverty rate has dropped to the lowest point since 1968. This has all occurred during an administration that is proenvironment, proclean energy, and proworkplace safety.

In fact, during this time, our Nation has doubled our production of clean energy and reduced our carbon emissions faster than any other advanced nation. And the price of gas is down to roughly $2 a barrel, despite all of these cumbersome and oppressive regulations by the Obama administration that the other side complains about.

Notwithstanding this progress that has been made, there is still much work to be done for the millions of Americans who remain out of work, underemployed, or have not seen significant wage growth postrecession.

Congress should be working tirelessly across party lines to find solutions to persistent unemployment and stagnant wages, such as a public investment agenda that will increase productivity and domestic output while turning the page on our historic underinvestment in our Nation's roads, bridges, and educational institutions.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, this bill, the REINS Act, is not a jobs bill. It is a legislative hacksaw to the critical public health and safety protections that ensure our Nation's air is clean, our water is pure, and our workplace vehicles, homes, and consumer products are safe.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the King amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, which establishes an idiosyncratic process establishing an automatic sunset of public health and safety protections. It requires that agencies conduct an annual review of current rules to designate 10 percent of its existing rules to be eliminated within 10 years of the bill's enactment unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of approval for eligible bills.

Now, I understand to the listening public that sounds kind of complicated, but the bottom line is they want to do away--my friends on the other side of the aisle--with net neutrality, which is something that a Federal agency requires. So if you want the Internet, which we all built and paid for through the Federal Government through our taxes and then we turned it over to the private sector, but we still have a public interest in the net being neutral so that all traffic flows equally over the Web without some being slower than others according to how much you can afford to pay. That is not fair.

So this King amendment is a part of a regulatory scheme proposed by this legislation, the REINS Act, which is going to hurt Americans. It is going to hurt the health, safety, and well-being of the people when you are not able to have clean water, clean food, edible food, safe products, clean air, and clean water. These are the things that the REINS Act gets at. It doesn't want Americans to be healthy. It doesn't want the Internet to be neutral. Why? Because corporate America and Wall Street put people in office to do their bidding. That is what the REINS Act is all about. This King amendment will make it worse.

Under current law, Federal agencies already conduct an extensive retrospective review process of existing rules and have already saved taxpayers billions of dollars in cost savings. Since 2011, the Obama administration has made a durable commitment to ensuring retrospective review of existing regulatory protections. Under Executive Orders 13563 and 13610, the administration has required that of agencies.

According to Howard Shelanski, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under the Obama administration, the Obama administration's retrospective review initiative has achieved an estimated $37 billion in cost savings, reduced paperwork, and other benefits for Americans over the past 5 years.

Furthermore, as the Obama administration has stated in the context of a veto threat of a similarly draconian antiregulatory proposal in a previous Congress, ``It is important that retrospective review efforts not unnecessarily constrain an agency's ability to provide a timely response to critical public health or safety issues, or constrain its ability to implement new statutory provisions.'' That is what the King amendment would do.

In fact, because agencies are already committed to a thorough review process to identify and eliminate regulatory burdens, it may be impossible for agencies to make additional cuts without severely affecting public health and safety.

Lastly, while the majority has repeatedly noted that H.R. 26 is forward-looking legislation, this amendment would make the bill apply retroactively to protections and safeguards that exist at the bill's date of enactment, a bald attempt to gut protections adopted by the Obama administration, including net neutrality.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Statement of Administration Policy

h.r. 427--regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of

2015--rep. young, r-in, and 171 cosponsors

The Administration is committed to ensuring that

regulations are smart and effective, and tailored to further

statutory goals in the most cost-effective and efficient

manner. Accordingly, the Administration strongly opposes

House passage of H.R. 427, the Regulations from the Executive

in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015, which would impose an

unprecedented requirement that a joint resolution of approval

be enacted by the Congress before any major rule of an

Executive Branch agency could have force or effect. This

radical departure from the longstanding separation of powers

between the Executive and Legislative branches would delay

and, in many cases, thwart implementation of statutory

mandates and execution of duly-enacted laws, create business

uncertainty, undermine much-needed protections of the

American public, and cause unnecessary confusion.

There is no justification for such an unprecedented

requirement. When a Federal agency promulgates a major rule,

it must already adhere to the particular requirements of the

statute that it is implementing and to the constraints

imposed by other Federal statutes and the Constitution.

Indeed, in many cases, the Congress has mandated that the

agency issue the particular rule. The agency must also comply

with the rulemaking requirements of the Administrative

Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 551 et seq.). When an agency issues a

major rule, it must perform analyses of benefits and costs,

analyses that are typically required by one or more statutes

(such as the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded

Mandates Reform Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act) as well

as by Executive Orders 12866 and 13563.

In addition, this Administration has already taken numerous

steps to reduce regulatory costs and to ensure that all major

regulations are designed to maximize net benefits to society.

Executive Order 13563 requires careful cost-benefit analysis,

public participation, harmonization of rulemaking across

agencies, flexible regulatory approaches, and a regulatory

retrospective review. In addition, Executive Order 13610

further institutionalizes retrospective review by requiring

agencies to report regularly on the ways in which they are

identifying and reducing the burden of existing regulations.

Finally, agency rules are subject to the jurisdiction of

Federal courts.

Moreover, for the past 19 years, the Congress itself has

had the opportunity, under the Congressional Review Act of

1996, to review on an individual basis the rules--both major

and non-major--that Federal agencies have issued.

By replacing this well-established framework with a blanket

requirement of Congressional approval, H.R. 427 would throw

all major regulations into a months-long limbo, fostering

uncertainty and impeding business investment that is vital to

economic growth. Maintaining an appropriate allocation of

responsibility between the two branches is essential to

ensuring that the Nation's regulatory system effectively

protects public health, welfare, safety, and our environment,

while also promoting economic growth, innovation,

competitiveness, and job creation.

If the President were presented with H.R. 427, his senior

advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Mr. Chairman, we can't blame a $20 trillion deficit or debt on nameless, faceless bureaucrats. We can blame a lot of that debt on the George Bush administration and the legislators who voted for tax cuts for the wealthy that were not paid for and funded two wars that were not paid for. That is what we can blame that $20 trillion debt on.

Again, if you are in favor of net neutrality, you should oppose this amendment.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this is an unusual measure that is being brought forward under unusual circumstances. To begin with, this measure would, believe it or not, empower our Federal legislature to undo virtually every regulation submitted to the Congress since mid-June of last year through the end of 2016 last year. The bill accomplishes this--every regulation--by authorizing Congress to disapprove these rules through a single joint resolution, thereby depriving Members to consider the merits of each individual regulation. This presents a number of problems.

As the administration has stated, with a threat of veto of an identical bill that was considered last November, the legislation ``would create tremendous regulatory uncertainty, potentially impose additional costs on businesses, and represent a step backwards for applying sound regulatory principles to protect public health, safety, the environment, and other critical aspects of society.''

This, in my view, is a cynical way of trying to legislate. For those concerned about the continued improvement of clean air and clean water, if we care about the safety of the toys we give our children, if we care about the environment, then we must oppose this bill.

I urge my colleagues to join me. There hasn't been any deliberative process on the bill recently. It is amazing to me that we have such opposition to the bill. It would be overwhelming to put in the over 150 labor organizations, consumer organizations, environmental organizations, and others who have openly asked us to oppose this bill.

If that isn't enough, we have the business community itself in opposition. The American Sustainable Business Council, which represents over 200,000 businesses--and I have a partial list of them--also opposes this measure. It is one of the rare instances in which I have brought to the floor legislation that is opposed by both labor and by business as well.

It is a little bit of an insult that this bill is being considered, on top of that, under a closed rule. There can be no amendments to this measure.

I am in a state of surprise that on the second day of a new Congress we would come forward with a measure that could potentially jeopardize public health and safety in so many different ways.

I think that the opposition to this measure is so overwhelming that I am surprised that without hearings, without an opportunity for amendment, we are now considering a measure that has this much opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Consumer Reports dated January 3, 2017.

