Prove It Act of 2024

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating two bills that perfectly show who Republicans in Congress really work for, and, spoiler alert, it is not the American people. We are here today doing nothing to help regular people and families. Republicans just have us debating a bill to undercut our constituents' safety and a useless bill on communism.

One of these bills I call the corporate giveaway act. It will give massive trade associations the power to gut the very protections that keep workers safe, prevent kids from being poisoned by polluted air and water, and ensure that corporations don't cut corners on safety.

Republicans say this is all about freedom, but the only people who get more freedom under this bill are CEOs flying on private jets while the rest of us are stuck dealing with higher prices and unsafe products. If you are a billionaire, Mr. Speaker, then this bill works for you. If you are a mom or dad in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I am from, working two jobs to pay for rent and childcare, then this bill doesn't do anything for you. It sells you out.

Then there is H.R. 5349. Now, I guess the Republicans want us to spend time debating whether high school students should be taught that communism is bad. The last time I checked, most schools already do that, and I say that as a brother of two teachers, by the way. I actually read the bill, and I want to let everyone in on a little secret about their bill, a bill which claims to be about teaching kids about bad political ideologies.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker. They left out a really, really, really bad one. Here is a hint: It is what Adolf Hitler implemented in Germany and what Americans fought and died for to defeat in World War II. It is an ideology that idolizes racial purity and uses violence to suppress those who disagree. It is called fascism. For some reason, Republicans did not want to include it in their bill. I would love an answer as to why.

Can any of them tell me why they don't want to teach kids that fascism is bad?

Does anyone at all?

The silence is deafening right now, Mr. Speaker.

Let me help them out: Communism is bad, totalitarianism is bad, and fascism is bad.

Do you see how easy that is, Mr. Speaker?

All they had to do was put it in their bill, but they didn't and they won't because they feel they can't.

It is no oversight, by the way. I personally offered an amendment by Ranking Member Scott to include fascism as one of the ideologies we condemn, and they rejected it. Every single one of the Republicans in the Rules Committee, every single one, voted ``no.''

I can't think of a reason that they would do that, unless they don't agree and unless they don't think that fascism is a bad thing. My friends on the other side of the aisle literally take my breath away.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to say this again: Americans voted with their wallets in mind, and I don't blame them, but I do blame Republican leaders for bringing up this nonsense.

I go out in my district, and I listen to people.

Do you know what, Mr. Speaker?

They don't want to be talked down to by Republican leaders lecturing them about communism or telling us how to teach our kids. They want leaders who understand problems, leaders who understand we are not sent here to talk at people. We are sent here to work with them to make this country a better place.

On our side of the aisle, we are listening to the struggles of working families, and we are going to fight alongside of them.

Washington hasn't always worked the way it should, but we are committed to doing better because people in this country deserve better. That means lower costs, bigger paychecks, and building an economy that rewards hard work, not wealth. That is a fight that my colleagues and I will never ever stop showing up for.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, and I plead with Republicans: Please, please, let's focus on the real challenges facing all of us as Americans.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, right before the gentleman spoke, I asked the question: Can anybody explain to me why fascism wasn't included in this bill as one of the ideologies that we should teach our young people is a bad thing?

The gentleman who just spoke went on for 4 minutes and never once answered that question.

The reality is that yes, communism is bad, totalitarianism is bad, and so is fascism, and we see fascist movements growing up and springing up all over the world, including in this country, and my friends on the other side of the aisle can't bring themselves to condemn it.

I don't understand this.

Does anyone remember World War II?

It seems that, for whatever reason, that is something that my friends can't seem to recall.

That is the point here. It is what you omit, Mr. Speaker. It is what you choose to protect and not include in this bill that is so disturbing in my mind.

Mr. Speaker, I urge that we defeat the previous question. If we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 12, a bill that would ensure that every American has full access to essential reproductive healthcare, including abortion care.

In this country, the United States of America, we now have States with almost complete bans on abortions, like the State of Idaho. Just this week, a circuit court upheld an ``abortion trafficking'' law, ensuring that anyone in Idaho who accompanies a young woman to receive abortion care in another State gets a prison sentence.

Thank God the judge will allow people in Idaho to simply talk with pregnant minors about abortion healthcare, which the original law prohibited.

This is where women in this country now find themselves, Mr. Speaker, but that is why House Democrats are fighting to protect women and doctors who simply want access and the ability to provide needed care. H.R. 12, the Women's Health Protection Act, will keep fundamental healthcare services available across this country.

What is happening in some States in this country is offensive. It is dangerous. Women are dying because of these overly oppressive Republican-led laws that are being put into place.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Lee Carter), one of our newest Members of the House, to discuss our proposal.

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

One of the bills that is being brought before us, H.R. 7198, is a Republican partisan bill, but it violates their own CutGo budgetary rule.

