Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The estimate done by the CBO was collected from the agencies, agencies that do not want this legislation, agencies that probably have overinflated the costs as they estimate them to be. I will answer the gentleman's question; yes, the majority will appropriate the right amount of moneys to the agencies to do their job, which as we will show the gentleman tomorrow, in our ability to take fiscal responsibility we will make the agencies live within their budgets and probably small budgets.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, that is one of the fallacies of the arrogance of the elite into thinking that it is more important for the bureaucrats to have an easier time to impose regulations rather than American citizens.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. We set a $25 million threshold because we said if you set a $100 million threshold, you eliminate 95 percent of the regulations that we are trying to bring good, efficient cost-benefit analysis to.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Coleman]. (Mr. COLEMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DeLAY. I find no problem with that. If foreign citizens are creating jobs in this country and are being regulated by this country, they ought to have the right to petition, if they have a better idea on how to save costs and implement these regulations in a more efficient way.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, yes, I would assume so.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would create two different classes of regulations for the purposes of risk assessment and cost/ benefit analysis--the first would be the post-H.R. 1022 class, and the second would be the pre-H.R. 1022 class. The post-H.R. 1022 class of regulations would be subject to modern risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis procedures based on sound science, while the pre-H.R. 1022 class of regulations would be promulgated under outdated, inefficient, and inflexible procedures with sometimes no attention paid to their cost on the economy. Does this make sense? The American people have asked us to establish a reasonable regulatory system based on scientifically sound risk assessment with attention paid to the costs versus the benefits incurred. That is what this bill accomplishes. Some are claiming that the bill will roll back all of our health, safety, and environmental protection regulations. Those who would make this claim have unfortunately resorted to scare tactics. As the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Mr. Bliley, has written, ``Nothing in the bill itself changes a single existing health, safety, or environmental regulation currently on the books. This bill only applies to new regulations and situations where the agency revises an old regulation through a public notice and comment process.'' H.R. 1022 is not a supermandate--instead, it establishes consistent, clear standards under which all new regulations will be promulgated. The Boehlert amendment would gut this bill and I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I think the chairman has pretty well summed it up very quickly. Let me just say that in all of this cry for special interests being part of the peer review process, what the author of the motion to recommit wants to happen is his special interests get to serve on the peer review panels rather than our special interests. They want to load the system so that they can continue to control and manipulate the American economy and the American business men and women. That is what is going on here. For years they get a study and they make sure that the conclusion is written before the study is even done on these regulations. That is what they want to continue. They want to load the system with their special interests, with their environmental extremist groups, or with the labor unions, or the other special interests, the Ralph Nader groups, the Public Citizens, they want to load them up. What we want is a peer review process that brings everybody into the process and gets all points of view, particularly those people that have to deal with these oppressive regulations. They should have a say in this process and that is what we want. Vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit. Mr. Chairman, a New York Times article from a couple of years ago summed up perfectly the prevailing criticism of Congress' and EPA's choice of priorities: In the last 15 years, environmental policy has too often evolved largely in reaction to popular panics, not in response to sound scientific analysis of which environmental hazards present the greatest risks. As a result . . . billions of dollars are wasted each year in battling problems that are no longer considered especially dangerous, leaving little money for others that cause far more harm. No one who supports this bill wants to harm children or hurt our environment--the fact of the matter is, every time you get out of bed and start a new day you are faced with risks, and every day you make decisions about whether to accept those risks based on an analysis of the