Consumer Reports,

Washington, DC, January 3, 2017.

U.S. House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: Consumer Reports and its policy and

mobilization arm, Consumers Union, strongly urge you to vote

no on H.R. 21, the so-called ``Midnight Rules Relief Act.''

This bill would severely undermine accountability to the

public regarding important protections and safeguards.

Although the rules targeted by this legislation were

finalized relatively recently, many have been under

development for several years. Consumers Union has provided

public comment on several of these regulations that were

designed to protect consumers against unsafe products,

dishonest business dealings, and other hazards in the

marketplace that place their health, safety, or well-being at

risk. Agency experts carefully examined these hazards and

considered various alternative approaches to address them.

They sought input and guidance from businesses, consumer

organizations, outside scientific and legal experts, and the

public at

large, and ultimately developed final rules, explaining

publicly the basis and rationale for the adopted approach.

The federal law known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA)

already permits a regulation carefully developed over many

years to be erased by Congress, in a rushed process that does

not reflect the same level of expertise or careful

consideration. Congress could even rescind a rule for reasons

that might be based not on any broader interests of the

public, but on the narrower, private special interests of

those seeking to avoid having appropriate obligations imposed

on their profit-making activities.

The potential for the CRA to be employed in the service of

special interests is at least somewhat held in check by the

fact that the law currently requires separate congressional

action for erasing each regulation. A regulation considered

for erasure under the CRA must be brought to the House and

Senate in its own separate resolution, given its own debate

and vote, and sent to the President for its own signature or

veto. All officials involved in considering whether to erase

the regulation and its protections are thus put on record,

and can be held accountable for their positions and the

consequences. Perhaps for this reason, there has only been

one regulation rescinded under the CRA in its 20-year

history.

This important accountability check would be removed under

the ``Midnight Rules Relief Act.'' By allowing erasure of

multiple regulations en bloc, this bill would enable Members

of Congress and the President to evade public accountability

for what Gould be ill-considered, politically motivated

decisions that result in devastating consequences. Under the

bill, no Member would ever have to be on record regarding any

specific regulation being erased. In fact, any Member who

actually wants to cast a more selective vote, to erase

certain regulations but not others, would be unable to do so.

We are somewhat encouraged that the House Majority, after

initially acting behind closed doors to weaken the Office of

Congressional Ethics, has reversed course in light of major

concerns raised about the impact on congressional

accountability. We urge all Members to also recognize the

damaging effects that this bill would have on accountability

and on the ability of the American public to trust their

elected representatives. We strongly urge you to vote no on

the ``Midnight Rules Relief Act.''

Sincerely,

Laura MacCleery,

Vice President, Consumer Policy and Mobilization Consumer

Reports.

George P. Slover,

Senior Policy Counsel, Consumers Union.

William C. Wallace,

Policy Analyst, Consumers Union.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a senior colleague, to speak on the measure before us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

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

I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from California for pointing out how innocent this measure is, and I am astounded by his feeling that regulations shouldn't be examined one by one. Under this measure, 61 regulations could be considered en bloc. To me, just trying to put together two regulations to revoke them would be very, very hard to handle.

What we are talking about here is a bill that would provide special interests with yet another opportunity to block critical lifesaving regulations, and I want to say I have never had so much opposition to a bill brought to my attention before. 150 environmental organizations, consumer organizations, and labor organizations have urged the Members of this body to oppose H.R. 21. It is incredible. And then not only are workers and consumers against this measure as well as environmentalists, businesspeople are against it as well.

I feel like there is some missing part to this thing. The American Sustainable Business Council has over 200,000 businesses. So here is labor and commerce combined, urging Congress not to do this on the second day of a new Congress with all the challenges that are before us, and he says it wouldn't create any problems. It would be okay to put in 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60. This is incredible. It is not that we are working so hard that we don't have time to examine each one on a particular basis.

Can you imagine this Congress trying to block regulations which would be offered in one bill that could be over 60 different regulations? I mean, it is unthinkable. It is not very practical at all.

When we talk about meat labeling regulations and then in another paragraph or another section there would be standards for school lunch nutrition, they would be combined. My friend from California would say, well, that is no problem. We will take them separately, but they will all come in the same package.

So if you wanted to examine all of these things individually, we could have an instance where the whole Congress could be consumed for weeks or for months trying to figure out why they should block all of these important and sensible safeguards.

Business and labor are joined with us, and, to me, it is beyond comprehension for us to be concerned about not taking them up one at a time. This is worse than a conservative point of view, which I haven't found myself often agreeing with. But just to say let's have unlimited numbers of these blocking provisions all into one is beyond my comprehension.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), who, up until recently, was a very active member of the House Judiciary Committee. He is now the ranking member on the Education and the Workforce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor).

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a CRS Report that highlights the fact that it would be permissible under this proposed bill that as many as 61 regulations could be bundled into one package and blocked by this bill.

Congressional Research Service,

January 3, 2017.

Memorandum

Subject: ``Major'' Obama Administration Rules Potentially

Eligible to be Overturned under the Congressional Review

Act in the 115th Congress.

From: Maeve P. Carey, Specialist in Government Organization

and Management; Christopher M. Davis, Analyst on Congress

and the Legislative Process; Casey Burgat, Research

Assistant.

This memorandum lists ``major'' rules issued by federal

agencies under the Barack Obama Administration that are

potentially subject to consideration under the procedures of

the Congressional Review Act (CRA) in the 115th Congress.

This is an updated version of a general distribution

memorandum released by CRS on November 17, 2016, and

previously updated on December 6, 2016.

Background on the Congressional Review Act

The CRA is a tool that Congress may use to overturn a rule

issued by a federal agency, including, in some cases, rules

issued in a previous session of Congress and by a previous

President. The CRA requires agencies to report on their

rulemaking activities to Congress and provides Congress with

a special set of procedures under which to consider

legislation to overturn those rules. The CRA, which was

enacted in 1996, was largely intended to assert control over

agency rulemaking by establishing a special set of expedited

or ``fast track'' legislative procedures for this purpose,

primarily in the Senate.

Of the approximately 73,000 final rules that have been

submitted to Congress since the legislation was enacted in

1996, the CRA has been used to disapprove one rule: the

Occupational Safety and Health Administration's November 2000

final rule on ergonomics, which was overturned using the CRA

in March 2001. The primary reason the CRA has overturned one

rule in the 20 years since its enactment is that under most

circumstances, it is likely that a President would veto such

a resolution in order to protect rules developed under his

own administration, and it may also be difficult for Congress

to muster the two-thirds vote in both houses needed to

overturn the veto. However, under a specific set of

circumstances--a turnover in party control of the White

House, particularly a turnover in which the incoming

President shares a party affiliation with a majority in both

houses of Congress--the CRA is more likely to be used

successfully. The March 2001 rejection of the ergonomics rule

was the result of that set of circumstances. Similar

circumstances will take place in 2017 after the start of the

115th Congress and after President-elect Donald J. Trump is

sworn into office.

CRA ``Reset'' Mechanism

Section 801(d) of the CRA provides that, if Congress

adjourns its annual session sine die less than 60 legislative

days in the House of Representatives or 60 session days in

the Senate after a rule is submitted to it, then the periods

to submit and act on a disapproval resolution ``reset'' in

their entirety in the next session of Congress'' The purpose

of this provision is to ensure that both houses of Congress

have sufficient time to consider disapproving rules submitted

during this end-of-session ``carryover period.'' This

provision applies in every session of Congress, but it is of

particular relevance in sessions of Congress that coincide

with presidential transitions. This provision allows, for a

limited time period, a new Congress to consider a joint

resolution disapproving a rule issued late in the previous

administration. If introduced and considered at the proper

time, such a joint resolution cannot be filibustered in the

Senate.

