Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The American people are now four elections and more than 6 years into the worst period after an economic crisis since the Great Depression. Despite some encouraging recent signs, jobs…
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The American people are now four elections and more than 6 years into the worst period after an economic crisis since the Great Depression. Despite some encouraging recent signs, jobs have not truly recovered. Wages have definitely not recovered. The rate of new business startups has not recovered. Instead, permanent exits from the labor force are at historic levels, real wages have fallen, and dependency on government assistance has increased. People have been giving up because they can't find a confident path forward.
In this recovery, we are not recovering; we are losing something precious. We are losing what has allowed this Nation to contribute more to human happiness than any other nation in history. We are losing the opportunity to live the American Dream. What is that dream? It is the dream that if you work hard, if you take responsibility for your life, if you reach for the opportunity that your human potential makes possible, you will be free to succeed. You will be free to pursue your happiness. And as you achieve that happiness, your children will have a better chance in life than you did.
All across this country, people who have been struggling, people whose jobs and wages have been disappearing, people who have been leaving the labor pool for the dependency pool, people who have seen no way possible to start a new business, can feel in their bones that this American Dream, the dream that they cherish and their children need, is slipping away.
What is killing the American Dream?
It is not ordinary Americans. It is not foreign enemies. It is not global phenomena. It is not natural disasters. More than anything else, it is the endless drain of resources that takes working people's hard- earned wages to Washington, and Washington's endless erection of regulatory roadblocks in the path of opportunity and growth.
Today, the combined economic burden of Federal taxation and regulation is over $3 trillion, almost 20 percent of our economy. Of that, the larger part is the burden of regulation--now estimated to reach at least $1.86 trillion. That Federal regulatory burden is larger than the 2013 gross domestic product of all but the top 10 countries in the world. It is half the size of Germany's entire gross domestic product. It is more than one-third the size of Japan's. Most important, that burden is $15,000 per American household, nearly 30 percent of average household income in 2013.
No one says we need no regulation, but who can credibly say we need regulation that costs this much.
America cannot possibly retain its competitive position in the world and create opportunity and prosperity for all Americans if the Federal Government continues to drop such a crushing weight on our economy.
My Regulatory Accountability Act addresses head on the problem of endlessly escalating, excessive Federal regulatory costs, and it addresses it in clear, commonsense ways that we can all support because it is based on principles proven in bipartisan practice from Presidents of both parties since Ronald Reagan.
What are those principles? Here are some of the most important: require agencies to choose the lowest cost rulemaking alternative that meets statutory objectives; if needed to protect public health, safety, or welfare, allow flexibility to choose costlier rules, but make sure the added benefits justify the added costs; improve public outreach and agency factfinding to identify better, more efficient regulatory alternatives; require agencies to use the best reasonably-obtainable science; provide on-the-record but streamlined administrative hearings in the highest-impact rulemakings--those that impose $1 billion or more in annual costs--so interested parties can subject critical evidence to cross-examination; require advanced notice of proposed major rulemakings to increase public input before costly agency positions are proposed and entrenched; strengthen judicial review of new agency regulations to make sure the Federal Courts can enforce these requirements.
In a nutshell, this bill says to every agency: Fulfill the statutory goals the United States Congress has set for you. Protect health. Protect safety. Protect consumers. Protect the vulnerable. You are free to do that, and you should do that whenever Congress gives you those orders, but as you achieve those goals, make sure you do it with better public input, better-tested information, and in the least-costly way.
The minute this bill becomes law, what will start to happen? America will start to save hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn't need to spend. That is real money that can be put to better use creating jobs and wages for our constituents, real money that hardworking Americans can use to start and grow their own businesses, real money that can be used to restore the American Dream, all without stopping a single needed regulation from being issued.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), who has worked with us across the aisle on this legislation for the last two Congresses. This issue goes back far before that as well. I want to thank him for his work on this.
Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law of the House Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott), a new member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Chairman, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler).
Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield an additional minute to the gentlewoman from Washington.
Mr. Chairman, at this time I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I am pleased that my colleague from Michigan has raised the issue of support for this legislation because there is a lot of it. I have in front of me a list of 156 organizations that support this legislation. They cover a wide array of organizations, of groups, of businesses, of small business associations, and of chambers of commerce.