costs versus the benefits associated with them. Likewise, the Federal Government must set priorities on how to spend its limited resources. There is no way the Government could ever protect everyone from every risk there is, and I don't believe Americans expect that. Risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis will both help us focus on those areas that are the greatest threat to the public, and provide the data needed to make those tough budgetary choices. When granting a tolerance for a new pesticide or an air pollutant, EPA's standard is protection against a lifetime risk of one in a million for cancer. For a little perspective, the chance of death by lightning is 35 times as great; by accidental falls, 4,000 times as great; and in a motor vehicle, 16,000 times as great. Just to demonstrate the need for reform, I'd like to present a few examples of how our system has gone haywire: First, under the Clean Water Act, if flooding creates pools of water on someone's property as the result of a clogged-up drainage system, the owner may not clear the clog to drain the new wetland without Government permission. Second, EPA regulations require that municipal water treatment plants remove 30 percent of organic material before discharging treated water into the ocean. Because water in Anchorage, AK is already very clean, the town has had to recruit local fish processors to purposely dump 5,000 pounds of fish guts into its sewage system each day so that it would have something to clean up and meet EPA's requirement. Third, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a newspaper company, wanted to build a new production plant near Lake Erie, a plant which would bring 400 new jobs to the otherwise abandoned inner-city industrial area. But because of cleanup costs of $200,000 for residual chemicals, the newspaper chose to build the plant in cleaner suburbs. Another socially conscious Cleveland developer also wanted to develop a 200-acre industrial park downtown, but discovered he would have to spend $200 million just to clean up the property before beginning construction. He abandoned the project. I think everyone would agree that these are not the intended consequences of Federal rules and regulations, and yet these things continue to happen over and over again. What we want is to bring some common sense and sound science into the process, so that regulations will serve the people, rather than people serve the regulations. Vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1022 is a good bill. It will dramatically change the way regulations are promulgated in this country and bring some common sense into the process. However, there is one serious flaw--it does nothing to improve regulations that were promulgated under standards lacking in cost-effectiveness or based on poor science. The Barton-Tauzin-Crapo amendment addresses this problem. The current cost of regulation on the economy is conservatively estimated to be $500 billion annually. This translates into $10,000 for a family of four. To put it another way, 10 cents out of every dollar goes to pay for the cost of regulation. The current lack of risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis means resources are being used inefficiently and only adding to this burden. We need to address the issue not only of unreasonable prospective regulations, but also of those that are currently weighing down the economy. Under this amendment, any party affected by a major regulation or risk assessment covered in H.R. 1022 can ask the Federal agency to review its rule to take into account new information on risk and/or cost. The review is only available in cases where the petitioner demonstrates that existing regulations are not cost-effective methods of addressing the targeted risks. The point of this amendment is to give citizens the opportunity to find better ways to achieve the same protections currently provided. Some concerns have been raised about the potential for increased lawsuits as a result of this process. Several points should be made in response: In the first place, remember that a petition process already exists under the Administrative Procedures Act, complete with judicial review. The Barton amendment simply expedites the process for the agencies covered by this bill. Further, no new rights to go to court are created by this amendment. Citizens retain their right to judicial review under the petition process currently in the APA. To prevent frivolous petitions, the amendment sets up many hurdles. The burden is placed on the petitioner to provide the scientific and economic evidence to support the rule revision. The result is that few petitions are likely to be offered. Additionally, because petitions can be filed only to decrease costs imposed by regulations or to make them more flexible, antibusiness interests are not likely to file petitions. Nor can antibusiness interests use this amendment to increase the costs or make regulations more inflexible. The bottom line is this: H.R. 1022 establishes improved risk assessment and cost/benefit standards for new regulations; why should we leave untouched the scores of current regulations that fall short of these standards? Instead, we should allow citizens to petition agencies with their ideas for revising existing regulations to achieve the same amount of protection at a lower cost of compliance, in a more flexible manner, and using sounder science. There are many who have had years of experience complying with these regulations and seeing firsthand the inefficiencies of how they work-- or do not work. Where they can identify a way to do things better for less cost, we should welcome the opportunity to take advantage of their experience to make the process more efficient and more effective.