The projected second-session meeting schedules of the House

and Senate issued by each chamber's majority leader may be

used to estimate the date in 2016 after which final rules

submitted to Congress will be subject to the renewed review

periods in 2017 described above. The estimated start of the

reset period for all rules was determined by counting back

from the projected sine die adjournment in the respective

chambers--60 days of session in the Senate and 60 legislative

days in the House--then taking the earlier of the two dates.

Under this calculation, CRS estimates that agency final

rules submitted to Congress on or after June 13, 2016, will

be subject to renewed review periods in 2017 by a new

President and a new Congress. CRS day count estimates are

unofficial and non-binding; the House and Senate

Parliamentarians are the sole definitive arbiters of the

operation of the CRA mechanism and should be consulted if a

formal opinion is desired.

``Major'' Obama Administration Rules Potentially Eligible for

Consideration under the CRA in 2017

Using this estimated reset date of June 13, 2016, CRS

compiled a list of major rules that would fall under this

reset period--i.e., rules that could be overturned in the

115th Congress using the CRA.

Table 1 lists the major rules CRS has identified as of

January 3, 2017, that could be eligible for the reset

mechanism. To identify these rules, CRS used a two-step

process. First, CRS consulted the Government Accountability

Office's (GAO's) federal rules database to identify major

rules that were issued during calendar year 2016 and posted

on GAO's website as of January 3, 2017. Second, CRS used

LIS's ``Executive Communications'' database to identify when

these rules were received in Congress.

Major Rules Issued by the Obama Administration That Are Potentially

Eligible for Disapproval Under the Congressional Review Act in the

115th Congress

major rules listed on gao's website as of january 3, 2017

Title of Rule (As Published in Federal Register) and RIN

Numbers are as follows:

Exemptions To Facilitate Intrastate and Regional Securities

Offerings, 3235-AL80; Investment Company Liquidity Risk

Management Programs, 3235-AL61; Retention of EB-1, EB-2, and

EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting

High-Skilled NonImmigrant Workers, 1615-ACO5; Walking-Working

Surfaces and Personal Protective Equipment (Fall Protection

Systems), 1216-AB80; Waste Prevention, Production Subject to

Royalties, and Resource Conservation, 1004-AE14; Investment

Company Swing Pricing, 3235-AL61; Establishing a More

Effective Fair Market Rent System; Using Small Area Fair

Market Rents in the Housing Choice Voucher Program Instead of

the Current 50th Percentile FMRs, 2501-AD74; Medicare

Program; Revisions to Payment Policies Under the Physician

Fee Schedule and Other Revisions to Part B for CY 2017;

Medicare Advantage Bid Pricing Data Release; Medicare

Advantage and Part D Medical Loss Ratio Data Release;

Medicare Advantage Provider Network Requirements; Expansion

of Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program Model; Medicare

Shared Savings Program Requirements, 0938-AS81.

Medicare Program; CY 2017 Inpatient Hospital Deductible and

Hospital and Extended Care Services Coinsurance Amounts,

0938-AS70; Medicare Program; Medicare Part B Monthly

Actuarial Rates, Premium Rate,

and Annual Deductible Beginning January 1, 2017, 0938-AS72;

Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory

Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting

Programs; Organ Procurement Organization Reporting and

Communication; Transplant Outcome Measures and Documentation

Requirements; Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive

Programs; Payment to Nonexcepted Off-Campus Provider-Based

Department of a Hospital; Hospital Value-Based Purchasing

(VBP) Program; Establishment of Payment Rates Under the

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for Nonexcepted Items and

Services Furnished by an Off-Campus Provider-Based Department

of a Hospital, 0938-AS82; Medicare Program; Merit-Based

Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Alternative Payment Model

(APM) Incentive Under the Physician Fee Schedule, and

Criteria for Physician-Focused Payment Models, 0938-AS69;

Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2017 Home Health

Prospective Payment System Rate Update; Home Health Value-

Based Purchasing Model; and Home Health Quality Reporting

Requirements, 0938-AS80; Student Assistance General

Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family

Education Loan Program, William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan

Program, and Teacher Education Assistance for College and

Higher Education Grant Program, 1840-AD19; Energy

Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for

Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products, 1904-AC51.

Medicaid Program; Final FY 2014 and Preliminary FY 2016

Disproportionate Share Hospital Allotments, and Final FY 2014

and Preliminary FY 2016 Institutions for Mental Diseases

Disproportionate Share Hospital Limits, 0938-ZB30; Cross-

State Air Pollution Rule Update For The 2008 Ozone NAAQS,

2060-AS05; Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency

Standards for Medium-and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles--

Phase 2, 2060-AS16; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Fee Schedule, 1615-AC09; Treatment of Certain Interests in

Corporations as Stock or Indebtedness, 1545-BN40;

Establishment of the Electronic Visa Update System (EVUS),

1651-ABO8; ONC Health IT Certification Program: Enhanced

Oversight and Accountability, 0955-AA00; Clearing Requirement

Determination Under Section 2(H) of the Commodity Exchange

Act For Interest Rate Swaps, 3038-AE20; Standards For Covered

Clearing Agencies, 3235-AL48.

Medicare and Medicaid Programs, Reform of Requirements for

Long-Term Care Facilities, 0938-AR61; Child Care And

Development Fund (CCDF) Program, 0970-AC67; Establishing Paid

Sick Leave For Federal Contractors, 1235-AA13; OCC Guidelines

Establishing Standards For Recovery Planning By Certain Large

Insured National Banks, Insured Federal Savings Associations,

And Insured Federal Branches; Technical Amendments, 1557-

AD96; Emergency Preparedness Requirements For Medicare And

Medicaid Participating Providers And Suppliers, 0938-A091;

Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations On Certain Federal Indian

Reservations And Ceded Lands For The 2016-17 Season, 1018-

BA70; Safety And Effectiveness Of Consumer Antiseptics;

Topical Antimicrobial Drug Products For Over-The-Counter-

Human Use, 0910-AF69; Head Start Performance Standards, 0970-

AC63; Standards Of Performance For Municipal Solid Waste

Landfills, 2060-AMO8; Emission Guidelines And Compliance

Times For Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, 2060-AS23.

Federal Acquisition Regulation; Fair Pay And Safe

Workplaces, 9000-AM81; Medicare Program; Hospital Inpatient

Prospective Payment Systems For Acute Care Hospitals And The

Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System & Policy

Changes & Fiscal Year 2017 Rates; Quality Reporting

Requirements For Specific Providers; Graduate Medical

Education; Hospital Notification Procedures Applicable To

Beneficiaries Receiving Observation Services; Technical

Changes Relating To Costs To Organizations & Medicare Cost

Reports; Finalization Of Interim Final Rules With Comment

Period On LTCH PPS Payments For Severe Wounds, Modifications

Of Limitations On Redesignation By The Medicare Geographic

Classification Review Board, & Extensions Of Payments To MDHS

And Low-Volume Hospitals, 0938-A577; 0938-A588; 0938-AS41;

Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act; Joint Rule For

Unified And Combined State Plans, Performance Accountability,

And The One-Stop System Joint Provisions; Final Rule, 1205-

AB74; Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act, 1205-AB73;

Medicare Program; Prospective Payment System And Consolidated

Billing For Skilled Nursing Facilities For FY 2017, SNF

Value-Based Purchasing Program, SNF Quality Reporting

Program, And SNF Payment Models Research, 0938-AS75.

Medicare Program; Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility

Prospective Payment System For Federal Fiscal Year 2017,

0938-AS78; Medicare Program; FF 2017 Hospice Wage Index And

Payment Rate Update And Hospice Quality Reporting

Requirements, 0938-AS79; Margin And Capital Requirements For

Covered Swap Entities, 3052-AC69; Medicare Program; FY 2017

Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System--

Rate Update, 0938-AS76; National School Lunch Program And

School Breakfast Program. Nutrition Standards For All Foods

Sold In School As Required By The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids

Act Of 2010, 0584-AE09; Revised Critical Infrastructure

Protection Reliability Standards No RIN provided; Amendments

To The Commission's Rules Of Practice, 3235-AL87; Disclosure

Of Payments By Resource Extraction Issuers, 3235-AL53;

Migratory Bird Hunting; Seasons And Bag And Possession Limits

For Certain Migratory Game Birds, 1018-BA70; Oil And Gas And

Sulfur Operations On The Outer Continental Shelf--

Requirements For Exploratory Drilling On The Arctic Outer

Continental Shelf, 1082-AA00.