Yesterday, in committee, when we pointed that inconvenient fact out to

our colleagues across the aisle, rather than Republicans saying they were going to try to find a way to pay for the bill, my colleagues spent about 40 minutes railing against the CBO Director that the majority themselves, by the way, helped appoint.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article that reinforces what I just said.

Mr. Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the CBO score for H.R. 7198.

Mr. Speaker, in the Rules Committee last night, Democrats tried to have an amendment to basically not protect this bill from a point of order. If Republicans believe that this bill costs nothing, then surely the chair would rule in such a way. Clearly, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't even believe their own rhetoric.

The bottom line is that this bill, among many of the bad things it is going to do, will add to our deficit. There was a time when I thought Republicans cared about the deficit and debt, but apparently those days are gone forever because I have never met a group of people who are more interested in passing legislation without pay-fors, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and well-connected people and well-off people at the expense of the middle class, and then Republicans bring bills like this, which will add millions and millions of dollars to our deficit.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am having trouble following this debate. I just raised an issue about the fact that one of the bills, H.R. 7198, is not paid for; that it is a violation of Republicans' own CutGo rules; and that this bill, as passed, will add to the deficit. Then the gentleman just started talking about communism.

Mr. Speaker, I repeat that the reality is that one of the bills here, H.R. 7198, needs a special waiver to protect it from a Republican point of order on CutGo because this bill adds to the deficit. Republicans could have paid for it or could have found an offset but chose not to. My colleagues chose to protect it from a point of order. That was my question.

I don't know what communism has to do with the CBO estimate that this bill will add millions of dollars to the deficit. Anyway, I make that clear in case people who are watching this are confused about the gentleman's response to the point I raised.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire whether the gentleman wants to answer the CBO question or whether he wants me to close?

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

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about priorities. My Republican colleagues have theirs all screwed up, and I am being really kind here. Republicans are lecturing us about communism instead of talking about real struggles facing American families.

One of the speakers got up and complained that this is like deja vu all over again. The Republicans are in charge and set the agenda around here. These are their priority bills.

We are wasting time working on their bills. We are talking about studies to inform kids about communism in schools rather than talking about things that are going to lower healthcare costs or lower food prices or

help small businesses or do anything that is going to make any difference in the lives of average people in this country.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about what bathrooms people should use instead of talking about grocery prices. I think one Republican Member tweeted 326 times about bathrooms in a 72- hour period. My colleagues are just strange. It is weird what is going on around here.

If my colleagues go out and actually listen to people in this country, Mr. Speaker, they will say what they want. It isn't what my friends on the other side have us here debating today. They want politicians to stop catering to those at the top. Yet, look at who Donald Trump is empowering in his new administration. This is not what people wanted.

Mr. Speaker, it looks like the requirements to be in the Trump White House are that you either abuse women or are an out-of-touch billionaire. What is next? Are they going to replace FBI background checks with a FOX News screen test? Forget about a White House Cabinet. Donald Trump is making it into a junk drawer.

His Commerce Secretary is a billionaire. Big surprise. I don't think this guy is capable of understanding what average people in my district deal with.

His Education Secretary is yet another billionaire. What is her qualification? She ran WWE. I guess some schools have wrestling programs. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

His new Attorney General pick is an election denier.

The person he tapped to lead Health & Human Services thinks tap water turns kids gay.

His Defense Secretary is probably dropping out momentarily. Apparently he drinks on the job and paid to cover up his sexual assault allegations. Even his mom doesn't like him.

These people don't shop at grocery stores. Do my colleagues think that they pump their own gas or cook their own food? Of course not. These are people who hop on helicopters to avoid traffic. They are poster children for the out-of-touch elites. The Republicans are bending over backward for them. It is unbelievable.

It is not just bad governance, Mr. Speaker. These fights matter because they are fundamentally about who we want working for us. These people are going to make important decisions that are going to impact all of us.

Mr. Speaker, do my colleagues want people who understand our struggles, people who will fight for regular folks, or do we want billionaire, trust-fund weirdos who just prop up the same broken, rigged system that helps themselves and screws over the rest of us?

Mr. Speaker, I can anticipate what my good friend, the chairman of the Rules Committee, is going to say when he closes. He is going to accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome, which the gentleman usually always does, but what is deranged here is what is happening right before our very eyes: these crazy picks that have no interest in what average people in this country care about.

I will say it again: People in this country voted for lower food prices and cheaper rent, not whatever the hell this is.

Guess what. Democrats are listening. We are not lecturing, and we are going to fight for what matters: lowering costs, building an economic system that works for everyone, and taking power from corporations and those at the top and returning it back to the American people where it belongs.

We are going to fight for young people who can't afford a downpayment on a house. We are going to fight for parents taking items out of the cart at the grocery store in order to make ends meet. We are going to fight for workers who come home after a long shift, get in the shower, and wonder how in the hell they are ever going to retire if Republicans cut Social Security and Medicare.

