Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressmen Holding, Collins, and Subcommittee Chairman Bachus for their hard work on this bill as well as committee staff on both sides of the aisle. Four bills combined into one and still under 100 pages will do much to reform, and in some cases eliminate, hundreds of thousands of pages of Federal Government regulations in the future. Mr. Speaker, we are more than 5 years into the Obama administration. Real unemployment is still a massive problem in this country. America's labor force participation is at record lows. The nominal unemployment rate is down, but that is only because desperate Americans dying for work are abandoning the workforce in droves. Everybody knows that the only real long-term solution is to restart the engines of economic growth in this country. If we could just somehow increase our growth rate by as little as 2 additional percentage points, things would begin to turn around. One way to do that is to pass the ALERRT Act. The cost of Federal regulation today is estimated to be a staggering $1.86 trillion. That almost wipes out the $2 trillion this Nation's manufacturers have just produced, the first time in history we have hit that level in 1 year. There is our 2 percent growth right there, and more, gobbled up by the mind-boggling tide of tyrannical regulation flowing out of Washington. If we could just cut our regulatory burdens by a portion, we could turn this economy right around. The ALERRT Act would do that. It promises real relief from our regulatory nightmare. If enacted, it would change night to day in terms of the level of regulatory costs Washington imposes on our economy, and it would do so without stopping one needed regulation from being issued. How do I know? Because it says so right in the bill. Right on page 27, it says: The agency shall adopt the least costly rule considered during the rulemaking 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 put the key words back in, and what happens? America starts to save hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn't need to spend, because the agency shall adopt the least costly rule that meets statutory objectives. Do that over and over again, and that is real money that we will save, real money that can produce jobs for our constituents, real money that hardworking Americans can use to grow their businesses, all without stopping a single 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 screeching 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 there on page 27, the agency shall adopt the rule that meets statutory objectives. My friends, the people in my district and yours are smart. They can read the bill. They can tell that, although Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf seem to want to talk about this bill, the sky is not falling and the wolf is not coming on account of this bill. What is coming on account of this bill is real relief for hardworking Americans and prosperity around the corner. Vote against this motion to recommit. Vote for this bill. Take Americans' hard-earned dollars out of the hands of Washington's bureaucrats who want to flush it down the regulatory drain. Let it stay in the hands of workers and businessowners who know how to spend it wisely and well. Oppose the motion to recommit. Support the legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I do respect the concerns raised by the gentlewoman from Texas. The Department of Homeland Security has vast jurisdiction, however, and it is an agency cobbled together, a department cobbled together with authorities from a whole host of other areas, and they have not always made things work very effectively there. One of the things that they need is more discipline and guidance in terms of how regulations are written, and that is exactly what this legislation does. The gentlewoman raises a legitimate concern with regard to the speed with which regulations can be issued in certain emergency circumstances. I would call her attention to section 653 of the legislation, which covers just those circumstances in which the President can take action swiftly because of an imminent threat to health or safety or other emergency. As a result of that, this amendment is not needed because it takes the Department completely out of the reforms provided in this bill. Therefore, I must continue my opposition to the amendment. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. I am not persuaded that the Department of Homeland Security, especially with a provision that provides for emergency relief from any of the provisions of the bill, cannot be greatly benefited, and all those who have to deal with the Department of Homeland Security will not be greatly benefited, if the Department is operating more effectively and if the regulations they promulgate are more efficient and more effective and more addressed toward what really needs to be done to address problems and not simply adding to the regulatory burden that businesses and American citizens face. So I continue my opposition to the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I share and welcome the gentlewoman's concerns about the impacts of regulations on jobs, but I submit that the right way to address that concern is to join me in supporting the Rothfus-Barr amendment that would make sure that agencies do a much better job of identifying adverse job impacts before they impose them. The gentlewoman's amendment, offered on behalf of the gentleman from Georgia, unfortunately would have the opposite effect; that is because it would give the executive branch a strong incentive to manipulate its jobs impact and cost-benefit analyses to avoid the requirements of the bill. 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. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I would reiterate that the right way to address the concern about the impact of regulations on jobs is to join me in supporting the Rothfus-Barr amendment that would make sure that agencies do a much better job identifying adverse job impacts before they impose them on the businesses and individuals that have to make the tough decisions to close businesses, like the family that manufactures bricks that we referred to yesterday that is looking to have to eliminate two-thirds of the jobs in their business because of repeated increased government regulations, making it less and less likely that they can grow their business, much less add jobs, and are facing the loss of jobs and possibly the loss of the business altogether. The way to do this is to figure out the impact on jobs before you impose the regulation, and that is what the Rothfus-Barr amendment does. I support that. I oppose this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just over 6 months ago, President Obama announced that he would once again pivot to the economy. The bottom line of his speech: after 4\1/2\ years of the Obama administration, ``We're not there yet.'' The President was right. We were not there yet nor are we there today. Job creation and economic growth continue to fall short of what is needed to produce a real and durable recovery in our country. The nominal unemployment rate is down, but that is not because enough workers have found jobs; it is because so many unemployed workers have despaired of ever finding new full-time work. They have either left the workforce or have settled for part-time jobs. As long as this situation continues, Congress must stay focused on enacting reforms that will stop the losses, return America to prosperity, and return discouraged workers to the dignity of a good, full-time job. The legislation we consider today is just that kind of reform. Through its strong, commonsense measures, the ALERRT Act will powerfully and comprehensively reform the Federal regulatory system, from how regulations are planned to how they are promulgated to how they are dealt with in court. This is legislation that Congress cannot pass too soon, for while the Obama administration's pivot to the economy has faltered, the Federal bureaucracy has not wavered an instant in its imposition of new and costly regulation on our economy. The ALERRT Act responds by offering real relief to the real Americans who suffer under the mounting burdens of tyrannical regulation. Consider, for example, Rob James, a city councilman from Avon Lake, Ohio, who testified before the Judiciary Committee this term 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, anti-fossil fuel power plant regulations. These regulations are expected to destroy jobs at 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 the while doing comparatively little to control mercury emissions, which are the stated target of the regulations. Title I of the ALERRT Act helps people and towns like Rob James and Avon Lake to know in real time when devastating regulations are planned, comment in time to help change them, estimate their real costs, and better plan for the results as agencies reach their final decisions. Consider, too, Bob Sells, one of my constituents and president of the Virginia-based division of a heavy construction materials producer. His company and its workers were harmed by EPA cement kiln emission regulations that were technically unattainable and included provisions vastly changed from what EPA proposed for public comment; other EPA emission regulations that were stricter than needed to protect health, gerrymandered to impose expensive controls on other types of emissions and which prohibited commonsense uses of cheap and safe fuel that could actually help the environment; and Department of Transportation regulations that, without increasing safety, vastly increased record- keeping for ready-mix concrete drivers, unnecessarily limited their hours and suppressed their wages. Title II of the ALERRT Act helps to protect people like Bob Sells and his workers from regulations that ask job creators to achieve the unachievable, do not help to control their stated regulatory targets, suppress hours and wages for no good reason, and inundate Americans with unnecessary paperwork. Title III of the ALERRT Act offers long-needed help to small business people like Carl Harris, the vice president and general manager of Carl Harris Co., Inc., in Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Harris is a small home builder. Every day, he has to fight and overcome the fact that government regulations now account for 25 percent of the final price of a new single-family home. Mr. Harris participates in small business review panels of existing law uses to try to lower the costs of regulations for small businesses, but he has seen firsthand how loopholes in existing law allow Federal agencies to ignore small business concerns while ``checking the box'' of contacting small businesses. One case is that of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Cranes and Derricks Rule, which was effectively negotiated before small business was ever consulted and threatened to impose disproportionate costs on small builders. Title III of the ALERRT Act helps small business job creators like Mr. Harris make sure that agencies like OSHA stop treating them like procedural hurdles and afterthoughts, take into real account the difficulties small businesses face, and lower costs on small businesses that must be lowered. Finally, consider Allen Puckett, III, who is the fourth-generation owner of Columbus Brick Company, a family-owned enterprise that has been making fired-clay bricks in Columbus, Mississippi, since 1890. His company distributes bricks to more than 15 States, has second-, third- and fourth-generation employees, offers a fully funded, profit-sharing retirement plan and a 401(k) matching program, and has a nurse practitioner come on site twice a month to provide a free clinic to all of its employees. Mr. Puckett's company may now be shuttered in the face of two waves of sue-and-settle brick-making emissions regulations that threaten to put his company and others like it out of business. After time- consuming litigation, the first regulations were thrown out in court but not before