Medication Assisted Treatment For Opioid Use Disorders,

0930-AA22; Department Of Labor Federal Civil Penalties

Inflation Adjustment Act Catch-Up Adjustments, 1290-AA31;

General Administrative Regulations; Catastrophic Risk

Protection Endorsement; Area Risk Protection Insurance

Regulations; And The Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Basic

Provisions, 0563-AC49; Transition Assistance Program (TAP)

For Military Personnel, 0790-AJ17; Operation And

Certification Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 2120-AJ60;

Transit Asset Management, National Transit Database; FTA-

2014-0020, 092132-ABO7; Revision Of Fee Schedules; Fee

Recovery For Fiscal Year 2016, 3150-AJ66; Medicare Program;

Medicare Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests Payment System,

0938-AS33; James Zadroga 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund

Reauthorization Act, 1105-AB49; Energy Conservation Program:

Energy Conservation Standards For Battery Chargers, 1904-

AB57; Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation

Standards For Dehumidifiers, 1904-AC81; Removal Of Mandatory

Country Of Origin Labeling Requirements For Beef And Pork

Muscle Cuts, Ground Beef, And Ground Pork, 0581-AD29.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino).

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

Mr. Speaker, floor debate is both for the people in the room and the people watching.

Many of the new Members have not yet voted on a substantive piece of legislation. So, Mr. Speaker, I reach out with a little piece of history--a large piece of history, perhaps--for the freshmen of both parties.

First of all, this legislation is bipartisan. It is sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats.

Second of all, when Mr. Conyers, Mr. Nadler, and I were 16 years younger, in March of 2001, it was the last and only time that the underlying law allowed for a regulation to be repealed. It was prominently called ergonomics. It was repealed. I had the honor of voting for that as a freshman.

Since that time, in spite of the many regulations that some people don't like in one party or another, we have not seen fit to have a joint resolution repeal a regulation.

So let's talk about what it takes to do that. It takes both Houses of the Congress and the President of the United States to repeal a regulation created by a bureaucrat, or many bureaucrats--a regulation that may or may not be consistent with the law passed by this body, by the Senate, and by a President in this or a previous Congress.

Again, for the freshmen, we are the body that creates laws, and we do so through a complex and difficult procedure. We pass it out of the House or Senate. We then pass it out of the other body. If the President signs it, it then still is subject to court challenge.

Now, let's go through the regulatory process: Proposed by a bureaucrat, given a period of time in which dissenters may be 100 percent, and still it becomes law if this body does not act. So now that gives you a little feel for the underlying law. Used once on a bipartisan basis to take back an unpopular regulation that has never been resubmitted under both 8 years of a Republican and 8 years of a Democrat in the White House, and I repeat, the regulation that was previously recalled was so in error that it has never been redone in 16 years by two Presidents.

Now, let's talk about the bill we have before us today. We all know that the House is a body that, when it wants to, can move fairly quickly, and the Senate is a body that seemingly moves quickly only in recess. The fact is that the Senate takes a long time, and we have many regulations that may or may not be considered now or in the future.

All this legislation does is allow for us to dispose of one or more regulations in an expedited fashion in this body and have it seen in the same form in the Senate. Nothing more than that. It doesn't change the underlying law. It doesn't change the fact that the House, the Senate, and a President must concur on taking back what is essentially a law--that is what a regulation is--created by bureaucrats not elected by any of us. So let's keep it as simple as that.

For the freshmen of either party, when you go to make a vote on this, remember, we are not changing the underlying law. Only one regulation under the underlying law has ever been repealed, and it was bipartisan in both the House and the Senate when it was repealed. It has been 16 years, and the few that will likely be considered under this act and the underlying law will be just that, a relatively few regulations that are believed to be unnecessary and for which the House, the Senate, and the President concur.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute of my time to the gentleman.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I won't be long. There is nothing mundane about what we are doing here. Every day in America, Congress passes a law maybe, but every working day in America, the bureaucracy passes regulations. The fact is, the American people know that the so-called regulatory state that has developed during the last half century means that, whether Congress is in session or not, new laws are being created, new rules that cause people in real America, working people and their companies, to have to figure out what new hurdle they have to jump over just to earn a living.

That is what we are talking about here, that at least when those are grossly exceeded under the underlying law and intention of Congress, Congress--the House, the Senate--in concert with the President, may, in fact, use the same tool, essentially the making of law, in this case to rescind to law.

I just want to again speak to the younger Members who may not know the history of this. All we are really talking about here in this act is, in fact, a law created to take away a regulation. What we are going to vote on will allow for, one, two, half a dozen regulations, if there were that many that we think are wrong, through our normal lawmaking process, in many ways, to be rescinded. The House has to vote a majority, the Senate has to vote a majority, and the President has to sign it. There really isn't a whole lot of difference between that and any other legislative business that we do here.

Now, I have worked with John Conyers both as a minority member and as my chairman. He is a good man. In this case, I believe that if he looked more broadly at the question of Congress' responsibility to review laws made outside of this body that he would support me. Notwithstanding not getting his support in this case, we do have both Republicans and Democrats on this bill. I expect that on the vote, in both the House and the Senate, it will be bipartisan, and any piece of regulatory law that would come before this body and the Senate, I am confident, would have bipartisan support in order to rescind a bad regulation.

So I think for those who are concerned about the regulations somehow running amok, no regulation will be rescinded under this law any different than any normal piece of legislation passed out of the House and the Senate and signed by the President.

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

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

My colleague from Tennessee has been a good friend on many issues. I know he is passionate about regulations and laws that he would like to have passed, and so am I.

All of us in Congress have seen that it is extremely easy--the longer you are here, the more you will see it--it is extremely easy to stop something here. The same is true about those 61 or so regulations. Any combining of regulations, unless they are overwhelmingly disapproved, actually makes them harder to pass. We are not going to put 61 pieces of legislation, each of which has at least one or two or three or a dozen Republicans who vehemently oppose that regulation being rescinded. The fact is it is only the worst of the worst that are going to be stayed through this process and then reevaluated by the new administration.

I will mention, though, for my colleagues on the other side of this debate today, that we do appropriations every year. The American people, and for the freshmen who haven't voted on appropriations yet, think of appropriations as somehow different than the law. It really isn't. Appropriation is simply a law that provides funding.

Every appropriation bill during the entire nearly 8 years of President Obama has been some form of a continuing resolution or an omnibus. But as my colleague from Tennessee knows, every one of those has had dozens to hundreds of laws attached to them. We call them riders. We have terms for them. The fact is that a single appropriations bill, often done just before the end of funding of the government, always--always--has dozens, if not hundreds, of laws attached to it.

So the idea that we don't group together things which are relatively noncontroversial, that will cause someone to still vote for the bill in spite of it being in there, would be to be dishonest to the freshmen who need to know that we do for efficiency bring together things that we can pass en bloc, and we do it all the time--and even major legislation. I dare say, the Affordable Care Act and others are, in fact, multiple pieces of legislation put together in one package.

So lest our freshmen who are about to take their first vote on a piece of legislation--or one that could have a major impact-- misunderstand, bringing together multiple pieces into one bill is common, but it is always done in order to gain votes or to maintain votes. In fact, you do it at your folly if you lose votes.

I would say to my friend and colleague from Michigan that there is no likelihood that 61 pieces of regulation will be put together because there is no chance that there would be 61 pieces that even all Republicans would agree should be revoked. I would imagine the number would be less. I suspect that if my bill said 2 or 5 or 10, it would still be opposed for the same reason, which is that it creates inefficiency if there are multiple generally agreed bad pieces of legislation that need to be considered.