Guess what. We believe everybody, no matter where they come from or who they vote for, should live with dignity and have hope for a better future.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that any of what my Republican friends are talking about on the floor today is in line with what the American people voted for. All this stuff that we are talking about here today is not what people voted for.

The people are probably scratching their heads and saying: What the hell is happening in the United States House of Representatives?

In January, Republicans will have the slimmest majority of any party in almost a century. I will make the American people a promise: Democrats will show up. We are not going to let them get away with taking away people's healthcare. We are not going to let them get away with rolling back the clock and taking this country backward.

We will show up. We are going to listen to the American people. We pledge to work with my Republican friends where we can, but I am going to tell you this: We are going to fight like hell for an economic system where all of us can succeed and nobody gets left behind.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, and I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1602, I call up the bill (H.R. 7198) to amend title 5, United States Code, to require greater transparency for Federal regulatory decisions that impact small businesses, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 7198.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act of 2024.

This is an important bipartisan piece of legislation that will help small businesses around the country comply with the overwhelming weight of Federal regulation.

It is no secret that small businesses around the United States face an uphill battle when complying with Federal regulations. Many regulations cause significant economic impacts on these small businesses.

When small businesses are forced to shoulder the burden of these regulations, it results in higher prices at the cash register. It also can keep some small businesses out of the market altogether. Rather than facing a mountain of regulation and compliance

costs, some would-be small business owners may never achieve their dream of opening a small business.

Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the agencies that make these damaging regulations are supposed to take small businesses into account when writing the rules. All too often, however, the agencies are out of compliance with the RFA's mandates.

One report actually found that, in 75 percent of the rulemakings, the agencies either ignored costs on small businesses, or underestimated the regulations costs. H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act of 2024, would strengthen the RFA's already-existing provisions and make it so that agencies have a much harder time skirting their statutory obligations to our country's small businesses.

The Prove It Act of 2024 allows small businesses to petition the Small Business Administration to investigate a rulemaking process when a small business owner believes the agency inadequately performed its regulatory analysis as required by the RFA. It also authorizes the SBA's chief advocacy counsel to independently investigate a rulemaking agency's compliance with the RFA. Finally, it creates a penalty for rulemaking agencies that failed to comply with the RFA's requirements.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle may claim that this bill is only an attempt to slow down the agency rulemaking, making it more difficult for the Federal Government to oversee the economy. This is incorrect.

There are no provisions in this bill that are designed to slow down rulemaking. In fact, the only thing that may slow down an agency's rulemaking endeavor is having to fully comply with the law as it is already written. The RFA was passed in 1980. Yet, there are still agencies which do not take the specific needs of small businesses into account when crafting regulations.

If Federal regulators followed the law as Congress intended, the legislation before us would not be necessary. Unfortunately, Federal regulators have been delinquent in their obligations to American small business owners.

H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act of 2024, is a bipartisan effort to force regulators to comply with existing statutes and consider small business owners when crafting legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the CBO score for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Finstad).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ellzey).

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

There are several points that I think need to be made in relation to this bill, but also to the obvious misunderstanding not only of what the bill does but of the rulemaking process and procedure that occurs under the Administrative Procedure Act in this country right now.

First of all, it applies to small businesses, not large businesses. By definition, it applies to small businesses. The allegation that this is going to somehow help these huge corporations is absolutely incorrect.

In addition to which, the Prove It Act does not authorize the SBA to review the substantive policy of any particular regulation. Again, any allegation that this would allow the SBA to address the substantive aspect of a regulation is again incorrect. If the agency has complied with the RFA, then the regulation will apply to small businesses as normal.

Here is something that I think is important. We often talk in the abstract about regulations and the regulatory impacts and regulatory agencies and unelected bureaucrats. Let's just talk about a real-life situation for once. Let's talk about what really happens when a regulation is adopted by an agency and the impact that it has on our small businesses.

Let's use the USDA EID rule as an example. On November 5, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a rule mandating electronic identification ear tags on cattle and bison. It will place a substantial burden on small ranchers when it goes into effect.

The USDA, however, in assessing this rule, only completed a brief, two-page initial regulatory flexibility analysis, finding that using the Small Business Administration's guidelines that the majority of cattle operations in the United States are considered small. In other words, the majority of our ranching operations are considered small businesses.

In 2013, when the USDA first considered imposing a rule like this, they estimated that the cost would be between $1.2 and $1.9 billion imposed against our small ranchers, yet in this latest analysis, they did a two-page RFA analysis. I can't imagine that anyone on the other side of the aisle would actually believe that that is adequate considering the circumstances and the fact that so many of our ranchers will be financially broken by such a rule.

After acknowledging that the proposed rule would have a substantial impact on small businesses, the agency then conducted an insufficient analysis based upon outdated and incorrect information. This entire analysis relies on a cost estimate created by APHIS.