I will name just a few: the 60 Plus Association, the Indoor Environment & Energy Efficiency Association, the Aggregate and Ready Mix Association of Minnesota, the American Architectural Manufacturers Association, the American Chemistry Council, the American Coatings Association, the American Composites Manufacturers Association, the American Concrete Pressure Pipe Association, the American Council of Engineering Companies, the American Council of Independent Laboratories, the American Exploration & Mining Association, the American Forest & Paper Association, the American Foundry Society, the American Fruit and Vegetable Processors and Growers Coalition, the American Highway Users Alliance, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the American Loggers Council, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the American Subcontractors Association, the American Supply Association, the American Trucking Associations, the American Wholesale Marketers Association, the American Wood Council.
We haven't even gotten all the way through the A's on this list which covers, as I say, a wide array of organizations that is interested in manufacturing good-quality products for Americans and in providing services, like architectural services and others. I want to make sure that everyone understands that there is broad-based support for this.
I also want to correct a misimpression left by some of the speakers on the other side who have pointed to a study that we have not relied upon for the basis of this legislation. I want to call to everyone's attention--in fact, at the appropriate time, I will request that it may be made a part of the Record--a study from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, CEI, entitled--not the 10 Commandments, which we are all familiar with--but ``Ten Thousand Commandments, An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State,'' by Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., which has provided valuable information with regard to this.
Another thing people have said is, Oh, this is going to add a tremendous burden to the regulators when they write these regulations.
I can tell you we don't have 160 different organizations supporting this legislation because they think their regulatory burden is too low; they think the burden is too high and that not enough energy and effort is going in on the part of those regulators to pay attention to what they are doing when they write regulations.
They have complained about the new things that this bill requires, and let me just read a few of them to you.
It requires documentation that the agency has considered
the specific nature and significance of the problem the
agency may address with a rule . . .
It seems to make pretty good common sense that, if you are going to write a regulation, you should be studying and understanding the nature of the problem you are supposed to be addressing with the regulation.
. . . documentation that the agency has considered whether
existing rules could be
amended or rescinded to address the problem in whole or in
part; documentation that the agency has considered reasonable
alternatives for a new rule or other response identified by
the agency or interested persons; documentation that the
agency has considered the alternative of no Federal re-
sponse . . .
In other words, they may not need to do anything.
. . . documentation that the agency has considered the
potential direct costs and benefits associated with potential
alternative rules and other responses; documentation that the
agency has estimated impacts on jobs that are associated with
potential alternative rules and other responses.
The requirements are like that throughout, and they are commonsense reforms. In fact, they are so common sense that many of these were initiated by President Reagan, and many of these have been carried forward by subsequent administrations, including the current administration.
What we are asking for today is don't hide the ball on the American people when you write regulations. Provide the documentation of how you wrote the regulation, what you considered when you wrote the regulation, whether or not that regulation is the most cost-effective way to do it, and whether or not the regulation is even needed at all. These are commonsense reforms, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), the vice chairman of the Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law Subcommittee.
Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), the chairman of the subcommittee.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time and urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation which will help to rein in the excessive power of the executive branch of the Federal Government and provide for common sense being brought to the writing of Federal Government regulations, saving American taxpayers and consumers billions if not trillions of dollars. It is badly needed. It is long overdue.
I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory
State 2014 Edition
Competitive Enterprise Institute Executive Summary
(By Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.)
In February 2014, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
reported outlays for fiscal year (FY) 2013 of $3.454 trillion
and projected spending for FY 2014 at $3.543 trillion.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama's federal budget proposal
for FY 2015 seeks $3.901 trillion in discretionary,
entitlement, and interest spending. In the previous fiscal
year, the president had proposed outlays of $3.778 trillion.
Despite high debt and deficits, we have been unable to avoid
entering the era of $4 trillion in annual spending.