Lastly, and I am not closing, but I think this may be one of my closing remarks, for freshmen to understand, this isn't even about the House. We have the procedures in the House where we could put these together. This is about the Senate that can take 60 hours, 60 legislative hours or more, to do one piece of legislation. We know that the Senate has confirmations to do of judges and appointees for the Cabinet, and they have other legislative work, and we cannot afford to have them backed up now or in the future if there are multiple regulations that need to be rescinded.

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

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

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

The gentlewoman from Florida, I am sure, is well intended, but there is nothing more transparent than calling up to the floor of this House and debating the removal of regulations that have been found to be excessive or extreme or simply not consistent with the law. That is a transparent process. The term ``regular order,'' in fact, could not be more appropriate to that process. We passed a law nearly three Presidents ago, if you will, that simply called for this procedure.

All I am saying is we should not be mired down, if there are five or six or eight bad regulations, in not combining them together for purposes of getting them disposed of in a timely fashion. I might suggest to everyone that they remember that many of us did not support the regulation change yesterday as to the ethics oversight, because we do believe in transparency and will continue to believe in transparency.

Again, nothing is more transparent than bringing to the House floor the debate about something that is believed to have been wrong done by unelected bureaucrats. ``Bureaucrat'' is not a dirty word, but ``unelected'' fits this process.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

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

I served on the Small Business Committee with Ms. Velazquez a long time ago. One thing that we all know is, with regard to that committee, the NFIB--the National Federation of Independent Business--and small business groups alike are something we look at, even NAM--the National Association of Manufacturers--and, of course, the Chamber. All of those organizations support this legislation. They have written letters in support, and I include in the Record those letters.

The following is a list of supporters of H.R. 21, the

Midnight Rules Relief Act:

American Action Forum, American Center for Law and Justice,

American Commitment, American Energy Alliance, American Fuel

and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity--

Key Vote, Americans for Tax Reform, Associated Builders and

Contractors, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Concerned

Women for America.

Family Business Coalition, FreedomWorks, Heating Air-

conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International

(HARDI), International Franchise Association, Let Freedom

Ring, National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED),

National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation

for Independent Business, R Street Institute, SBE Council,

U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is we are hearing many people talk about important regulations and of their somehow being taken out. Let's understand that regulations can go both ways. These changes and the underlying law can also protect the other way. The fact is now we are in the future. You could have an administration that, in its final days, changes regulations to make them more lenient to large businesses, more lenient to polluters, more lenient to the employers to the detriment of their employees. Regulations can go both ways, and only the most extreme regulations--literally one since the enactment of the underlying legislation--has ever been repealed.

I don't want to belittle my own legislation, but let's understand that there won't be 61 en bloc being brought. There will be some, I hope, and there may be more than one. Yet for Congress to take back, piece by piece, its responsibility and then live up to that responsibility should be all of our goals.

Now, this legislation was limited to midnight rules. Let's understand that midnight rules are the rules done in the waning days of an administration--7-plus years into this administration--and many of these rules, in fact, were enacted after the last vote of the people. I think it is important to understand that, on election day, the American people delivered a resounding message to Washington: stop the regulatory, Big Government onslaught that is killing jobs.

One of my colleagues earlier spoke of the fact that we had had so many jobs--15 million jobs--created in the last 8 years. The percentage of the workforce that is working in America today is the smallest in my lifetime. It is smaller than it was 8 years ago, 16 years ago, or 21 years ago. We are not creating jobs at the rate of our population. We should not have some sort of an accolade for regulations having created a great economy if, in fact, that economy has grown less than 2 percent a year and has not kept up with any historic 8-year period. To me, that is an important part. Although the discussion I just had was about more than regulations, let's understand that the growth of regulations--of lawmaking--is certainly not the creator of jobs.

I think, when we look at the cost--and that is a lot of what we are dealing with in the manager's amendment in this bill--we are dealing with the recognition that we are looking at regulations in light of how much they cost. Now, that cost is based on independent scoring. It is not the administration's scoring and it is not my scoring. It is that of the Congressional Budget Office's, an independent agency that doesn't always give a score I want, but the score is not arrived through partisan activities.

I reach out again to the Members who may not yet know that what we are asking is simply to assert our normal ability in Congress and put together one or more ideas for the efficiency of the body, to send it from here to the Senate, and from the Senate to the President. What we are proposing in this legislation as a small change to the underlying legislation that has been with us for three Presidents is, in fact, consistent with this body's doing its job, in regular order, in the clear light of day.

I think the important message for this piece of bipartisan legislation is: we are taking back a limited amount of our capability, trying to streamline it, and giving the President an opportunity to accept or reject a piece of legislation voted on by a majority of the House and a majority of the Senate before it gets to the President. The President, if he feels we have included even one regulation inappropriately that he would like to retain, would veto our bill.

Lastly, I beg everyone to look at this for what it is, not for what others say it is, because it is simply Congress doing its job in an efficient fashion and consistent with 20-plus years of history and with there being only one piece--one time--when a regulation was withdrawn. No President since that time has tried to produce or has asked Congress to pass a law so as to put into effect a regulation that, on a bipartisan basis, the House, the Senate, and a President thought should go. I urge the support for this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I remember Chairman Ed Towns who used to say when someone ran on: The gentleman's time has long expired. I think we might have that situation here, but I am going to give the gentlewoman from Florida a moment more in just a moment.

The motion to recommit specifically sends it back to the committee. That is not necessary. The fact is that if she wanted these changes and wanted them enacted immediately there is a procedure to do so.

So I rise in opposition because this is certainly something that would delay, would send this back to committee, and cause it to come back again.

I will yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor) for a question, if she wouldn't mind: Is there a regulation in those 61 that would be affected by this that would affect any of the provisions that you cited in your amendment?

Mr. Speaker, would the gentlewoman answer the question. Is there 61, according to the ranking member, pieces of regulation that

could be in the window? I just wondered if you had one regulation by the Obama administration that concerned any of these issues that you had in the act.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would ask that the gentlewoman, if there are some, place them in the Record. I don't know of any in the 61 that were granted, let's say, after June.

What I will say is that the reason I will be voting and urging my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit is not the regulations that she alludes to but, in fact, the fact that this would kill the bill by sending it back and having it delayed further.

So, in order to pass it today, because she did not set it up to exclude these items and have them immediately considered, I cannot support her motion to recommit.

What I will say is that when we look at regulations to put into a package that may be a package of one or a package, if this passes, of more than one, I certainly will expect that those regulations will have to do with things which could have been done sooner, would have been done sooner, and were done in the waning days of the administration for no reason that was time sensitive.

The Affordable Care Act was passed in the first days of the administration. If there is something in the last days of the administration that has merit, I certainly would urge my colleagues not

to rescind that regulation. But if there is something that should have been done in year one, two, three, four, five, or six, I would ask why it wasn't done then.

Having said that, it is unfortunate that this motion to recommit was written in a way that would send it back to committee and, thus, cause a substantial delay.

I would caution my colleagues that, at least from this Member, if you have a motion to recommit and you want the amendment itself considered, make it one that is immediate and not back to committee. The difference, I think, is important. The Parliamentarian simply can advise on how to write one that would prevent it having to get, if you will, another delay of days or weeks.

I urge opposition to the motion to recommit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the REINS Act. I would like to thank my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Collins) for taking charge of this bill in the 115th Congress and Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte for quickly bringing it to the floor.

This week and next, the primary focus of debate here in the House is the stranglehold of regulation on the economy and its intrusion into the everyday lives of Americans. These onerous burdens are well-known to Members of Congress on both sides.

Over the past several years, I have spent countless hours traveling across the nearly 6,600 square miles of my district. I have met with my constituents in their homes, in their workplaces and social halls. They have pleaded with me for release from the regulations that limit their ability to prosper, innovate, and grow.