This estimate undervalues the cost to ranchers, and it has not even publicly disclosed how it calculated those costs.

This example of avoiding the RFA requirements resulted in the USDA ignoring the true cost of the rule and how the burden is shouldered by our small businesses.

The USDA and the ear-tag manufacturers are also wholly unprepared to alleviate the harm caused by the rule. In fact, many States have run out of the ear tags before even being able to provide them to the ranchers.

Under the Prove It Act, the USDA would be required to account for the additional, reasonably foreseeable indirect costs that are borne by ranchers because of this rule, costs that the USDA is currently ignoring.

The Prove It Act would give a voice to the ranchers and the organizations that represent them to point out the obvious flaws in APHIS's proposals, flaws which were ignored during the finalization of the rule.

I think it is also incredibly important to understand that we are passing this bill today to help small businesses understand the true cost of compliance with regulations and to force regulators to be transparent when crafting their regulations.

If this bill becomes law, regulators will have to come to terms with the enormous weight that they place on small businesses in the form of regulations. In fact, under the Biden-Harris administration, the regulatory burden in this country is approximately $2.1 trillion a year. It is almost $16,000 per household.

I cannot understand, for the life of me, why anyone on the other side of the aisle would not want the agencies to have to disclose the real cost of these regulations. Maybe it is because they don't want the American public to understand the costs imposed by unelected bureaucrats. In an ideal world, regulators would think twice before imposing massive costs on our small businesses that are the lifeblood of so many of our communities.

I also want to point out that the claim that this would slow down rulemaking is absolutely absurd. The Prove It Act is designed to ensure that agencies are complying with existing law, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, when they are crafting their regulations. Agencies must already comply with the RFA's requirements. They are just not doing it, and this is a law that would force them to meet that requirement.

The RFA has been the law since 1980. Why are we allowing these agencies to get away with ignoring the law as written by Congress?

No agency can credibly claim that compliance with the RFA, which Congress enacted, improperly slows down the rulemaking process.

I also want to point out the comment that this would result in a bottleneck created by these large corporations filing petition after petition after petition. Again, that argument is absurd. The claim that small businesses, large businesses, or trade associations would abuse the Prove It Act's petition mechanism is just simply misguided.

The Prove It Act gives a method for the chief counsel for advocacy at the Small Business Administration to dismiss any petition that lacks merit. Following an initial review, the chief counsel can close the petition without any further action if the case does not warrant it.

To be clear, big businesses are not allowed to petition the SBA under the Prove It Act. I would like to repeat that. Big businesses are not covered by this act.

Finally, the CBO score. The CBO score for this bill is clearly wrong. The generic language that the CBO cites does not remotely support its finding that this bill will increase the deficit. CBO claims that direct spending would increase by $10 million, and Congress would need to appropriate an extra $35 million to Federal agencies for them to do much of the same work that they were supposed to be doing for the last 40 years.

Every Federal agency that engages in rulemaking should already have the staff and resources on board to comply with the law. The Prove It Act simply requires the already existing staff perform some additional analyses to report on the reasonably foreseeable indirect costs of their regulations. This should be relatively straightforward for the personnel already tasked with the RFA analysis.

Finally, any agency that is burdened by the Prove It Act's requirements probably did not comply with the RFA in the first place.

One of the things that I find so interesting in these debates about our efforts to force transparency and good government provisions on our agencies is often this discussion that it is going to destroy the air and water, we are going to have sick kids, the toys are going to be destroyed, and everything is going to be dangerous. That is absolutely absurd, and it is a red herring.

There is nothing wrong with requiring our agencies to be transparent and up-front about the costs that they are imposing on our businesses when they adopt regulations. I am actually surprised that anyone would oppose the Prove It Act in light of what it is intended to do.

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

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

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

This amendment simply strikes the entire bill and replaces it with a training mandate. Claiming that training is all that is necessary to help agencies comply with their obligations under the RFA completely ignores the problems that the Prove It Act is going to solve.

The Small Business Administration already offers training sessions for regulators and has done so for over 20 years. According to the SBA, they held nine training sessions and trained 139 Federal officials in 2023 alone.

Further, the SBA has already trained personnel at nearly every Federal agency and department since 2003. Despite this training, however, in 2023, SBA sent 46 letters to agencies across government outlining the deficiencies in their RFA analysis. In 30 cases, the SBA found that agencies conducted inadequate analysis of small business impacts.

What this means is that during the rulemaking process for 30 rules, agencies did not comply with already existing law despite the SBA training they likely received.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are a few more points I would like to make.

Despite SBA's best efforts to help agencies comply with their obligations under the RFA, those efforts are being ignored. Agencies have had 40 years to develop the experience and expertise necessary to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act and still regularly come up short.