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I understand, we all understand what is going on here. Those that want to protect the regulations want to do as much as they can.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I am just flabbergasted by this debate on this amendment. I just ask the Members to read the bill. Nothing in this amendment nor much of what has been said in support of this amendment has anything to do with the bill. The bill is very specific in giving exemptions to these regulations that affect safety and health and food inspections and many other of the issues. It is obvious to me, Mr. Chairman, that this amendment is the first step down the slippery road to status quo. What is underlying the statements by the President and proponents of this amendment is that they believe in regulations. They believe in the regulatory police. They believe in what has been going on in the last 40 years as it pertains to regulation. They believe in being able to find that man that got fined for moving two truckloads of dirt, or they believe in the regulations that classify children's teeth as hazardous waste and take on the tooth fairy herself. What we are trying to do and what the American people are trying to ask us to do is give us a break from these outrageous regulations that have been placed upon us. What the proponents of this amendment want to do is gut the moratorium bill and stop the regulatory reform effort. Over and over again we keep hearing about what horrible things we are going to inflict on the American people through this moratorium. We have heard it from the White House, from a number of the executive agencies, and from certain Members. Clearly the other side has run out of ammunition against this bill and has resorted to the lowest of politics in trying to scare the American people beyond what is even contemplated by the moratorium. The bill cannot be written more clearly. The moratorium exempts regulations that are needed to protect against imminent threat to health and safety. Their examples of such regulations could include food regulations on E. coli bacteria, medical testing regulations for cancer. The President, in the bill, the President decides when written by the head of the agency whether that particular regulation ought to be exempted. Remember, it is up to the Federal agency to identify which regulations should be exempt from the moratorium. And I finish with this, if the President of the United States had shown any leadership on regulations, we would not even be discussing this bill at all.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Collins amendment. Mr. Chairman, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, an amendment divided against itself cannot stand. And the Collins amendment has so many different divisions, it cannot stand the scrutiny of reason. Look at what we have here. We have a giveaway to the FEC, a special break for HUD, a little something for the veterans, and how about something for duck hunters? We are going to have a duck hunting amendment that follows later on tonight. Taken alone, each one of these special exemptions may sound good. Taken together, this amendment quickly escapes reason. Mr. Chairman, let us not lose sight of the real issue here. What we are trying to do is end the regulatory burden on our small businesses and the American family. What the opponents are trying to do is to keep these job-killing regulations flowing and going. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment and support the underlying bill.

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. DeLAY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I understand the ranking Member's problem and appreciate the problem, but the point still is the same. This is an amendment that is trying to undercut the bill and the intent of the bill. The bill takes care of the problems, as we have said all day long, of many of the Members that want certain regulations to continue, safety and health, routine licensing, regulations that lift burdens on other regulations. The bill takes care of most of this. I understand that the gentlewoman supports and that side of the aisle supports regulation, but what we are trying to do here is to put King's X on regulations until we are able to implement our regulatory reform package and, hopefully, see that the President signs them. We could all play political games, some for political cover, but the real intent of these amendments is to destroy the underlying intent of the legislation.

