Volume 142, No. 30 covering the 2nd Session of the 104th Congress (1995 - 1996) 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 ENFORCEMENT FAIRNESS ACT” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S1647-S1648 on March 7, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT FAIRNESS ACT
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, an extraordinary thing happened today in the forum in the sense of the effort to try to bring the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act before this body as Senate bill 942.
The fact is that here we are 6 o'clock, Thursday, and the information of the Senator from Alaska is that the Democratic minority has refused to allow this vital piece of legislation to come before this body for a vote. The realization, as evidenced by my good friend, Senator Bumpers from Arkansas, is that, if it came up, it would pass 100 to nothing.
We are talking about trying to assist the small business community relative to employment, encourage those that are willing to take a risk in the highest area of fallout of any activity, and that is the small business community. We are talking about trying to get some regulatory reform that will assist them.
This has been a top priority of this Congress. It has been a top priority of the Senate. We cannot even get it up for a vote.
What are we trying to do with this? Some people would say we are trying to unwind the environmental laws, or the labor oversight responsibilities that we have. What we are trying to do is bring some logic into the equation, some cost-benefit, and risk analysis. What does it mean?
Mr. President, I live in Alaska. It snows in Alaska. When the snow comes down, either leave it or move it. In the case of the city of Fairbanks, where I live, the snow falls on the area where they park the buses. So what do they do? They move the snow back to the back lot. But that is classified as a wetlands. You cannot put snow in a wetland.
Is that a rational reality? You cannot dump the excess snow in the river. Why cannot you dump it in the river? Because it may have picked up something along the way that somehow would be inappropriate to dump in the river. But when it snows in Washington, DC, where do you dump the snow? You dump it wherever. Nobody gets too excited because snow here is a calamity. The city is tied up. It cannot move. You dump it in the Potomac River.
Anchorage, AK, the State's largest city, probably has the cleanest water in the world. When it rains it drops down in the street, and goes down the gutter. The gutters go out into Cook Inlet. There is a 30-foot tide twice a day. The water goes out. This is not sewage. This is water that goes into your drain from the rain. It goes out.
They did not have any problem until the Environmental Protection Agency came down with a mandate that said you have to remove 30 percent of the organic matter from the water before you can dump it without treatment. And the EPA said to the city of Anchorage, you are in violation of the law.
Well, the assembly met. Somebody came up with the idea. ``Let us put a few fish guts in the drains so we would have something to recover and remove the organic matter and, therefore, comply.''
When they appealed to the highest level of the Environmental Protection Agency, they said we are not going to make exceptions. This is uniform throughout the United States.
What we are trying to do here, Mr. President, is get some balance, some logic into a situation that has run amok with bureaucracy and the inability of our administrators to address clear decisions that should be made relative to the areas of responsibility the administrators have. You cannot mandate uniformity on things like this. You have to bring in common sense. You bring in the analysis of cost-benefit. You bring in what the risk to the public is. You give the administrators the authority, and you hold them accountable.
Many Senators on both sides of the aisle today have worked hard to try to pass regulatory reform legislation. My good friend from Louisiana, Senator Johnston, has labored in the vineyards for an extraordinary amount of time. But for reasons unknown, today the other side of the aisle said, we are not going to bring it up; we are going to object. I do not know whether this is connected with an election year. We have a lot of political issues around here.
Everybody is committed to assisting small business by reducing redundant regulatory oversight, and here is a chance to do it. Politics is not an overarching excuse, in my opinion, and getting the American public energized so that we can address the relief needed from some of the ill-founded, erroneous, duplicative regulations is a bipartisan responsibility. We seem to agree on it, but we cannot move. We are stuck. No explanation.
Today a constituent of mine came in. He brought me a chart. He is in the business of transporting oil. He has to have five permits. He has to have a Coast Guard operating regulation permit. He has to have a Coast Guard OPA 90 regulatory permit. He has to have an Environmental Protection Agency OPA 90 regulatory permit. He has to have an Environmental Protection Agency spill prevention regulatory permit, and he has to have a State permit, plus the local permits.
You have created a whole new industry out there of consultants that are hired to do these permits, do this evaluation, at a great cost to the public. And the justification for this really is questionable, given the lack of cost-benefit and risk analysis that should be associated with the process and unfortunately is not.
If you want to go into the logging business in my State, at the last count you have to get some 41 permits. You have to have a radio operator's license to run your camp. You have to have a Corps of Engineers permit to run your camp, and on and on and on and on.
There can be no argument that reforming the way we do regulatory business in this country is of paramount importance. We cannot seem to get that reform.
We are not ready to give up by any means. We are going to keep going at it. But in the meantime, there is no reason why we should not move with this particular bill, the small business relief that Senator Bond and Senator Bumpers have developed in the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. I commend them for their efforts. There is a consensus on the need for the bill. There is a consensus on the content of the bill. There is a consensus on the relief that this bill would provide to the small business community--stimulate employment, stimulate investment, stimulate inventory buildup--and yet we cannot get the consensus we need to bring it up in the Chamber.
The question the Senator from Alaska has to ask the Chair is, why? There are so many positive benefits to this legislation--teeth for the 16-year-old Regulatory Flexibility Act to allow judicial review of adverse impacts regulations have on small businesses. It includes penalty waivers and reductions for small business violations that are of little if any significance, recovery of attorney's fees when small business is forced into defensive litigation due to enforcement excesses, and, finally, small business participation in rulemaking.
We cannot keep missing the opportunity to pass positive, helpful legislation for important segments of America's small business industry. We should not miss the opportunity to pass this bill. Obviously, the weekend is going to go by. We are going to take this up again next week. But I would encourage my colleagues to allow this bipartisan bill to come before the floor to get it passed. We owe that much to the American people.
I think we ought to be asking our friends on the other side of the aisle why they see fit to hold up this important legislation. I encourage America's small business community to demand an answer, because we are ready to go with it on our side, and I think those people out there who are frustrated are waiting and certainly deserve an answer.
Mr. President, that concludes my statement. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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