Collaborative Academic Research Efforts for Tourette Syndrome 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. 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.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 26.

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

Mr. Chairman, regulatory reform plays a critical role in ensuring that our Nation finally achieves a full economic recovery and retains its competitive edge in the global marketplace. Congress must advance pro-growth policies that create jobs and restore economic prosperity for families and businesses across the Nation and make sure that any administration and its regulatory apparatus is held accountable to the American people.

America's small-business owners are suffocating under mountains of endlessly growing, bureaucratic red tape; and the uncertainty about the cost of upcoming regulations discourages employers from hiring new employees and expanding their businesses. Excessive regulation means higher prices, lower wages, fewer jobs, less economic growth, and a less competitive America.

Today, Americans face a burden of over $3 trillion per year from Federal taxation and regulation. In fact, our Federal regulatory burden is larger than the 2014 gross domestic product of all but the top eight countries in the world. That burden adds up to about $15,000 per American household--nearly 30 percent of average household income in 2015.

Everyone knows it has been this way for far too long; but the Obama administration, instead of fixing the problem, has known only one response: increase taxes, increase spending, and increase regulation. The results have painfully demonstrated a simple truth: America cannot tax, spend, and regulate its way to economic recovery, economic growth, and durable prosperity for the American people.

Consider just a few facts that reveal the economic weakness the Obama administration has produced. In the December 2016 jobs report, the number of unemployed workers, workers who can only find part-time jobs, and workers who are now only marginally attached to the labor force stood at 9.3 percent. They number 15 million Americans. America's labor force participation rate remains at lows not seen since the Carter administration, and median household income is still below the level achieved before the financial crisis, which is after the entirety of the Obama administration.

The contrast between America's current condition and the recovery Ronald Reagan achieved as President is particularly stark in that, 4\1/ 2\ years after a recession began in 1981, the Reagan administration, through policies opposite to those of the Obama administration's, had achieved a recovery that created 7.8 million more jobs than when the recession began. Real per capita gross domestic product rose by $3,091, and real median household income rose by 7.7 percent.

To truly fix America's problems, the REINS Act is one of the simplest, clearest, and most powerful measures we can adopt. The level of new major regulation from the Obama administration is without modern precedent. Testimony before the Judiciary Committee during recent Congresses has

plainly shown the connection between skyrocketing levels of regulation and declining levels of jobs and growth.

The REINS Act responds by requiring an up-or-down vote by the people's representatives in Congress before any new major regulation, which is defined in the bill generally as a rule that has an effect on the economy of at least $100 million, can be imposed on our economy. It does not prohibit new major regulation. It simply establishes the principle: ``no major regulation without representation.''

The REINS Act provides Congress and, ultimately, the people with a much-needed tool to check the one-way cost ratchet that Washington's regulatory bureaucrats too often turn. During the 114th, 113th, and 112th Congresses, the REINS Act was passed multiple times by the full House of Representatives, each time with bipartisan support.

I thank Mr. Collins of Georgia for reintroducing this legislation, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote for the REINS Act.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bishop), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott), currently a member of the Judiciary Committee but soon to move to another committee.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Young).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

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

During this debate, my friends on the other side of the aisle have raised quite a few false alarms:

If this bill passes, all important regulation will stop, they say. But that is not true. All regulation that is worthy of Congress' approval will continue;

If this bill passes, expert decisionmaking will stop because Congress will have the final say on new, major regulations, not Washington bureaucrats. That is not true.

Congress will have the benefit of the best evidence and arguments expert agencies can offer in support of their new regulations. Congress is capable of determining whether that evidence and those arguments are good or not and deciding what finally will become law. That is the job our Founding Fathers entrusted to us in the Constitution. We should not shirk from it.

I will tell you, though, what will stop if this bill becomes law: the endless avalanche of new, major regulations that impose massive, unjustified costs that crush jobs, crush wages, and crush the spirit of America's families and small-business owners. Think about what that will mean to real Americans who have suffered the real burdens of overreaching regulations.

Support the American people and listen to the major organizations across the country, which I include in the Record, who support H.R. 26, the REINS Act.

Support the American people. Support the REINS Act.

Support for H.R. 26, the REINS Act

American Center for Law and Justice, American Commitment,

American Energy Alliance, American Fuel & Petrochemical

Manufacturers, Americans for Limited Government, Americans

for Prosperity--Key Vote, Americans for Tax Reform,

Associated Builders and Contractors, Associated General

Contractors, Club for Growth--Key Vote, Competitive

Enterprise Institute, Credit Union National Association,

Family Business Coalition, FreedomWorks--Key Vote.

Heating Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors

International (HARDI), Heritage Action--Key Vote, Let Freedom

Ring, National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED),

National Association of Home Builders, National Center for

Policy Analysis, National Roofing Contractors Association,

National Taxpayers Union--Key Vote, R Street, SBE Council,

Campaign For Liberty.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

I offer this manager's amendment to assure that, just as the REINS Act strengthens Congress' check on rules that impose major new costs on the economy, it does not unduly delay the effectiveness of major new deregulatory actions, those that alleviate regulatory burdens of $100 million or more.