The claim that training is the answer is simply an attempt to distract from the importance of the Prove It Act. If we adopt this amendment and training is mandated instead of adopting the Prove It Act's provisions, nothing will change. Small businesses around the country will still be harmed by regulatory agencies blatantly ignoring their obligations under the RFA and discounting the costs of regulations.

The only legitimate solution is to adopt the Prove It Act, which strengthens the RFA and creates mechanisms to force regulatory agencies to comply with the law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act, represents the latest effort by Republicans to dismantle the regulatory process, giving well- resourced special interests a powerful new cudgel to wield against regulations, while causing harm to the very small entities the bill purports to help.

This legislation would vest enormous and unreviewable authority over agency rules to the chief counsel of the Office of Advocacy within the Small Business Administration, a chronically underfunded office that has not even had a Senate-confirmed leader since 2017.

It authorizes the chief counsel, unilaterally and without review, to exempt large parts of the business community from proposed rules if he or she determines that an agency did not properly consider how a proposed rule would affect small entities.

Not only would this broad and vaguely defined authority apply to proposed regulations, but the bill would also charge the chief counsel with tracking agencies' completion of mandatory reviews of existing rules every 10 years. If they find that an agency failed to conduct the required review of the rule, they can simply suspend operation of the rule.

I note that, while this legislation would impose significant new burdens on the SBA, it would provide no additional funding to carry out these duties, putting a further strain on the agency's ability to assist small businesses.

Our public agencies are responsible for writing rules that protect our community from harm. They make sure that the toys our children play with are safe. They make sure that the vehicles we drive and the buildings we live in are up to code. They make sure that the legislation we pass in Congress for tackling issues like climate change and public health are implemented as we intend.

The Prove It Act would grind all of this to a halt. Rules that would ban toxic chemicals or take contaminated food out of the market would hang in limbo while petitions mount before this single official to complete his or her reviews, if he or she can ever complete them at all.

This bill is not about lessening the burden on small businesses. By law, agencies already must take small businesses into account. These small entities already have power through the Office of Advocacy to champion their concerns, so the bill is entirely unnecessary if that was truly the purpose of the bill.

In reality, this bill is about giving big businesses the ability to shut down the regulatory process. Any group that merely purports to represent small businesses, no matter how large or well-resourced they may be, could petition this one official to block a pending rule they do not like. There would be no limit to how many times they do this. This is a recipe for chaos and dysfunction. That, of course, is the point.

Republicans do not want to empower the agencies that ensure the drugs we take are safe, that ensure child car seats protect the most vulnerable among us, and that enforce our competition laws to ensure that small businesses have a chance to thrive. They want to throw sand in the gears of these agencies to ensure that they never issue the regulations we depend on to keep us safe.

This bill would do little to help small businesses, but it could prove to be a windfall for powerful companies and special interests. It is no surprise, therefore, that this legislation is right out of the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for ``supercharging'' the Office of Advocacy at the SBA so the entity can ``dismantle extreme regulatory policies and advance limited-government reforms.''

Republicans are so determined to carry out this dismantling of the regulatory process that they are even willing to violate their own House rules against legislation that will increase mandatory spending, ignoring a CBO estimate that the bill would add millions of dollars to the deficit.

We all want to ensure that small businesses can thrive, but this bill would not help them. Instead, it would create uncertainty and chaos while giving big businesses a new tool to dismantle the regulatory process that protects public health and safety and that protects consumers from rising costs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. Lee Carter), the newest Member of the Judiciary Committee, proudly carrying on her mother's legacy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Caraveo).

Mr. Speaker, over 200 labor, consumer protection, and environmental organizations oppose H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters of opposition from the Coalition

for Sensible Safeguards, Earthjustice, and Public Citizen.

Coalition for

Sensible Safeguards,

December 4, 2024.

Representative Mike Johnson,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries,

Democratic Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Johnson and Democratic Leader Jeffries: The

Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS), an alliance of over

200 labor, scientific, research, good government, faith,

community, health, environmental, and public interest groups,

is writing regarding the House of Representatives'

consideration of the Prove It Act of 2024, H.R. 7198 which

CSS strongly opposes.

The Prove It Act would expand the authority of the Small

Business Administration's Office of Advocacy while failing to

address fundamental flaws of the Regulatory Flexibility Act.

This bill would slow down the regulatory process and empower

an office that has been neither appropriately focused on

small business concerns nor adequately transparent in how it

conducts its actions.

The ostensible purpose of the Regulatory Flexibility Act is

to ensure that small businesses continue to play a role in

the U.S. economy. In practice, though, the implementation of

the Regulatory Flexibility Act has failed to achieve this

basic purpose, as it has instead been wielded as a blunt

weapon to weaken regulatory requirements for firms of all

sizes, often at the behest of large corporations and the

trade associations they dominate.

