Volume 157, No. 25 covering the 1st Session of the 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REGULATORY RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR ECONOMY ACT OF 2011” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S766-S768 on Feb. 16, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REGULATORY RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR ECONOMY ACT OF 2011
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I recently introduced a bill called the Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act of 2011--it is S. 358--
and I would urge my colleagues who would like to, after hearing my remarks, to cosponsor this. I realize the bill is a mouthful--the Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act--but I think it is appropriate.
This bill would strengthen and codify President Obama's Executive order from January 18. In that Executive order, the President made a commitment to review, to modify, to streamline, to expand or repeal--
that is a lot of things, to review, modify, streamline, expand, and repeal--those regulatory actions that are duplicative, unnecessary, overly burdensome, or would have significant economic impacts on Americans. So the Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act of 2011 would ensure just that.
My legislation would require that all regulations put forth by the current and future administrations--regardless of the President--
consider the economic burden on American businesses, ensure stakeholder input--i.e., the people who are affected--during the regulatory process, and promote innovation. Back on January 18, the President signed an Executive order to do precisely that, we thought. It was for
``improving regulation and regulatory review.'' But the President also released a factsheet on the intent for his regulatory strategy. It was in detail. Per the factsheet, ``In this Executive Order, the President requires Federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness.'' My legislation would ensure that would actually happen.
In addition, the President published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal detailing the administration's commitment to reviewing regulations. As part of this op-ed, the President stated:
We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people in business from abuse.
But he also noted that--and this is the key:
Sometimes those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business--burdens that have stifled innovation and had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.
I must say I absolutely agree with the President. I was extremely pleased when he came out with the Executive order on January 16. And as I travel across my home State, I have heard Kansan after Kansan, regardless of the business, regardless of where they are on Main Street, who find themselves weighed down by the burden of too many regulations. As a matter of fact, I think if any Member of this Senate would like to get a standing ovation from even a group of five at a coffee shop or at a meeting of any organization that is business-
oriented or just folks, you can talk about the debt, you can talk about spending, you can talk about other issues, but the one that really grabs them is this business of overregulation.
This has been going on for too many years--too many decades. As a matter of fact, you can come into a meeting, and you will probably get the question--even the distinguished President pro tempore, the Senator from New York, would get the question, though probably a little nicer than I would get it, and certainly the other Senator from New York, who is now leaving the Chamber--the question usually comes as: Pat, what on Earth are you doing back there, saddling us with paperwork and regulations that are costly, burdensome, and that we don't even know about? All of a sudden, on a Wednesday morning we wake up and we face this regulatory dictate. It is counterproductive, and the cost outweighs the benefit. What is going on back there? What are you guys doing?
My response: Well, let's stop there for just a minute. I am not a
``you guy,'' I am an ``us guy.''
Clear back in the days when I was in the House of Representatives and I had the privilege of serving in that body, we were all trying to do something about unnecessary and burdensome regulations. So I have had a longstanding concern with the regulatory process, and that is the one issue that is a tinderbox issue. It is one where you really get an immediate response, with people saying: Amen. Somebody needs to do something about that. And they were so pleased with the President when he came out with the Executive order, saying: Hey, I am going to do something about this.
As of January 3, 2011, less than 6 months after the Dodd-Frank act was signed into law, regulators have issued over 1,000 pages of regulatory proposals and 360 pages of final rules. Talk about asking Senators whether they have read a bill, I know that nobody in the Senate has read over the 1,000 pages of regulatory proposals and 360 pages of final rules on the regulatory reform act. And many more pages of regulations--upwards of 5,000--are expected.
Regulations such as those put forth by the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Departments of Labor and Treasury, have resulted in the child-only insurance market effectively disappearing in 20 States because of the regulations. The idea was to provide just the opposite but in 20 States today, that is not the case.
The Environmental Protection Agency began implementing its greenhouse gas regulations on stationary sources of energy that emit 75,000 or more tons of CO2 a year, which, on its surface, aims to only regulate those largest emitters, such as powerplants and oil refineries, but it is only a matter of time--it is only a matter of time--before stricter regulations are handed down that will impact every corner of commerce.
Let me just say that the EPA--knowing, of course, that Congress said no to cap and trade--is trying very hard to go around the Congress to try to put forth these regulations into compliance with the law.
Last year, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration--and everything has to have an acronym in Washington, but the one for that is called GIPSA--published a proposed rule that would change longstanding rules governing the production and marketing of livestock. This is an agriculture thing. This proposed rule goes far beyond what was intended in the last farm bill. In fact, a number of items in the proposed rule were defeated here on the Senate floor, and yet they were put in the proposed rule.
A number of private economic studies show the loss of gross domestic product is in excess of $1 billion--much more costly than the $100 million threshold required for an economic analysis to be completed. Unfortunately, an economic analysis is yet to be completed.