We experienced trillion dollar deficits between 2009 and
2012, and CBO projects that deficits will exceed $1 trillion
again by FY 2022. Trillion dollar deficits were once
unimaginable. Such sums signified the level of budgets
themselves, not of shortfalls. Yet at no point is spending
projected to balance in the coming decade. President Obama's
2015 budget projects deficits that are smaller than recent
heights--with 2014's claimed $649 billion to fall to $413
billion in 2018--before heading back into the CBO-predicted
stratosphere.
Many other countries' government outlays make up a greater
share of their national output, compared with 20 percent for
the U.S. government, but in absolute terms, the U.S.
government is the largest government on the planet. Only four
other nations top $1 trillion in annual government revenues,
and none but the United States collects more than $2
trillion.
Regulation: The Hidden Tax
The scope of federal government spending and deficits is
sobering. Yet the government's reach extends well beyond
Washington's taxes, deficits, and borrowing. Federal
environmental, safety and health, and economic regulations
cost hundreds of billions--perhaps trillions--of dollars
annually in addition to the official federal outlays that
dominate policy debate.
Firms generally pass the costs of some taxes along to
consumers. Likewise, some regulatory compliance costs that
businesses face will find their way into the prices that
consumers pay and out of the wages workers
earn. Precise regulatory costs can never be fully known
because, unlike taxes, they are unbudgeted and often
indirect. But scattered government and private data exist
about scores of regulations and about the agencies that issue
them, as well as data about estimates of regulatory costs and
benefits. Compiling some of that information can make the
regulatory state somewhat more comprehensible. That
compilation is one purpose of the annual Ten Thousand
Commandments report, highlights of which follow:
Among the five all-time-high Federal Register page counts,
four have occurred under President Obama.
The annual outflow of more than 3,500 final rules--
sometimes far above that level--means that 87,282 rules have
been issued since 1993.
There were 51 rules for every law in 2013. The
``Unconstitutionality Index,'' the ratio of regulations
issued by agencies to laws passed by Congress and signed by
the president, stood at 51 for 2013. Specifically, 72 laws
were passed in calendar year 2013, whereas 3,659 rules were
issued. This disparity highlights the excessive delegation of
lawmaking power to unelected agency officials.
This author's working paper, ``Tip of the Costberg,'' which
is largely based on federal government data, estimates
regulatory compliance and economic impacts at $1.863 trillion
nnually.
U.S. households ``pay'' $14,974 annually in regulatory
hidden tax, thereby ``absorbing'' 23 percent of the average
income of $65,596, and ``pay'' 29 percent of the expenditure
budget of $51,442. The ``tax'' exceeds every item in the
budget except housing. More is ``spent'' on embedded
regulation than on health care, food, transportation,
entertainment, apparel and services, and savings.
The estimated cost of regulation exceeds half the level of
the federal budget itself. Regulatory costs of $1.863
trillion amount to 11.1 percent of the U.S. gross domestic
product (GDP), which was estimated at $16.797 trillion in
2013 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
When regulatory costs are combined with federal FY 2013
outlays of $3.454 trillion, the federal government's share of
the entire economy now reaches 31 percent. The regulatory
``hidden tax'' surpasses the income tax. Regulatory
compliance costs exceed the 2013 estimated total individual
income tax revenues of $1.234 trillion.
Regulatory compliance costs vastly exceed the 2013
estimated corporate income tax revenues of $288 billion and
approach corporate pretax profits of $2.19 trillion.
If it were a country, U.S. regulation would be the 10th
largest economy, ranked between India and Italy.
U.S. regulatory costs exceed the GDPs of Australia and
Canada, the highest-income nations among the countries ranked
most free in the annual Index of Economic Freedom and
Economic Freedom of the World reports.
The Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St.
Louis, Missouri, and the Regulatory Studies Center at George
Washington University in Washington, D.C., jointly estimate
that agencies spent $57.3 billion (on budget) to administer
and police the federal regulatory enterprise. Adding the
$1.863 trillion in off-budget compliance costs brings the
total regulatory enterprise to $1.92 trillion.
The Federal Register finished 2013 at 79,311 pages, the
fourth highest level in history.
Federal Register pages devoted specifically to final rules
rose to a record high of 26,417.
The 2013 Federal Register contained 3,659 final rules and
2,594 proposed rules.
Since the nation's founding, more than 15,177 executive
orders have been issued. President Obama issued 181 as of the
end of 2013.