The result is that protections of public health, safety,

and the environment have been sacrificed without

substantially improving the competitive position of small

businesses in their respective industrial sectors relative to

that of larger firms. These flaws are most apparent in the

Regulatory Flexibility Act's burdensome analytical

requirements, which are designed to weaken regulatory

safeguards rather than promote small business

competitiveness. H.R. 7198 does not fix this basic problem,

however. Instead, it would expand those analytical

requirements and make them more onerous.

The Prove It Act would enhance the authority of the Small

Business Administration's Office of Advocacy in harmful ways.

H.R. 7198, in Section 2(a)(3), would allow for endless

petitions from ``Any small entity, group of small entities,

or organization representing the interests of small

entities'' that challenge a rulemaking agency's certification

that its rule would not have a significant economic impact on

a substantial number of small entities. In many cases, these

petitions would trigger burdensome hearings conducted by the

Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy, after which the

Chief Counsel could then force the rulemaking agency to

retract the certification and instead perform the full suite

of burdensome analyses mandated by the Regulatory Flexibility

Act. The bill also provides for expanded judicial review

opportunities against agency certifications, which would

further tie up rulemakings in wasteful and time-consuming

litigation.

We urge members of the House of Representatives to consider

reforms that would instead place greater constraints on the

Office of Advocacy to ensure that it is actually helping,

rather than harming, small businesses. A scathing 2014 report

by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found

significant deficiencies in the Small Business

Administration's Office of Advocacy's compliance with its own

internal procedures when it intervenes in regulatory actions

or engages in commissioning research on regulatory costs to

small businesses. Of greatest relevance, GAO found that: (1)

the Office had no policies dictating when individual staff

should intervene in individual rulemakings, making it

susceptible to improper industry influence; and (2) the

Office repeatedly cited small business input in its

regulatory comments but could provide no evidence or

documentation supporting this input.

Evidence has also demonstrated the extent to which the

Office of Advocacy has been captured by regulated industry.

The Office has often worked with large trade associations to

weaken rules in ways that benefit large businesses, at the

expense of small ones. These interventions have the effect of

harming small businesses, contrary to the Office's statutory

mission. Nevertheless, this bill would give the Small

Business Administration's Office of Advocacy even greater

authority to intervene in and block agency rules.

Additionally, the Prove It Act would further delay needed

regulatory actions--causing real harm to public health and

safety and the environment--without improving the quality of

agency decision-making. Numerous studies have demonstrated

how existing regulatory analyses, and procedural requirements

contribute to extensive delays of agency rulemaking. These

studies confirm that existing Regulatory Flexibility Act

requirements are among the biggest contributors to these

delays. By creating new analytical and procedural

requirements, this bill would only worsen those delays. These

additional delays are unjustifiable because they do not

result in better regulatory decisions.

Finally, the bill would empower the federal judiciary to

block regulations by making agency compliance with its new

analytical and procedural requirements judicially reviewable.

This would provide judges with an additional new tool for

blocking needed public protections.

Providing the Small Business Administration's Office of

Advocacy with more authority to block, delay, or weaken new

regulatory safeguards, without enacting the significant

reforms recommended by GAO and others, will leave the public

even more at risk to health, safety, and economic security

threats. The numerous petitions, time-consuming hearings, and

expanded judicial review that this legislation would allow

will thwart needed protections while failing to help small

businesses with better designed regulations.

CSS urges the House of Representatives to oppose the Prove

It Act and encourages the Committee to evaluate proposals

that offer real and meaningful reforms to strengthen the

regulatory process, such as H.R. 1507, the Stop Corporate

Capture Act.

We hope to work with the House of Representatives to ensure

that our regulatory process is working effectively and

efficiently to protect the American public.

We strongly urge opposition to the Prove It Act of 2024,

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Landsman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Small Business.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Prove It Act is just the latest in a long line of Republican bills meant to undermine or block agency rulemaking. If this legislation is enacted, every single rule--past, present, and future-- would be funneled for review through a single official in a chronically underfunded office within the Small Business Administration. This one person would be granted unreviewable and unilateral power to block or suspend lifesaving regulations that ensure that we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe food to eat.

I urge Members to oppose this dangerous legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1602 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, last night, the House Committee on Rules met to report House Resolution 1602, providing for consideration of two pieces of legislation.

First, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 5349, the Crucial Communism Teaching Act, under a structured rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. It also provides for one motion to recommit.

Second, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 7198, the Prove It Act, under a structured rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority

member of the Committee on the Judiciary. It also provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, a report recently found that nearly one-half of Gen Z students are unaware that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for more deaths than Nazi Germany. One-quarter of Gen Z students holds a favorable opinion of communism, and nearly 20 percent think that communism is a better system of government than capitalism.

Further, roughly 500 million copies of ``The Communist Manifesto'' have been sold since 1848, more than three times as many as ``The Lord of the Rings,'' and more than twice as many as ``A Tale of Two Cities.'' The ignorance is stunning given one-fifth of the world's population, over 1 billion people, lives under Communist control. Our youngest generations' view of communism is a failure of our educational system.