Unlike the nameless, faceless, ever-growing bureaucracy here in Washington, we have listened to the people's concerns. We have made regulatory reform a priority and the focal point for jump-starting our economy. By placing final approval of major regulations in the hands of Congress, the REINS Act is an important launch point in our efforts to dismantle the administrative state and make government more accountable to the American people.

Our Founders vested in Congress--and Congress alone--the power to write the laws. Unfortunately, over our history, we have delegated much of that power away. The Founders could not have imagined our current scenario where the complaints of many fall on the deaf ears of an unelected few in Washington.

Thinking over the past 8 years, the REINS Act could have prevented numerous regulations that the American people knew were threats to their very way of life. Perhaps a trillion dollars in costs could have been avoided. I cannot even imagine how many jobs might have been saved or created if we avoided the regulatory barrage brought on by the Obama administration.

For example, we could have prevented the waters of the United States regulation that impacts the farmers near my home in rural Pennsylvania. The FCC's net neutrality rule might have been overturned, a classic rulemaking bait and switch where the FCC ignored the mountains of public comment to achieve its own political ends. An unaccountable sum of environmental regulations might have been avoided before destroying large swaths of our industry and imposing huge costs on taxpayers.

Our prime takeaway from these instances and others is that the runaway regulators issued wide-ranging and economy-destroying regulations with complete disregard for the hardworking American citizens whose livelihoods were at stake.

Today we take an important step to reassert the voice of the American people in our government. The REINS Act reestablishes the Congress as the final judge of whether or not any particular regulation actually does what the Congress meant it to do.

Returning this responsibility to the branch of government most attentive and accountable to the people adheres to the principles of our Nation's founding. It is an effort that all elected to Congress should support.

I urge my colleagues to support the REINS Act.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment renders congressional findings on climate change and requires that agencies report to Congress on greenhouse gas impacts associated with a rule. It also requires agencies to report on a rule's effect on low-income and rural communities.

Further, the amendment expands the definition of major rule to include rules that allow increases of carbon emissions by more than 25,000 metric tons per year or that might increase the risk of certain diseases in rural or low-income communities.

I oppose this amendment.

The REINS Act is not designed to address one or two subjects of regulation with heightened scrutiny but not others. It is to restore accountability to the people's elected representatives in Congress for the largest regulatory decisions, whatever subject is involved.

Further, and consistent with that, the addition of congressional findings in one policy area--climate change--but no other, has no place in the REINS Act.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment exempts from the bill any rule reducing the incidence of cancer, premature mortality, asthma attacks, and respiratory diseases in children. But do not be fooled. This amendment is not about reducing these maladies. It is about transferring the power to decide how best to do so from elected representatives to unaccountable bureaucrats.

For example, government could substantially reduce teenage mortality by barring teenage drivers off the road. Of course, there would be a substantial cost to that policy, and there are surely less burdensome ways to achieve the same reductions in mortality. The right decision requires a delicate balancing of interest. Agencies can provide valuable expertise, but, when there is a lot at stake, the ultimate decision on how best to strike that balance is properly made by elected officials accountable to the people.

That is the intuition behind the REINS Act and the fundamental point that is lost on those who oppose it.

Reducing the incidence of mortality and serious disease is a goal that all Members share. This bill does not frustrate that goal. It merely ensures that elected representatives decide how best to achieve that policy so that our Republic remains a government by the people as the Constitution designed.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment exempts from the bill any rule pertaining to health or public safety.

Health and public safety regulations done properly serve important goals, and the bill does nothing to frustrate the effective achievement of those goals; but Federal health and public safety regulations constitute an immense part of total Federal regulation and have been the source of many of the most abusive, unnecessarily expensive, and job- and wage-destroying regulations. To remove these areas of regulation from the bill would severely weaken the bill's important reforms to lower cumulative regulatory costs and increase the accountability of our regulatory system and the Congress to the people, so I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment seeks to carve out from the REINS Act's reforms regulations that would reduce the amount of lead in public drinking water.

But, like other amendments, this amendment is not so much about achieving a particular health or safety result. It is about taking the decision on how best to do that away from elected Representatives and handing it down to unaccountable bureaucrats. Agencies can provide valuable expertise, but when there is a lot at stake, the ultimate decision on how best to strike that balance is properly made by elected officials who are accountable to the people. This is the intuition behind the REINS Act, and the fundamental point is lost on its opponents.

Preventing dangerous levels of lead in our drinking water is a goal all Members share. This bill does not frustrate that goal. It merely ensures that elected Representatives decide how best to achieve that policy so that our Republic remains a government by the people, as the Constitution designed.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, just to reiterate what our position is, it is about time that we in D.C.--in Congress--take our responsibility back from unelected bureaucrats and make these decisions. We have seen, over the past 8 years, what overburdensome regulation has done to this country as far as crushing jobs.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the amendment seeks to carve out from the REINS Act's reforms regulations intended to protect young children and infants from harm.

Child safety is a goal all Members share, but to shield bureaucrats who write child safety regulations from accountability to Congress is no way to guarantee a child's safety. The only thing that would guarantee is less careful decisionmaking and more insulation of faceless bureaucrats from the public.

The Constitution entrusts to Congress the authority to protect children--and all citizens--from harmful products flowing in interstate commerce. The public should be able to trust Congress--and we should trust ourselves--to make sure that Washington bureaucrats make the right decisions to protect child safety when we delegate legislative authority to regulatory agencies.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the REINS Act doesn't prevent the bureaucracy, the agencies, from making recommendations and suggestions to Congress. It simply says Congress will have the last word and not a handful of bureaucrats, and many of them don't even have experience in these areas.

I urge my colleagues to not support this amendment but to support the REINS Act.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the amendment carves out of the REINS Act's congressional approval procedures regulations that attempt to improve employment, retention, and earnings, particularly for those with significant barriers to employment.

The danger in the amendment is the strong incentive it gives agencies to manipulate their analysis of a major regulation's jobs and wages impacts. Far too often, agencies will be tempted to shade the analysis to skirt the bill's congressional approval requirement.

In addition, regulations alleged to create new job prospects often do so by destroying real, existing jobs and creating new, hoped-for jobs associated with regulatory compliance. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Air Act rules have shut down existing power plants all over the country, throwing myriads of workers out of work. EPA and OMB attempt to justify that with claims that more new green jobs have been created as a result.

In the end, this is just another way in which government picks the jobs winners and the jobs losers, and there is no guarantee that all of the new green jobs will ever actually exist.

The REINS Act is not intended to force any particular outcome. It does not choose between clean air and dirty air. It does not choose between new jobs and old jobs.

Instead, the REINS Act chooses between two ways of making laws. It chooses the way the Framers intended in which accountability for laws with major economic impact rests with Congress. It rejects the way Washington has operated for too long in which there is no accountability because decisions are made by unelected agency officials.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment carves out of the REINS Act's congressional approval procedures all regulations that pertain to nuclear reactor safety standards. REINS Act supporters believe in nuclear safety. We want to guarantee that regulatory decisions that pertain to nuclear reactor safety are the best decisions that can be made.

That is precisely why I oppose the amendment. By its terms, the amendment shields from the REINS Act's congressional approval procedures not only major regulations that would raise nuclear reactor safety standards, but also regulations that would lower them.

All major regulations pertaining to nuclear reactor safety standards, whether they raise or lower standards, should fall within the REINS Act. That way agencies with authority over nuclear reactor safety would know that Congress must approve their major regulations before they go into effect.

That provides a powerful incentive for the agencies to write the best possible regulations, ones that Congress can easily approve. It is a solution that everyone should support because it makes Congress more accountable and ensures agencies will write better rules. All Americans will be safer for it.

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

Mr. Chairman, once again, this administration has proven how thousands of regulations have crushed jobs for the middle class people in this country. The REINS Act does designate and allows and wants agencies to make decisions as far as what they think the law should be and send it to Congress.

We do have the time. We have the resources and the knowledge. That is why we have full committees. That is why we have subcommittees and we have experts come in and testify. Yet, we still need to get back--that the 535 Members of Congress, the House and the Senate, make the final decision and not a handful of unelected bureaucrats.