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the chairman of the committee for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, I have been waiting for today for 16 years. Ever since I opened up my small business and started to have to deal with bureaucrats constantly knocking at my door and piling on the paperwork, I have wanted to do something about the problem of Federal overregulation. With H.R. 450, the Regulatory Transition Act of 1995, we begin the process of reforming the regulatory system. Regulations are out of control, and are only going more so under this administration. Measured by the number of pages in the Federal Register, in which all new regulations are published, each of Mr. Clinton's 2 years in office have seen the most regulatory activity since President Carter's last. The number of ``actual pages'', not counting corrections and blank pages in 1994, was 64,914 pages, the third highest total of all time, and an increase from 1993's count of 61,166 actual pages. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, regulatory activity under the Clinton administration is increasing, not decreasing. In fact, the average American had to work full time until July 10 last year to pay the costs associated with government taxation, mandates, and regulations. This means that 52 cents of every dollar earned went to the government directly or indirectly. On November 8, 1994, the American people sent a message to Washington. They voted for a smaller, less intrusive government. An important step toward reaching this goal is curtailing these excesses of Federal regulation and red tape that are now estimated to cost the economy over $500 billion annually. Although regulations are often well-intended, in their implementation too many are oppressive, unreasonable, and irrational. For example: An environmental engineer was criminally convicted of contaminating wetlands for moving two truckloads of dirt. Another man faced a grand jury because he stabbed a protected falcon with a pitchfork as it killed a chicken in his front yard. Mr. Chairman, one company paid $600,000 for failing to fill out a Federal form even though it had complied with an identical State law. A drycleaner was fined for not posting a piece of paper listing the number of employee injuries in the last 12 months, when in fact there were no injuries during that time. What do you think are the effects of such regulations? Besides the fact that Americans tend to lose respect for their Government, there is also the issue of cost. Regulatory costs that are imposed on businesses--both big and small--have to be paid, but you can be sure they are not paid by the business. Instead, these costs are passed directly on to the consumer, increasing the prices for the goods and services they buy and lowering our standard of living. Every American needs to realize that excessive regulation affects their family and their personal lives directly. The last thing the Government should be doing is making it harder for Americans to pursue their dreams of entrepreneurship. Rather, we should be facilitating it, so that Americans can provide for their families free of regulatory roadblocks, which will result in a continued high standard of living for the whole country. H.R. 450 is such a facilitator. This bill establishes the moratorium on Federal regulations President Clinton refused to order himself last December. It gives Congress--Republicans and Democrats alike--some breathing room to pursue the process reforms that are embodied in the Contract With America, such as cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment. Those reforms will then apply to those regulations that were suspended during the moratorium period, so that no new regulations since the election will have been promulgated without having gone through the tests of sound science and proper cost and risk analysis. Make no mistake. A Federal regulation is a law that can affect life, liberty, and property of Americans. Fairness, justice, and equity must be reflected in the laws of the land, including Federal regulations. The 104th Congress should undertake a thorough review of Federal regulations, starting with the way they are made and enforced, and make such adjustments to the statutes of this land as are necessary to reflect the mandate of the American people. No such thorough review has been possible for some 40 years. It is a daunting but welcome task. It cannot be achieved overnight, nor even in the first 100 days of this Congress, but we can make a start. That start will be impeded if legions of new regulations go into effect before even the initial consideration for regulatory reform and relief can be given.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the gentleman for allowing me this time. Mr. Speaker, I am just astonished at the rancor over this rule. Ten hours for a bill, 10 hours for a bill that we should not even have to be debating on this House floor. And of course the bill has been totally mischaracterized. But let me talk about this; I have a letter here that I will ask unanimous consent to put into the Record, to the President of the United States, dated December 12, December 12, signed by both the leadership of the majority in the House and in the Senate to the President of the United States asking him to put a moratorium on regulations under his direction, understood his control, under his guidelines, so that he can decide which regulations would have a moratorium or not. And he refused. He refused. We asked him to do this so that when we brought up H.R. 9, the Regulatory Reform Act that calls for common sense and reasonableness in the promulgations of regulations and we worked through that bill and, hopefully, the President signs it, all these new regulations, all these new regulations would be under the new reform of regulations proposed in the Contract. The President refused to do it. Instead the President, who wants the regulatory police to maintain their patrol of businesses and American families across this country, has chosen to totally mischaracterize and distort and mislead the American people about this moratorium bill. The President, himself, said that the moratorium would cost lives and property. Well, obviously the President has never ever read the