Mr. Puckett's company had already lost at least $750,000 in compliance costs and the entire industry had lost $100 million. The second replacement regulations threaten to be twice as expensive, so expensive that Columbus Brick Company expects to have to downsize by two-thirds or close. The translation for hardworking Americans employed by such businesses is: higher prices for goods, fewer job opportunities and lower wages. Title IV of the ALERRT Act helps people like Allen Puckett find out about sue-and-settle rulemaking deals in time, make sure their concerns are heard by agencies and the courts, and have a fighting chance to achieve a just result for themselves, their employees, and the families and communities that depend on them. In all of these ways and more, the ALERRT Act brings urgently needed regulatory reform to hardworking Americans, whether they are small business people struggling to be heard by faceless Washington bureaucracies or whether they are citizens of small towns who are crushed by the impacts of regulations that force plant closings, harm families, and kill the revenues needed to provide vital services. I thank Mr. Bachus, Mr. Holding, and Mr. Collins for joining with me in offering the individual bills that now come to the floor together as the ALERRT Act, and I urge my colleagues to vote for this urgently needed legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 2804.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I strongly support his amendment. Madam Chair, title III of the ALERRT Act makes important reforms to assure that agencies identify whether their new regulations will have significant adverse effects on small businesses. One of the most important adverse effects is to identify whether these new regulations will make it harder for small businesses to obtain credit. Small businesses create the majority of the new jobs in our economy, yet without access to credit, how can they do that? How can they even survive? The gentleman's amendment makes sure that agencies do identify whether new regulations will make it harder for a substantial number of small businesses to obtain credit. It is a reform that is long overdue and especially important as our country struggles to achieve a real and durable job recovery. I thank the gentleman for his amendment and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I support his commonsense amendment and urge my colleagues to join in making it unanimous.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and I strongly support his amendment. Madam Chairman, one of the simplest, most effective, and most commonsense measures we can take to make sure agencies issue smarter regulations is to require them to do just what this amendment requires: identify achievable objectives for new regulations when they propose them; identify metrics by which they will measure whether those objectives are achieved; and at the end of their rulemakings, live by their own, stated objectives and whether the metrics say the proposed regulations can achieve them. That is plain, simple, commonsense decisionmaking that American families and businesses live by every day. It is high time that Federal agencies be required to live by these standards, too. I urge my colleagues to support the gentleman from Texas' amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding. I strongly support the amendment that he and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr) have offered. I urge my colleagues to support it as well, which protects America's workers. I support the amendment. Those who suffer the most from over-reaching regulations are workers who lose their jobs or see their wages cut on account of regulations that cost too much. Displaced workers suffer lower earnings once they find new work. That earnings gap persists over the long-term. Blue collar workers are the hardest hit. Those who take too long to find new work are more likely to leave the labor force and retire. These workers, their families, and this country cannot afford to lose good work, good workers and good wages to needless regulatory excess. This amendment makes sure that agencies better analyze the potential impacts of new regulations on jobs and wages. And it makes sure that agencies come clean with the American people when they impose new regulations that they know will impose real adverse impacts on jobs and wages. It will protect America's workers and families--and give voters the information they need to hold agencies and their enablers accountable when agencies recklessly destroy jobs and wages. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. America's small businesses, workers, and families are being crushed by an annual regulatory burden that in 2012 amounted to $15,000 per household. That is an expense bigger than any family expense except for housing, and the number of new costly regulations just keeps growing and growing. In response, titles II and IV of the bill, which this amendment seeks to strike, those two titles write into statute best practices into rulemaking that help to lower costs, avoid unnecessary regulation, and keep pro-regulatory special interests from abusing the courts to force new costly regulations upon the public. They do all of this without denying the ability of agencies to issue new regulations that are sensible to fulfill statutory mandates. Why is this so important that the bill do that? Because although these are best practices, they are too often honored in the breach or not at all because they are not yet written into statute. The amendment substantially guts the bill; denies important protections to American workers, families, and job creators; and unjustifiably prolongs the time during which regulatory agencies can operate without adequate checks and balances. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time, and just say that the fact of the matter is that the provision in the bill that this amendment attacks is a very straightforward provision that just provides for transparency. It doesn't stop any of the regulations the gentleman from Georgia referenced; it simply says if you do the regulations, tell us about them ahead of time so as you move toward the final implementation, the last 6 months before it goes into effect, the public gets to see it, the media gets to see it, the businesses that are impacted get to see it, the workers who may lose their jobs get to see it. That allows them to prepare for it, and it allows them to comment. It allows them to try to change the law. It is simply a fair way to enter into regulations. It is a commonsense provision that should be kept in the bill, and the amendment should be defeated. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), a member of the Judiciary Committee, and chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, as Federal regulatory agencies attempt to pile more and more regulatory burdens on America's struggling workers, families and small businesses, the least we can ask is that they be transparent about it. What could be more transparent than requiring them, the regulators, on a monthly basis, online, to update the public with real-time information about what new regulations are coming and how much they will cost? Once they have that information, affected individuals and job creators will be able to plan and budget meaningfully for new costs they may have to absorb. If they are denied that information, they will only be blindsided. That is not fair. Title I of the ALERRT Act makes sure this information is provided to the public. To provide a strong incentive to agencies to honor its requirements, title I prohibits new regulations from becoming effective unless agencies provide transparent information online for 6 months preceding the regulations' issuance. The amendment seeks to eliminate that incentive. Without an incentive like that in existing law, what have we seen from the Obama administration? Repeated failures to make disclosures required by statute and executive order, including the administration's yearlong hiding of the ball on new regulations during the 2012 election cycle. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. Let's begin by reviewing the facts: $1.8 trillion plus--and that is just Federal Government regulations, mind you. That is not State government regulations or local government regulations. $1.8 trillion, one-eighth of the total economic production of our country, is spent on government regulations. Some of those regulations are necessary, and this law by no means eliminates the regulations. It puts them through a process whereby we will know that the regulations are needed and are done in the most cost-effective way and in the most commonsense way. What will be the result of that? Lower costs for goods and services; lower taxes for Americans who face, right now, an average per-family cost of $11,500 a year in higher costs of goods and services and higher taxes as a result of regulatory burdens. So imagine if some of that money were reduced what the savings would be. Imagine what it would do to job creation in our country. We have talked a lot about manufacturing here today. Last year, for the first time in history, manufacturing in the United States reached $2 trillion in production--$2 trillion. It sounds remarkable until you consider that regulations cost $1.86 trillion--just Federal Government regulations almost wiping out the entire economic production of the manufacturing sector of our economy if all those regulations apply to manufacturing, which, of course, they do not. But consider the impact on individuals. Consider the impact upon Rob James, the city councilman in Avon Lake, Ohio, who is experiencing reduced revenues coming in to meet basic obligations like education and emergency services because regulations of power plants with unnecessary ideologically driven anti-fossil fuel burdensome regulations are expected to destroy jobs in Avon Lake. Consider the job loss in the business of Mr. Allen Puckett and his brick manufacturing company in Mississippi who expects to have to lay off two-thirds of his employees because of the second round of sue-and- settle brick-making emissions regulation where somebody sues, and the regulatory agency makes a settlement of that in a friendly case that Mr. Puckett and his employees didn't even know about the process where the suit was being brought and couldn't enter into it and say this is what is going to happen if you have to implement these regulations. Or consider the impact on the cost of buying a home, one of the basic parts of the American Dream, when Mr. Karl Harris of Wichita, Kansas, says that one-quarter of the cost--one-quarter of the cost of a home today is in the form of regulation, the cost of those regulations. With this legislation in place, businesses across America and workers across America will experience an increase in their profitability and an increase in their wages. We don't need to have government interference in the marketplace with regard to wages. They would rise on their own if the government would take practical steps in reviewing regulations before they are implemented in this country. Finally, let me say that this is all about the individual and their freedom. Government regulation suppresses freedom of ideas and of implementing new ways of doing things. Yes, we need to have regulations to protect safety in the workplace. Yes, we need to have regulations to protect the environment, but they need to be commonsense regulations that are going about doing what needs to be done and no more, and are going about doing what needs to be done in the most effective way, and they are going about doing what needs to be done in a way that the people who are going to be impacted by those regulations, who are going to see their businesses lost, their workers lose their jobs and not even have any notice that this is going to occur. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I have no further requests for time. I believe that I have the right to close, so if the gentleman from Georgia would proceed, I will reserve the balance of my time.