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

Mr. Chairman, the amendment seeks to carve out from the REINS Act's reform regulations that concern natural gas or hazardous materials pipeline safety or the prevention of pipeline spills and their adverse impacts.

We all support pipeline safety and the prevention of harm from pipeline spills, but there is no assurance that the amendment would guarantee the achievement of those goals. On the contrary, the amendment would shield from congressional accountability procedures, regulations, that actually threaten to decrease safety. They also would shield from the bill's congressional approval requirements new, ideologically driven regulations intended to impede America's access to new sources of cheap, clean, and plentiful natural gas.

The legislative body is the legislative body. We are trying to have oversight over the bureaucracy. The House and the Senate is not a bureaucracy. It is a legislative body, according to the Constitution that represents the people of the United States. Therefore, the House and the Senate and the President should have the last say in whether something becomes law or not.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, what better group, such as the Committee on Energy and Commerce or other committees here, the full committees, the subcommittees, would be looking out and should be looking out for the public safety and the welfare than the 535 Members of Congress?

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment carves out of the REINS Act's congressional approval procedures any workplace safety rules issued by OSHA or the Mine Safety and Health Administration to reduce traumatic injury, cancer, or lung disease.

But please do not be fooled. This amendment is not about reducing these maladies. It is about transferring the power to decide how best to do so from elected Representatives, being House Members and Senators, to unaccountable bureaucrats.

Arriving at the right decision requires a delicate balancing of interests. Agencies can provide valuable expertise, but when there is a lot at stake, the ultimate decision on how best to strike that balance is properly made by elected officials accountable to the people. That is the intuition behind the REINS Act and the fundamental point that is lost on its opponents.

Preventing workplace injury is a goal all Members share. This bill does not frustrate that goal. It merely ensures that elected Representatives make the final call about major decisions so that our Republic remains a government by the people as the Constitution's Framers designed.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I fully support Congressman King's amendment. It improves the viability of the REINS Act and makes sure that the responsibility of legislation is in the hands of we legislators.

Let me just ask this simple question. My good friend on the other side says that we should let the agencies and departments regulate and make rules. Let me ask this: How has it been going in the last 20 years in this country?

We are $20 trillion in debt, and 20 million people are out of work or underemployed.

Are we going to continue to let bureaucrats make these decisions that crush jobs?

No, I don't think so. It is our responsibility in the House and it is our responsibility in the Senate. We can hear from those individuals, as I have repeatedly said here, in those agencies. We need to make the final decision because just look at the track record over the last 20, 30 years of unelected bureaucrats making these rules, laws, and regulations.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Republicans' Midnight Rules Relief Act.

The bill is an unnecessary abdication of legislative responsibility by the Republican-led Congress, and it is very poor public policy. The bill short-circuits open debate and public participation. It is also very wasteful because it jettisons carefully and long-crafted policies that protect American families from threats to their economic security, their health, and their safety.

Under the U.S. Constitution, after Congress passes a law, agencies craft rules to implement that legislation. If Members of Congress want to clarify or change executive branch regulations, they have a responsibility to address the matter in a transparent way and through open, regular order. Republicans don't want to do that, however,

because the public might find out what they are doing.

This Republican scheme sets a dangerous precedent by expanding the ability of the Congress to use the Congressional Review Act to disapprove hundreds of carefully crafted policies at one time and with very little notice or debate. Republicans want to reach back to last May and cherry-pick policies that they do not agree with.

But how will the public know?

That will be difficult; and, in many instances, Republicans do not want the public to know.

I urge my colleagues to reject this power grab by the new Republican Congress. It is just like what they tried to do yesterday with the Office of Congressional Ethics. These policies don't just come out of thin air. There is a long, painstaking process with extensive public comment. Public participation doesn't appear to be a priority in this new Congress, so reject this dark bill. Side, instead, with our democratic principles in America, which include open debate, transparency, fiscal responsibility, and the security of our neighbors.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

My amendment provides an important safeguard for the economic security of American families by maintaining the consumer-friendly protections in the Affordable Care Act for, one, the cost-saving provisions in Medicare of lower prescription drugs for our parents and our grandparents; and, two, the vital consumer protection that prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage because someone has a preexisting condition like cancer, asthma, or diabetes.

The Affordable Care Act, which Republicans say they want to repeal without a replacement bill in sight, provided these very important consumer protections for all Americans not just for the 20 million Americans who gained health insurance through the marketplace or HealthCare.gov, but for the vast majority of Americans who are covered through Medicare, which is about 43 million Americans, and for the folks who have health insurance through their jobs, which is about 155 million Americans.

Here is what the Affordable Care Act has done for those folks: One, Medicare is stronger. The Affordable Care Act strengthened the Medicare fund, extending its life by over a decade. In addition, Medicare enrollees have benefited from huge savings in prescription drug costs. They have also saved through preventative screenings for breast and colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes; that when they go to the doctor's office now, there is no cost, there is no charge. That is the Affordable Care Act.

So if Republicans aren't careful in their zeal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they, in essence, will be asking our parents and grandparents to pay more, a whole lot more for their prescription drugs.

Let me get a little local here. I represent the State of Florida where about 18 percent of Floridians rely on Medicare for their health care. Because of the Affordable Care Act, it has started to close the doughnut hole. Repeal it now and that stops. That goes away. Just in 2015 alone, 350,000 Florida seniors saved $351 million on their prescription drugs. That is an average of about $1,000 per beneficiary. So my amendment makes the point that Democrats are going to fight for our older neighbors to keep those savings intact, brought to you by the Affordable Care Act.

Second, we also want to put everyone on notice that Democrats intend to fight tooth and nail to keep the vital consumer protection, one of the bedrocks of the Affordable Care Act, that bars health insurance companies from refusing to cover you or charge you more because you have a preexisting condition or charge women more than men.

Whether you know it or not, all Americans have benefited from the bar on discrimination from preexisting conditions since January 1, 2014. So if you have health insurance through your employer, you have benefited from the Affordable Care Act. If you have gone to healthcare.gov because you are a student, part-time worker, or you don't have it through your job, you have benefited. If you have health insurance for your children through the Children's Health Insurance Program or Medicaid, you are no longer subject to discrimination.

Remember a few years ago when insurance companies maintained a long list of conditions where they said, if you have cancer or diabetes or something, you are automatically excluded, that is the way things worked. A congressional investigation into this practice during the healthcare reform debate uncovered more than 400 medical diagnoses or conditions that insurance used to justify coverage denial. At the top of the list were cancer, heart disease, pregnancy, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy.

You know what? Generally, States with the highest rates of denial were in the South and the Midwest where the overall health status of residents has consistently been worse than in other parts of the country. The incidence of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes is higher in those States.

Well, now you cannot be discriminated against for those preexisting conditions. That kind of discrimination wasn't right. It had no place in America, so we outlawed it in the Affordable Care Act. Like one of my neighbors, Christine Roper in Tampa--Christine is 26. She recently aged off her father's insurance and was unsure how to find coverage because she has a heart condition and asthma. Before, she would have been prohibited from getting health insurance, but not today. And we are not going backwards. That is because millions of Americans who can now buy coverage would be forced back into the ranks of the uninsured.

We are going to start this Congress off by standing up for our families and rejecting any attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on my motion, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Well, according to the Midnight Rules Relief Act, the public really won't know, and that is the point.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In fact, there are extensive regulations listed as major rules relating to Medicare because part of what we did in the Affordable Care Act was to begin to change Medicare from a volume-based system to a value-based system.

