John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of our committee, the gentlelady from California, Judy Chu.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Members of the House, it's important for us to realize who else has difficulty in supporting a bill that ends up creating unsafe products, promotes dirty air, and other kinds of harms to our citizenry. The American Lung Association is opposed to H.R. 527. The Environmental Defense Fund is opposed to this bill. The National Women's Law Center does not support this bill. Public Citizen is opposed to it. The Union of Concerned Scientists is opposed to it. And, indeed, a total of more than 70 organizations have all written urging us to very carefully consider what we are doing here today. It's absolutely critical, and it is very important that we understand that there is no evidence, credible evidence that regulations depress job creation. Now, this is great rhetoric, but we're passing laws here today. The majority's own witness before the House Judiciary Committee agrees with us. Christopher DeMuth, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of the American Enterprise Institute, stated in his prepared testimony that the focus on jobs can lead to confusion in regulatory debates, and that the employment effects of regulation, while important, are indeterminate. He can't figure it out, and he was a pretty good witness for our position that regulations have no discernible impact on job creation. If anything, regulations may promote job growth and put Americans back to work. The BlueGreen Alliance notes: Studies on the direct impact of regulations on job growth have found that most regulations result in modest job growth or have no effect. Economic growth has consistently surged forward in concert with these health and safety protections. The Clean Air Act is a perfect example. The economy has grown 204 percent and private sector job creation has expanded 86 percent since it was passed in 1970. And so, my colleagues, regulation and economic growth can go hand in hand. We recently observed that 40 years of success with the Clean Air Act has demonstrated that strong environmental protections and strong economic growth go hand in hand. What's in this bill is a provision that every regulation change would have to come back through the Congress. It would be unthinkable that we could add this to our schedule, especially if there was a health emergency that required a rapid passage. So I want every Member of this House to examine the grossly different analyses that are being made here and come to your own conclusion. I think if you do, you will realize that regulations have no discernible impact on job creation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I'm glad my friend is still on the floor because he asked, what do the doctors have to say about this? The doctors oppose the bill. And I'd like to point out, the American Lung Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest do not agree with you, and they agree with our position on the bill.

Mr. CONYERS. In just a minute I'll be very pleased to. The Environmental Defense Fund, the Friends of the Earth, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are all in agreement with us. And so I want you to know that the medical people that have spoken about this bill are not in support of it. I will yield briefly to the gentleman.

Mr. CONYERS. Just a moment. These are not lobbyists. I don't know if these organizations have any offices here. But the Union of Concerned Scientists probably doesn't have any lobbyists. I doubt if the American Lung Association does.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I too am prepared to close on this side. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, we have two starkly opposing views of what this bill does. I have over 70 organizations that are from the labor movement, from the health movement, from the science world, from the Women's Law Center, from the Union of Concerned Scientists all telling us that this is a very dangerous process that we're involved in, that the results wouldn't be that the authors of this amendment intended to harm people or that they intended to produce unsafe air products or that they were supporting making the air unbreathable, but that is the result of this bill. It's been stated twice on the other side that we are accusing you of bad intent. I don't do that. I want you to be very clear. It's not a matter that your intentions are not honorable, but the results of a bill like H.R. 527 would create unsafe products. It would ultimately produce air that is more polluted than the air that we're dealing with now. It would delay the promulgation of regulations that we need. It is exactly going in the wrong way because we, as a matter of fact, need to have more regulation surrounding products, particularly children's toys. We want the air to be much better than it is. And so I urge my colleagues to examine the premises starkly different than have been presented here today and to join us in turning back and sending back to the committee a bill that would make our health much more endangered. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentlelady from New York. My friend on the other side from Missouri, who is managing the bill, I was happy to hear you say that this measure that we are examining does nothing to hinder the rulemaking process. And I'd like to help you out in that area if I may because this expands in the bill the use of small business review panels to include rules promulgated by all agencies, and to include all major rules. I would say to the gentleman from Missouri that right now there are only three agencies that are affected. What this does, my friend, is extend the review process to every agency. Do you recognize, sir, that there are over 50 agencies in the Federal system? And so for it to be thought that this isn't going to change much is a grievous mistake. And of course I am here to help you out, to the extent that I can. The other thing that it does--and you think that this will not change the rulemaking process--is that this measure would force agencies to engage in speculative analysis, including an assessment of all reasonably foreseeable, indirect economic effects of a proposed rule.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I welcome the continuation of this discussion about an incredibly important proposal. We gather here today to determine whether we should add one more amendment to the 27 amendments to the Constitution that have been enacted since the last part of the 18th century when our country was formed. I was reviewing something that a former chairman of our committee said in the 104th Congress, and I refer to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Henry Hyde, who said in effect that he realized that the Republican Congress when he was there would not be able to balance the budget without using retiree funds in the Social Security trust fund. I think I'm being assured in this debate that that will not happen in the present time. Here's what Henry Hyde said: ``If you exclude receipts from the revenue that are received by the Social Security System from computing the total revenues of the government, if you take it out of the equation, then the cuts that are necessary to reach a balanced budget become draconian. They become 22 to 30 percent, and you know that we cannot and will not cut programs that we want to subsist and continue by 22 to 30 percent. ``You have to compute Social Security receipts in determining the income of this government so that the cuts you make to balance the budget are liveable and not impossible.'' Henry Hyde was right then and his statement is correct now. Under the proposal that we are discussing today, our Nation's savings--the money taken out of every American's paycheck could be looted, in effect, to pay for other things and to balance the budget, and it would take the trust out of the Social Security Trust Fund. The Ryan budget would cut Social Security's service delivery below current maintenance levels by more than $10 billion over 10 years, including a $400 million cut in 2012. This sort of drastic cutting will prove devastating to seniors as more aging boomers retire to rely on field office services, initial benefit claims, processing, disability determinations, and hearing decisions over the next 10 years. So I appeal to the kinder nature of my friends in the House. Please recognize that Henry Hyde was correct then and he is correct now, that we cannot achieve what this amendment proposes to do without going into Social Security receipts. And I think that that would be objectionable and unwise on the part of all of us here, and that would be unacceptable to the citizens of our country. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New York, Jerry Nadler, become the manager of this amendment from this point on.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I yield myself an additional 3 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. I would yield time to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 seconds. I hope that those words will help us in the supercommittee that the gentleman from Mississippi is working on night and day. I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Bobby Scott, the former subcommittee chair of the Crime Subcommittee and a former member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to Jesse Jackson, Jr., a distinguished Member from Chicago, Illinois, as much time as he may consume.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield myself an additional 3 minutes and continue to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Jim Moran.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Ladies and gentlemen, this balanced budget constitutional amendment is one that surprises me, and very little surprises me anymore. But for us to be seriously, on this day and this time, considering an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would destroy jobs, that would drastically cut Medicare and Social Security and give members of the Federal judiciary the right to raise taxes and make spending decisions for us is relatively shocking to me, and I am very much opposed to it. I want to engage my dear friend, the chairman of the committee, in an exchange of views on this, but let's start off the discussion with this reality. This is not 1995, and that's why so many people that supported the amendment then have changed their minds now, and they will explain this as they go along. I would like now, Mr. Speaker, to yield to the gentleman from New York, former chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, Jerry Nadler, for as much time as he may consume.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased at this time to recognize the minority leader of the House of Representatives who, ever since she has come to Congress, has worked drastically to save and build on Medicare, Social Security, and to create jobs, the gentlewoman from California, Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, a distinguished leader in the Congress, Bill Pascrell.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California, Judy Chu, a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York, Jerry Nadler.