When first introduced in the 112th Congress, the REINS Act incorporated the definition of major rule in the underlying Congressional Review Act--generally, a rule that has ``an annual effect on the economy of $100,000,000 or more.''

This was done in the interest of consistency with prior terminology, and it

swept in both actions that imposed costs and actions that lifted costs. But, especially after the regulatory onslaught we have witnessed during the Obama administration, it is time to revise that definition.

We should assure that the REINS Act focuses Congress' highest attention on the rules that hurt the economy the most: those that impose $100 million or more in costs per year. We should likewise make sure that the REINS Act does not impose additional hurdles in the way of the most important and desperately needed deregulatory actions: those that free the economy of $100 million or more in annual regulatory burdens. A deregulatory action with that level of economic effect is one that Congress should be encouraging, not slowing down.

This refinement of the REINS Act's major rule definition is also needed to assure consistency with the major Administrative Procedure Act reform legislation the House is due to consider next week, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017. That measure already modernizes the major rule standard for APA purposes to $100 million or more in annual costs imposed on the economy. The REINS Act should mirror it.

I urge my colleagues to support this manager's amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time only to urge my colleagues to support this important amendment and not lose the opportunity to benefit from deregulatory reforms that will grow our economy and save America's economy hundreds of millions of dollars. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for offering this amendment, and I rise in support of it.

The cumulative burden of Federal regulation will surely be reduced by the REINS Act, but that burden has two elements: the burden being added by new regulations and the burden already there.

This amendment adds a useful provision to the REINS Act to address the elimination of unnecessary burdens already in the Code of Federal Regulations. It does so, moreover, in a manner that parallels President-elect Trump's promise to pursue a policy of one-in/two-out when it comes to new regulatory actions by his administration.

Mr. Chair, I support the amendment.

Mr. Chair, H.R. 26, the ``Regulations from the Executive in Need of

Scrutiny Act of 2017,'' otherwise known as the REINS Act, 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.

Simply put, H.R. 26 would impose unworkable deadlines for the enactment of a major rule under procedures that could charitably be referred to as convoluted.

Under this bill, the House may only consider a resolution for a major rule on the second and fourth Thursday of each month. Keep in mind that typically 80 major rules are promulgated annually. Yet, there may be as little as just 15 days available to consider such measures based on the majority's legislative calendar for the current year.

Furthermore, Congress may only consider such resolutions within 70 legislative days of receiving a major rule. This process would constructively end rulemaking as we know it.

Now, Mr. Chair, the reason why my friends on the other side of the aisle say we need this kind of gumming-the-works legislation--is because they claim regulations stifle economic growth.

For example, they point to the outgoing administration and say that regulations promulgated during its tenure have hurt our Nation's economy.

What they fail to tell the American people is that it was the Republican George Bush's administration's economic policies that caused the Great Recession.

Without question, it was the lack of regulatory controls that facilitated rampant predatory lending, which nearly destroyed our Nation's economy.

It led to millions of home foreclosures and devastated neighborhoods across America. In fact, it nearly caused a global economic meltdown.

Nevertheless, as a consequence of strong regulatory policies implemented by President Obama through such measures as the Dodd-Frank Act, our Nation has recovered to a point where the unemployment has been cut nearly in half to less than 5 percent.

Yet, the REINS Act would reverse these gains by empowering Congress to control and override the rulemaking process, even in the absence of any substantive expertise.

More than 80 of the Nation's leading professors on environmental and administrative law have warned in connection with substantively identical legislation considered in the last Congress, that without this expertise, any congressional disapproval is more likely to reflect the political power of special interests.

Lastly, by upending the process for agency rulemaking so that Congress can simply void major rules through inaction, the REINS Act likely violates the presentment and bicameralism requirements of Article I of the Constitution.

As a leading expert on administrative law states: ``The reality is that the act is intended to enable a single House of Congress to control the implementation of the laws through the rulemaking process. Such a scheme transgresses the very idea of separation of powers, under which the Constitution entrusts the writing of the laws to the legislative branch and the implementation of the laws to the executive branch.''

The REINS Act will further encourage corporate giants to hold our country hostage through a deregulatory, profits-first agenda and facilitate a political influence process rivaling the destructive industrial monopolies from the past century.

In sum, H.R. 26, like the ``Midnight Rules Relief Act'' we considered yesterday on the House floor, is yet another blatant gift to big business to weaken the critical regulatory protections that ensure the safety of the air we breathe, the cars we drive, the toys we give our children, and the food we eat.

Accordingly, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this ill- conceived bill.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt from H.R. 26, the REINS Act, rules issued to reduce the amount of lead in public drinking water.

The ingestion of lead, of course, causes serious harmful effects on human health, even at low exposure levels. That is why the Environmental Protection Agency has set the maximum contaminant level for this toxic metal in drinking water at zero.

According to the EPA, young children, infants, and fetuses are particularly vulnerable to lead because the physical and behavioral effects of lead occur at lower exposure levels in children than in adults. The Agency reports that, in children, low levels of exposure have been linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and the impaired formation and function of blood cells.