President George W Bush averaged 63 major rules annually
during his eight years in office; Obama's five years so far
have averaged 81.
Although there are over 3,500 rules annually, public
notices in the Federal Register exceed 24,000 annually, with
uncounted ``guidance documents'' among them. There were
24,261 notices in 2013 and 477,929 since 1995.
According to the fall 2013 ``Regulatory Plan and the
Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory
Actions'' (which lists federal regulatory actions at various
stages of implementation), 63 federal departments, agencies,
and commissions have 3,305 regulations at various stages of
implementation.
Of the 3,305 regulations in the pipeline, 191 are
``economically significant'' rules, which the federal
government defines as imposing at least $100 million in
annual costs. Assuming that those rulemakings are primarily
regulatory implies roughly $19 billion yearly in future off-
budget regulatory effects.
Of the 3,305 regulations now in the works, 669 affect small
businesses. Of those, 391 required a regulatory flexibility
analysis: 278 were otherwise noted by agencies to affect
small businesses.
The five most active rule-producing agencies--the
Departments of the Treasury, Interior, Commerce,
Transportation, and Health and Human Services--account for
1,451 rules, or 44 percent of all rules in the Unified Agenda
pipeline.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was
formerly consistently in the top five, is now sixth, but
adding its 179 rules brings the total from the top six
rulemaking agencies to 1,630 rules, or 49.3 percent of all
federal rules.
The most recent Small Business Administration (SBA)
evaluation of the overall U.S. federal regulatory enterprise
estimated annual regulatory compliance costs of $1.752
trillion in 2008. Earlier SBA reports pegged costs at $1.1
trillion in 2005 and at $843 billion in 2001. The Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) agreed with those figures at the
time. Meanwhile, a subset of 115 selected major rules
reviewed during 2002-2012 by the OMB notes cumulative annual
costs of between $57 billion and $84 billion.
The short-lived series of budget surpluses from 1998 to
2001--the first since 1969--seems like ancient history in
today's debt and deficit-drenched policy setting, as the CBO
projects annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars
over the coming decade. When it comes to stimulating a
limping economy, reducing deficits and relieving regulatory
burdens are key to the nation's economic health. Otherwise,
budgetary pressures can incentivize lawmakers to impose off-
budget regulations on the private sector, rather than add to
unpopular deficit spending. A new government program--for
example, job training--would require either increasing
government spending or imposing new regulations requiring
such training. Unlike on-budget spending, the latter
regulatory costs remain largely hidden from public view,
which makes regulation increasingly attractive to lawmakers.
The Disclosure and Accountability Imperatives
Cost-benefit analysis at the agency level is already
neglected; thus, at minimum, some third-party review is
needed. Like federal spending, regulations and their costs
should be tracked and disclosed annually. Then, periodic
housecleaning should be performed.
A problem with cost-benefit analysis is that it largely
relies on agency self-policing. Having agencies audit their
own rules is like asking students to grade their own exams.
Regulators are disinclined to emphasize when a rule's
benefits do not justify the costs involved. In fact, one
could expect new and dubious categories of benefits to emerge
to justify an agency's rulemaking activity.
A major source of overregulation is the systematic
overdelegation of rulemaking power to agencies. Requiring
expedited votes on economically significant or controversial
agency rules before they become binding would reestablish
congressional accountability and would help affirm a
principle of ``no regulation without representation.''
Openness about regulatory facts and figures can be
bolstered through federal ``regulatory report cards,''
similar to the presentation in Ten Thousand Commandments.
These could be officially issued each year to distill
information for the public and policy makers about the scope
of the regulatory state.
Mr. Chairman, I hear from the other side of the aisle about how low-income people are being taken care of already because the President of the United States has told these agencies to ``take into account their status.'' But guess what? That has no judicial enforceability. So if a low-income person really wants to seek redress of their grievances through a regulation that is going to cost them their job, cost them their business, whatever the case might be, they have no recourse to the courts. Among those who suffer most unfairly from overreaching regulations are lower-income families and individuals.
The other side has criticized our list of entities supporting this. But these are all job-creating organizations. I haven't heard of many job-creating organizations who are opposed to this legislation.