The Crucial Communism Teaching Act bolsters the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's ability to educate high school students on the facts, history, and dangers of communist ideology. According to the foundation, Communist governments have caused the deaths of over 100 million people and oppressed hundreds of millions more since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. I hope this body continues to show strong, bipartisan support for this important piece of legislation.

The second bill under consideration is the Prove It Act, which continues House Republicans' efforts to rightsize the Federal Government and eliminate unnecessary burdens on our job creators. For too long, Federal regulators have ignored or underestimated the cost that they impose on small businesses. The result is a regulatory state that is simply crushing small businesses.

Some estimates put the regulatory toll as high as $14,000 per employee annually. This is on top of the cost of inflation, supply chain issues, energy unaffordability, and other burdens that the Biden- Harris administration has inflicted on our communities and our livelihoods.

Today, small businesses spend over seven times as much per employee as medium-sized businesses on regulatory compliance. When we disadvantage our small businesses, Communist governments like China fill the void with their own.

The Prove It Act will empower small businesses to hold regulators accountable and force them to consider the impact of the regulatory red tape that they impose. This commonsense legislation makes certain that agencies are complying with their statutory obligations and accurately account for the costs of their rulemaking.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has talked a lot about the Victims of Communism Foundation and the bill that has been introduced to support their efforts. Unfortunately, he misses the point of the bill. Congress specifically chartered the Victims of Communism Foundation to study the abuses of communism. This was actually signed into law in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.

We have no doubt that harmful political ideologies besides communism exist, but the point of this bill is to educate students specifically about communism. There is an acute need to educate students on the topic given how many students are ignorant to communism's abuses, and this is the work that the Victims of Communism Foundation is best equipped to conduct.

Mr. Speaker, if Democrats wish to expand, my colleagues are free to introduce their own bill covering other topics, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared for the gentleman to close.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for that admonition. I will try to be careful to keep that in mind during my closing remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts is correct. He has provided me ample opportunity to study the clinical and psychological materials for Trump derangement syndrome, and I do feel that I have got an advanced degree in that after spending these years on the Rules Committee with him, but let me bring us back to the focus of the bills before us.

On the Prove It Act, H.R. 7198, the gentleman bemoans the fact that the American people sent us here for lower prices at the grocery store and to pay more attention to how their lives have been affected by this out-of-control government that we have seen for the last 4 years.

I don't know where the gentleman has been for the last 4 years, but I have had trouble getting a phone call answered by a Cabinet Secretary for 4 years. I, unfortunately, am not going to be serving here any longer after this Congress, but I am actually excited about a time when Congress can interact with the heads of Federal agencies and get their calls returned. That will be a novel approach.

With regard to the Prove It Act, let's focus for a minute on what this bill does. This requires Federal agencies to provide transparency regarding the impact of Federal regulatory decisions on small businesses. That is so simple.

If you are worried about prices, might you also not want to consider the cost that the regulatory regime of this administration has imposed upon businesses and what happens to those costs? They are not just absorbed by the business. They are passed along to the consumer. That is the way it all works.

Providing regulatory relief for our small businesses will prevent small businesses from having to pass those costs on to their consumers.

The Regulatory Flexibility Act is not a new phenomenon. This was enacted back in 1980 and requires Federal agencies to consider the effects their regulations have on small businesses and other small entities.

The RFA's goal is to reduce the economic impact of agency regulation on small businesses. That sounds like a good thing to me. If you are trying to consider opportunities to lower costs to the consumer, it seems like that is just exactly the type of thing you would want to do.

In 1996, long before Donald Trump became President, Congress amended the Regulatory Flexibility Act to add judicial review relative to some of its provisions to require some agencies to hold small business advocacy review panels and mandate that Federal agencies produce regulatory compliance guidelines.

Congress has not amended the RFA since 2010 when it made technical corrections and mandated that the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau convene small business review panels when promulgating rules.

Again, all of that seems like good government and a good idea, especially in an environment where you want to control costs.

After Congress enacted the Regulatory Flexibility Act, some evidence suggests that fellow agencies seriously undertook the policy of reducing the regulatory burden on small businesses, but evidence shows that the burden on small businesses continues to increase.

Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here. That burden continues to increase. What happens then is the cost of goods and services increase and are passed on to customers, customers who are our constituents who sent us here to do something about the high prices that they pay.

Mr. Speaker, I urge this body to support the rule and the underlying pieces of legislation. These bills solve critical issues facing our country today. They are thoughtfully drafted and worthy of bipartisan support.

I thank the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on the Judiciary for their work on these bills. I urge a strong showing of support in this body.

Now, I will comment briefly on the ranking member's issue with the waiver provided in the rule before I yield back. I understand his role is to find shortcomings in what the Rules Committee produces. He is good at that. He does a fine job of that, but he also tends to have a very short memory of when he held the gavel. I will remind the ranking member that when he had the gavel, his committee waived paygo 25 times, which is more than the majority by several factors.