Take, for example, the Flint water crisis, which I have a little experience with, which was a preventable public health disaster. While much blame for the Flint water crisis lies with unelected officials who prioritize saving money over saving lives, the presence of lead in drinking water is, unfortunately, not unique to Flint. In fact, the drinking water of, potentially, millions of Americans may be contaminated by lead.

My amendment highlights one of the most problematic aspects of H.R. 26: that it could slow down or completely block urgent rulemakings that protect health and safety. This is because Members simply lack the requisite scientific or technical knowledge to independently assess the bona fides of most regulations, which are often the product of extensive research and analysis by agencies as well as input from effective entities and the public.

As a result, Members would have to make their own determinations based on their own--usually inexpert--views and limited information. Worse yet, some may be persuaded to disapprove of a rule in response to a wide-ranging influence exerted by outside special interests that favor profits over safety.

My amendment simply preserves current law with respect to regulations that are designed to prevent the contamination of drinking water by lead. Accordingly, I sincerely urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I can live up to those words, but I certainly appreciate them.

I was the ranking member on this committee, and I was chair at one point. We have had this bill over the years. It is indeed a monkey wrench or a monkey in the wrench, as John McCain might have said. It will mess up the entire system that we have of Congress passing laws, delegating, giving the executive the ability to enact them in ways that make them functional and appropriate and come up with the details that the Congress does not have enough expertise to do.

The other side refers constantly to people that prepare these rules-- which take many, many years and have much, much input--as bureaucrats, as if it is some type of pejorative. Bureaucrats are government employees who have expertise in certain areas and who study an area and become so much more expert than we are on the subject that they can come up with fine-tuned laws that are checked and balanced to make sure that the laws are implemented in the way that Congress intends. If Congress doesn't like it, Congress can pass a bill by both House and Senate to repeal it. We have already got that possibility.

Under this unique approach, either one of the houses of Congress can stop a regulation, a rule from going into effect because both Houses would have to approve a rule and the President would have to sign it before it could go into effect. That gives one House the ability to veto, basically, an executive action.

It is the executive in our system that has the power to veto acts of the legislature and not vice versa. We can pass laws in a bicameral spirit, which is what our Constitution has, when the House and the Senate agree. But neither House, independently, is given any power to veto laws or legislation. This would break that and, I believe, be unconstitutional. That is why I oppose H.R. 26, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017.

Indeed, the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act is most appropriate this year as we start, because in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, we are, indeed, going to have an executive in need of scrutiny. So I thank the Republicans for naming this bill appropriately because we are, indeed, in the times of an Executive in need of scrutiny.

We need scrutiny over income tax returns that have been hidden from the public that might disclose conflicts of interest or loans from characters that might be considered oligarchs and have some type of an influence over our foreign policy and our domestic.

We need an Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act that deals with these conflicts, with income taxes that haven't been released, with businesses in the District where people could go to hotels and curry favor with the Executive.

Indeed, we do have an Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, so I appreciate the well-named bill that the Republicans have brought us and the awareness that, through this bill, they have seen that we need some concern about the Executive coming because he certainly needs scrutiny.

This bill, though, is the worst of corporate special interest because it will give corporate special interests the opportunity to override rules that take effect unless both Houses pass them. It is difficult enough for this House and the Senate to get legislation passed in the days that we often give to legislation, but to have both Houses have to agree, in which case if you can't, it is, in essence, a pocket veto, and it doesn't even have to be scheduled for a

vote because the House would have to positively pass and the Senate positively pass. So if the Speaker doesn't want to do it, the Speaker can pocket veto the regulation. It doesn't even have to be scheduled.

This is not draining the swamp. It will heighten the influence of corporate lobbyists in Congress where they can come to the Speaker and ask that agency rules they don't like that might protect the lives of children because they are regulations dealing with toys that seem to possibly be defective, or automobiles where they need safety devices, or other consumer protections that interfere with business interests-- business is good and important, but sometimes businesses do things that are injurious to the public.

To give this opportunity to stop rules and regulations from going into effect that protect the public is wrong. It was suggested maybe it will help the economy, but at what cost? What is one life worth--or several lives--if lives are lost because safety regulations are not approved by this House and the Senate, or one or the other, and then don't go into effect? As I mentioned, this is seriously constitutionally defective.

Mr. Chairman, the ranking member mentioned Justice Scalia. I will mention Chief Justice John Roberts who criticized nearly identical legislation in the 1980s when he was a White House lawyer because it would ``hobble agency rulemaking by requiring affirmative congressional assent to all major rules'' such that it would ``seem to impose excessive burdens on regulatory agencies.'' That was John Roberts.

Some of the underlying facts given were about the economy. No matter what you say, President Obama has been effective on the economy. We saved the housing market. We saved this country from the Great Recession. We brought about recovery. That is not something we should disparage but we should praise. The stock market has gone up to record highs. Unemployment is down. Jobs are up. The automobile industry has been saved.

I ask Members to reject this bill because it is unconstitutional. It will cost lives of American citizens because safety regulations won't be passed.