bill, and many of the Members that have already spoken have not read the bill. I have got the bill here for you to read. But there are exceptions as it pertains to safety and health in the bill. All the President has to do is have one of his agency heads write him and say this will affect health and safety or the routine business, or this regulation will remove regulatory burden, and the President, himself, can exempt it. In the bill we are giving, even though the President does not want it, we were giving the President the leadership he refuses to take on many issues in this regulatory moratorium, but yet he does not want to. They throw up duck seasons and red tape. What they are talking being about is they do not want the bureaucrats to go through red tape. The pro-regulation party, the proregulation put more regulations on the American people. They want to be able to drive up the cost of living to the American families by more regulations and silly regulations that we know are out there that we are trying to stop and bring some reasonableness to the regulations. We all understand that there are necessary regulations to protect the safety of workers and the health of the country. But all I ask you to do is read the bill. We would not have to have this bill on the floor of the House if the President of the United States would show a little leadership. (The text of the letter referred to is as follows:) Congress of the United States, Washington, DC, December 12, 1994. The President, The White House, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President, on November 8th, the American people sent a message to Washington. They voted for a smaller, less intrusive government. We urge you to respond to that message by issuing an Executive Order imposing a moratorium on all federal rulemaking. This moratorium should go into effect immediately and remain in effect for the first 100 days of the next Congress. During the moratorium, agencies should be directed to (1) identify both current and proposed regulations with costs to society that outweigh any expected benefits; (2) recommend actions to eliminate any unnecessary regulatory burden; (3) recommend actions to give state, local, or tribal governments more flexibility to meet federally-imposed responsibilities; and (4) make this information and the analysis supporting it available to Congress. The moratorium we are proposing should not apply to all regulations. For example, the proposed moratorium should specifically exempt regulations that would relax a current regulatory burden. Previous moratoriums have exempted several types of regulations including those that (1) are subject to a statutory or judicial deadline; (2) respond to emergencies such as those that pose an imminent danger to human health or safety; or (3) are essential to the enforcement of criminal laws. It is our hope that you will review past exemption categories and use them to guide you in establishing similar standards for purposes of administering this moratorium. Excessive regulation and red tape have imposed an enormous burden on our economy. Private estimates have projected the combined direct cost of compliance with all existing federal regulations to the private sector and to state and local governments at well over $500 billion per year. Your own National Performance Review observed that the compliance costs imposed by federal regulations on the private sector alone were ``at least $430 billion per year--9 percent of our gross domestic product.'' This hidden tax has pushed up prices for goods and services for American families, and limited the ability of small business men and women to create jobs. The Small Business Administration estimates that small businesses in this country spend at least a billion hours a year filling out government forms. The annual Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations, released on November 10, 1994, indicates that the Administration completed 767 regulations during the past six months and is pursuing over 4,300 rulemakings during the next fiscal year. We believe this moratorium on new federal regulations would send a clear signal that, working together, we intend to ease the burden of federal overregulation on consumers and businesses that has slowed economic growth and stifled job creation. Thank you for your consideration of this request. We look forward to working with you to ensure that regulatory policy works for the American people, not against them. Respectfully, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, Don Nickles, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, John Boehner. parliamentary inquiries

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, it seems that we will have no more votes today. We will not take up the rule for the National Security Act tonight. We will start tomorrow after a reasonable number of 1 minutes that we will work out with the minority leader and start with the rule on the National Security Act. Members need to understand that it is the intention of the majority to make sure that we go late enough tomorrow night so that we will be assured of being out at 3 o'clock Thursday for the President's Day recess.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, right now we are not prepared to say what will happen Tuesday. We do think we will stick, possibly, to the normal come in at 2, no votes until 5. But that would be announced at a later date.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks in complimenting our distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey]. Even though he does not look like cupid, there is a lot of love in his heart. In fact, he understands how important it is to get out and be with our families, particularly on Valentine's Day. I just might urge those Members that have been signed up for special orders, that if they would, on both sides of the aisle, would take care in the amount of time that they spend so that our staff can also have a little Valentine's Day break and get out of here early.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. DeLAY. Has this been cleared with the leadership?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I probably will not object, but this is the first we have heard of a substitute.

Mr. DeLAY. I object.