Major Rules Issued by the Obama Administration That Are Potentially

Eligible for Disapproval Under the Congressional Review Act in the

115th Congress

Major Rules Listed on GAO's Website As of January 3, 2017

Title of Rule (As Published in Federal Register) and RIN

Number are as follows:

Exemptions To Facilitate Intrastate and Regional Securities

Offerings 3235-AL80; Investment Company Liquidity Risk

Management Programs, 3235-AL61; Retention of EB-1, EB-2, and

EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting

High Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers, 1615-ACO5; Walking-Working

Surfaces and Personal Protective Equipment (Fall Protection

Systems), 1216-AB80; Waste Prevention, Production Subject to

Royalties, and Resource Conservation, 1004-AE14; Investment

Company Swing Pricing, 3235-AL61; Establishing a More

Effective Fair Market Rent System; Using Small Area Fair

Market Rents in the Housing Choice Voucher Program Instead of

the Current 50th Percentile FMRs, 2501-AD74; Medicare

Program; Revisions to Payment Policies Under the Physician

Fee Schedule and Other Revisions to Part B for CY 2017;

Medicare Advantage Bid Pricing Data Release; Medicare

Advantage and Part D Medical Loss Ratio Data Release;

Medicare Advantage Provider Network Requirements; Expansion

of Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program Model; Medicare

Shared Savings Program Requirements, 0938-AS81.

Medicare Program; CY 2017 Inpatient Hospital Deductible and

Hospital and Extended Care Services Coinsurance Amounts,

0938-AS70; Medicare Program; Medicare Part B Monthly

Actuarial Rates, Premium Rate, and Annual Deductible

Beginning January 1, 2017, 0938-AS72; Hospital Outpatient

Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment

Systems and Quality Reporting Programs; Organ Procurement

Organization Reporting and Communication; Transplant Outcome

Measures and Documentation Requirements; Electronic Health

Record (EHR) Incentive Programs; Payment to Nonexcepted Off-

Campus Provider-Based Department of a Hospital; Hospital

Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program; Establishment of

Payment Rates Under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for

Nonexcepted Items and Services Furnished by an Off-Campus

Provider-Based Department of a Hospital, 0938-AS82; Medicare

Program; Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and

Alternative Payment Model (APM) Incentive Under the Physician

Fee Schedule, and Criteria for Physician-Focused Payment

Models, 0938-AS69; Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2017

Home Health Prospective Payment System Rate Update; Home

Health Value-Based Purchasing Model; and Home Health Quality

Reporting Requirements, 0938-AS80; Student Assistance General

Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family

Education Loan Program, William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan

Program, and Teacher Education Assistance for College and

Higher Education Grant Program, 1840-AD19; Energy

Conservation Program, Energy Conservation Standards for

Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products, 1904-AC51.

Medicaid Program; Final FY 2014 and Preliminary FY 2016

Disproportionate Share Hospital, Allotments, and Final FY

2014 and Preliminary FY 2016 Institutions for Mental

Diseases, Disproportionate Share Hospital Limits, 0938-ZB30;

Cross-State Air Pollution Rule Update For The 2008 Ozone

NAAQS, 2060-AS05; Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel

Efficiency Standards for Medium-and Heavy-Duty Engines and

vehicles--Phase 2, 2060-AS16; U.S. Citizenship and

Immigration Services Fee Schedule, 1615-AC09; Treatment of

Certain Interests in Corporations as Stock or Indebtedness,

1545-BN40; Establishment of the Electronic Visa Update System

(EVUS), 1651-AB08; ONC Health IT Certification Program:

Enhanced Oversight and Accountability, 0955-AA00; Cleaning

Requirement Determination Under Section 2(H) Of The Commodity

Exchange Act For Interest Rate Swaps, 3038-AE20; Standards

For Covered Clearing Agencies, 3235-AL48.

Medicare And Medicaid Programs; Reform Of Requirements For

Long-Term Care Facilities, 0938-AR61; Child Care And

Development Fund (CCDF) Program, 0970-AC67; Establishing Paid

Sick Leave For Federal Contractors, 1235-AAI3; OCC Guidelines

Establishing Standards For Recovery Planning By Certain Large

Insured National Banks, Insured Federal Savings Associations,

And Insured Federal Branches; Technical Amendments, 1557-

AD96; Emergency Preparedness Requirements For Medicare And

Medicaid Participating Providers And Suppliers, 0938-A091;

Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations On Certain Federal Indian

Reservations And Ceded Lands For The 2016-17 Season, 1018-

BA70; Safety And Effectiveness Of Consumer Antiseptics;

Topical Antimicrobial Drug Products For Over-The-Counter-

Human Use, 0910-AF69; Head Start Performance Standards, 0970-

AC63; Standards Of Performance For Municipal Solid Waste

Landfills, 2060-AM08; Emission Guidelines And Compliance

Times For Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, 2060-AS23.

Federal Acquisition Regulation; Fair Pay And Safe

Workplaces, 9000-AM81; Medicare Program; Hospital Inpatient

Prospective Payment Systems For Acute Care Hospitals And The

Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System & Policy

Changes & Fiscal Year 2017 Rates; Quality Reporting

Requirements For Specific Providers; Graduate Medical

Education; Hospital Notification Procedures Applicable To

Beneficiaries Receiving Observation Services; Technical

Changes Relating To Costs To Organizations & Medicare Cost

Reports; Finalization Of Interim Final Rules With Comment

Period On LTCH PPS Payments For Severe Wounds, Modifications

Of Limitations On Redesignation By The Medicare Geographic

Classification Review Board, & Extensions Of Payments To MDHS

And Low-Volume Hospitals, 0938-AS77; 0938-AS88; 0938-AS41;

Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act; Joint Rule For

Unified And Combined State Plans, Performance Accountability,

And The One-Stop System Joint Provisions; Final Rule, 1205-

AB74; Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act, 1205-AB73;

Medicare Program; Prospective Payment System And Consolidated

Billing For Skilled Nursing Facilities For FY 2017, SNF

Value-Based Purchasing Program, SNF Quality Reporting

Program, And SNF Payment Models Research, 0938-AS75.

Medicare Program; Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility

Prospective Payment System For Federal Fiscal Year 2017,

0938-AS78; Medicare Program; FF 2017 Hospice Wage Index And

Payment Rate Update And Hospice Quality Reporting

Requirements, 0938-AS79; Margin And Capital Requirements For

Covered Swap Entities, 3052-AC69; Medicare Program; FY 2017

Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System--

Rate Update, 0938-AS76; National School Lunch Program And

School Breakfast Program: Nutrition Standards For All Foods

Sold In School As Required By The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids

Act Of 2010, 0584-AE09; Revised Critical Infrastructure

Protection Reliability Standards, No RIN provided; Amendments

To The Commission's Rules Of Practice, 3235-AL87; Disclosure

Of Payments By Resource Extraction Issuers, 3235-AL53;

Migratory Bird Hunting; Seasons And Bag And Possession Limits

For Certain Migratory Game Birds, 1018-BA70; Oil and Gas And

Sulfur Operations On The Outer Continental Shelf--

Requirements For Exploratory Drilling On The Arctic Outer

Continental Shelf, 1082-AA00.

Medication Assisted Treatment For Opioid Use Disorders,

0930-AA22; Department Of Labor Federal Civil Penalties

Inflation Adjustment Act Catch-Up Adjustments, 1290-AA31;

General Administrative Regulations; Catastrophic Risk

Protection Endorsement; Area Risk Protection Insurance

Regulations; And The Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Basic

Provisions, 0563-AC49; Transition Assistance Program (TAP)

For Military Personnel, 0790-AJ17; Operation And

Certification Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 2120-AJ60;

Transit Asset Management; National Transit Database; FTA-

2014-0020, 2132-AB07; Revision Of Fee Schedules; Fee Recovery

For Fiscal Year 2016, 3150-AJ66; Medicare Program; Medicare

Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests Payment System, 0938-

AS33; Jams Zadroga 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund

Reauthorization Act, 1105-AB49; Energy Conservation Program:

Energy Conservation Standards For Battery Chargers, Energy

Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards For

Dehumidifiers, 1904-AC81; Removal Of Mandatory Country Of

Origin Labeling Requirements For Beef And Pork Muscle Cuts,

Ground Beef, And Ground Pork, 0581-AD29.

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