So I was encouraged, Madam President. I was a happy camper there for a little bit by President Obama's commitment to a new regulatory strategy. But the devil is in the details, and with staff help, after reviewing the Executive order, I must say I was left with some larger concerns. I was upset.
The Executive order states:
In applying these principles, each agency is directed to use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible.
Wonderful. We will have a cost-benefit yardstick applied to all of the regulations pouring out of all the agencies in Washington. The distinguished Speaker of the House said the other day that we had 200,000 more Federal employees in Washington than we did 2 years ago. I can assure you they are not twiddling their thumbs. They are issuing regulations, and they tend to be agenda-oriented, not really getting down to sound science or determining the unanticipated effects of their regulations.
Picking up again on what the President said:
Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may consider and discuss qualitatively values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.
The partridge in the pear tree was left out.
Let me read this again.
Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency--
As they go through the regulations to determine which are counterproductive to this economy, costing billions in regard to manufacturing and businesses and harming our economy where it should not be harmed, they say, OK, but, but, but--
Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may consider--
And this is the part where we ought to really take a look at it--
values that are difficult or impossible to quantify--
How are you going to do that? How are you going to quantify values that are difficult or impossible--
including equity--
Everybody is for that--
human dignity--
I don't know anyone who is against that--
fairness, and distributive impacts.
Now, try to figure that out if you are working in a Federal agency and you are trying to issue a regulation. If that isn't a loophole large enough to drive a truck through, I don't know what is.
As the Wall Street Journal captured so eloquently in their response to President Obama's editorial, ``These amorphous concepts are not measurable at all.'' You can't do it. You can't measure them.
On the surface, I think this language has the potential to be a very large loophole. This, coupled with an exception for independent agencies such as the FDIC, the SEC, or the EPA, has the potential to result in no changes at all. So we issue an Executive order saying: Let's take a tough look at the regulations that are so terribly counterproductive, and we may end up with nothing, more especially without the independent agencies. Note I said the FDIC. Note I said the SEC. Read Dodd-Frank, read financial regulatory reform. Read the reach into the small community banks and what they are going to have to put up with and hire a bunch of bad news bears--employees--to figure out and tell the rest of the employees how on Earth they are going to comply with these new regulations.
And my favorite, the EPA, which had the temerity and the unmitigated gall, after this loophole came out, to say: Well, none of our regulations even apply. Our regulations are just fine. I got news for the EPA. The chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Deborah Stabenow, and I have agreed to hold a hearing on this to determine just exactly where we are, and where we are is not good.
My legislation would close the loophole in President Obama's Executive order and would close other existing loopholes, including those that the administration has been using to bypass valuable stakeholder input on regulations. Again, there is that word--
``stakeholder.'' That is a Senate word. Those are the people who are getting smacked right up alongside the face in regard to the regulations they do not even know adhere to their business or what they are about.
The President has also agreed--and here is the key word or phrase:
Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on businesses--burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.
The President went on to say, ``At other times, we have failed to meet our basic responsibility to protect the public interest leading to disastrous consequences,'' precisely what I am trying to demonstrate here. My legislation would assure a review of these regulations to assure fewer burdensome and economically irresponsible regulatory actions on struggling businesses in the United States.
President Obama's Executive order ``requires the Federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, our health and environment while promoting economic growth.'' So does my legislation. ``And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.''
That is what the President's Executive order does, and so does my legislation.
The President said, ``It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.''
The President was right. My legislation would do this but would add some teeth to the commitment--sharp teeth--by cutting out the loopholes, the very loophole I read. I am not going to read it again. I defy anybody to tell me what it means or how anybody could use that kind of language in determining the cost-benefit of any regulation.
The President has made it his ``mission to root out regulations that conflict,''--and I am quoting here--``that are not worth the cost or are just plain dumb.'' That is pretty clear, if the President says these regulations are just plain dumb. I said ``counterproductive.'' That is the Senate word. He said ``dumb.'' That is the Dodge City word and I think Dodge City would agree. I think my legislation is something the administration can support. So while the President believes his Executive order ``makes clear, we are seeking more affordable, less intrusive means to achieve the same ends--giving careful consideration to benefits and costs,'' and that it ``means writing rules with more input from experts, businesses and ordinary citizens,'' there were a number of loopholes in the Executive order I am happy to address with the administration in my legislation.
My bill would keep the President accountable for another promise to Americans, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, the details of which I am happy to share with my colleagues. I hope we get a great number of colleagues to help us codify the Executive order, put some teeth in it, make it work, and get at regulatory reform as opposed to being disingenuous. I think that is exactly what has happened in regard to this, what turned out to be a very noble effort, but the end result had so many loopholes in it as to be completely ineffective.
I yield any time I may have.
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