I am proud of the work we have done on the committee, even with the challenges that the ranking member can appreciate. Again, I urge this body to support this rule and support the underlying legislation.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, we cover a wide range of topics here, and it is important that we discuss many of them with the public. Something that is an interesting trend these days and is lost in the memory or never even learned about by newer generations is the topic of communism.

What? Yeah. It is something that needs to be understood better because when you see polls out there that 28 percent of Gen Z view communism favorably--which shows a very fundamental misunderstanding of its consequences and what it is about--it is very alarming.

You have 19 percent of Gen Z that believes a dictatorship would be the best political system. With the rhetoric flying these days, the word ``fascism'' is thrown around so loosely or calling politicians in this country ``Nazis,'' this is all cut from a very similar cloth.

For people to believe that a dictatorship or these types of--it is not even government, it is just flat power over the people. What it really boils down to, these trends are the result of a failure to adequately educate our youth about that history, about how brutal that history is. How did it come on board?

When you think about in Russia, the Bolsheviks, murdering the powers that be back in the teens of the last century in order to gain power, that is being lost on people these days.

Oh, communism sounds good. Even the word ``socialism,'' well that means you are social, right? No. Think of Communism as being rooted in a very dangerous, very centralized government and controlling the people.

For example, here in this country, there are approximately 500 U.S. schools from K-12 that will host what is called the Confucius classrooms funded by the Chinese Communist Party. These programs promote the Communist Party propaganda. They whitewash the atrocities of communism and distort history to undermine American values.

Again, look at the amount of murdering that has gone on in the Russian era of communism, in the Asian areas, South America, and just off the coast of Florida in Cuba.

These programs are a deliberate attempt to influence the minds of young Americans creating a dangerous foothold in our education system and softening the whole idea of what communism really did mean. Teaching the truth about communism is not just about history, it is about safeguarding the future of our own form of government.

Civic education must include an honest account of communism's failures--the failures. Where has it been tried that it has really worked and provided the people with more freedom, more prosperity, more choices, more options? It hasn't worked anywhere.

They become more and more oppressed, poorer, much worse off quality of life, and end up attacking other countries that still do love freedom. By failing to address these truths, we are raising a generation unprepared to defend our freedoms and even our homeland.

This week, House Republicans are considering legislation by our Florida colleague, Congresswoman Salazar. It is called the Crucial Communism Teaching Act. The bill directs the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to develop and provide civic education materials for middle and high school students to understand.

These materials will highlight the devastating consequences of communism, the importance of standing against these totalitarian regimes. It is not just an education as mentioned a minute ago. It is a national security issue and a moral obligation to teach our kids properly. I appreciate Congresswoman Salazar making this effort as a Florida Member.

Right next door, prime example, Cuba is just 70, 80, 90 miles or so from Florida. Why do people take boats and they fashion rafts and whatever means they can to escape Cuba and try to come to the shores of the U.S.? It is not because communism is popular and is giving them more choices and more freedom, is it? In so many cases, people are desperately trying to break out.

When Ronald Reagan demanded Mr. Gorbachev to tear down that wall between East Germany and West Germany, there didn't used to be an East and West Germany before that timeline, but on the heels of World War II and the occupation of that.

It required the Berlin Airlift just a couple years after World War II to keep those people sustained because of the Russian bear having taken over that portion of Germany when they completely misread what the treaty at the time was to keep Germany in line after World War II.

Instead, Russia took it as an opportunity to take it over and so many other, what had been free states, free countries in the area, Poland. They imposed all that. It wasn't willful.

Indeed, communism might sneak in, but you have to shoot your way out of it is what people have learned. In the case of this issue with Cuba right next door, 50-plus years of Castro. I am glad my Florida colleague can point this out because her own State has been the recipient of many people escaping communism and trying to have the life that we all deserve as human beings.

If we fail to teach these horrors to these next generations, we will dishonor the millions of victims who suffered under the regimes and the many soldiers that died on the field to try and push back communism.

We had so many suffer, over 50,000 losses in this country to try at some level to beat communism in Vietnam. Why should we waste those lives? Why should we not learn? Why should the next generation not learn? It was a poorly run attempt by the government at the time, but that should not be lost as we honor those Vietnam veterans and welcome them home during a time of strife that they were not always properly welcomed or thanked for something they didn't create.

We owe it to future generations to have them recognize and reject these oppressive ideologies. We, as Members of Congress, have a duty to ensure the truth prevails in American classrooms and in the media, and even with it said here on this House floor so that next generation will understand, and current generations, that sometimes think they want to vote in this sort of thinking into our government, into those who rule us or would rule us.

Mr. Speaker, indeed, our freedom is at stake. We should not take it for granted.