New regulations often represent the policy preferences of elites and pro-regulatory advocates. Recent regulations aimed at driving down the use of coal and other fossil fuels are an example of this.
What growing research shows, and what policy elites too often ignore, is that the costs of new regulations often have regressive effects on those with lower incomes. For example, when electricity rates go up because Federal regulators clamp down on the use of cheap energy, real money that lower-income households need to secure better housing, better educational choices, or other essential needs goes instead to pay for unnecessarily excessive regulations.
This is unfair. Agencies should be required to identify and reveal the unseen adverse effects of proposed new regulations on low-income households. The gentleman's amendment accomplishes this important goal.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, to the point just raised by the gentleman from Georgia, I want to quote Daniel Webster, who is also quoted right up there above us in the Chamber.
He says, ``It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.''
I share and welcome the gentleman from Georgia's concerns about the impact of regulations on the people and on their jobs, but the right way to address that concern is to join me in supporting this bill. It includes the Rothfus-Barr amendment added to the legislation in the 113th Congress that requires agencies to do a much better job identifying adverse job impacts before they impose the regulations.
The gentleman's amendment represents the wrong way to address job concerns. That is because it would give the executive branch a strong incentive to manipulate its jobs impact and cost-benefit analysis to avoid the requirements of the bill, including the Rothfus-Barr amendment, rather than comply with that requirement.
The amendment also puts the cart before the horse, offering carve- outs from the bill, based on factors that cannot be determined adequately unless the important analytical requirements in the bill are applied in the first place.
For all of these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague from Virginia.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment exempts from the bill any rule or guidance pertaining to health or public safety. Health and public safety regulation done properly serve important goals, and the bill does nothing to frustrate the effective achievement of those goals.
But Federal health and public safety regulation constitutes an immense part of total Federal regulation and has 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 be to severely weaken the bill's important reforms to lower the crushing cumulative costs of Federal regulation.
Consider, for example, testimony before the Judiciary Committee last term by Rob James, a city councilman from Avon Lake, Ohio, about the impacts of new and excessive regulation on his town, its workers, and its families.
Avon Lake is a small town facing devastation by ideologically driven, antifossil-fuel power plant regulations. These regulations are expected to destroy jobs in Avon Lake, harm Avon Lake's families, and make it even harder for Avon Lake to find the resources to provide emergency services, quality schools, and help for its neediest citizens--all while doing comparatively little to control mercury emissions that are the stated target of the regulations.
Let me point out to the gentleman and anyone else concerned that health and safety regulations are a tantamount concern of this legislation. In fact, I will quote from page 19 of the bill:
The agency shall adopt a rule only on the basis of the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other evidence and information concerning the need for, consequences of, and alternatives to the rule.
I will also point out that the American Council of Independent Laboratories supports this legislation.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
Mr. Speaker, we are more than 6 years into the Obama administration. Real unemployment is still a massive problem in this country. America's labor force participation has dropped to record lows. The nominal unemployment rate is down, but that is because desperate Americans dying for work are abandoning the workforce in droves.
The only real, long-term solution is to restart the engines of economic growth in this country. One way to do that is to pass the Regulatory Accountability Act. This bill promises real relief from our $1.86 trillion-per-year regulatory cost nightmare. If enacted, it would change night to day in terms of the level of regulatory costs Washington imposes on American families--without stopping one needed regulation from being issued.
My friends across the aisle say that won't happen. They say the bill will bring all good rulemaking to a halt. My goodness, it is ObamaCare all over again. My friends across the aisle haven't read the bill. You have to read the bill to know what is in it. If you read the bill, you understand it. You see right there on page 27:
The agency shall adopt the least costly rule considered
during the rule making . . . that meets relevant statutory
objectives.
Take away a few key words and what does that say?
The agency shall adopt the . . . rule . . . that meets . .
. statutory objectives.
So the rules will still be made and statutory goals will still be met, but they will be done in a cost-effective way that makes sure that all of the necessary cost-saving measures and all of the necessary considerations are taken into account before imposing new burdens on the American people.
Vote against this motion to recommit. Vote for this good, job- creating, dollar-saving bill for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.