Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to share news of the efforts that the Safe Surfin' Foundation in Bedford County, Virginia recently made in support of the wounded warriors participating in the H.E.R.O. (Human Exploitation Rescue Operatives) Child Rescue Corps. I want to express my thanks to the Safe Surfin' Foundation and Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown for stepping forward to go above and beyond to serve in a special time of need. Sheriff Brown enlisted the Safe Surfin' Foundation to work with Moose International to supply computers and monitors for the military veterans selected to participate in the H.E.R.O. Child Rescue Corps training at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Thanks to such generosity, these special men and women who served with distinction in our military will be able to continue serving our country by protecting our most innocent citizens--our children--from criminals on the Internet. Their introduction to the highly specialized training required to do their work would not have been possible if not for Sheriff Brown's timely action and the collaborative help of the Safe Surfin' Foundation and Moose International on the IT front. The Safe Surfin' Foundation has dutifully earned an international reputation as a leader in prosecuting child predators. It is fitting that the organization stepped forward to offer assistance to the H.E.R.O. Child Rescue Corps as it joins the worldwide drive to fight child exploitation, child abuse, and human trafficking. The brave wounded warriors who will be trained will be the latest heroes in the prosecution and imprisonment of individuals who would dare commit heinous crimes against children. I highly commend the selfless work of Sheriff Brown, who is my constituent and friend, and the Safe Surfin' Foundation for their support of the newest line of law enforcement officers fighting crime on the Internet.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 568 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 3190) to provide for the continued performance of the functions of the United States Parole Commission, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from Illinois for their leadership on this issue. A few months ago, we offered a reform amendment to the House farm bill that would have saved taxpayers money, kept American jobs at home, and ended special treatment to one farm commodity at the expense of all others. This farm bill makes major policy changes that leave no commodity untouched, except one. The farm bill makes absolutely no change to the sugar program. In fact, the sugar program wasn't even given the scrutiny of a hearing as the Ag Committee was constructing the current farm bill. Since 2008, manufacturers across the country have been struggling to run their operations due to the uncertainty created by the sugar program. In fact, for every job that proponents of this horrendous policy claim is maintained by the current sugar program, the Commerce Department estimates that the sugar program eliminated three jobs in food manufacturing. Although I wish we could be here debating even greater reform, what we are debating today is quite modest. This motion to instruct simply restores to the Secretary of Agriculture the flexibility to manage sugar imports, an authority the Secretary had prior to the 2008 farm bill. To be clear, this language will not allow a pound--a pound--more sugar to enter the U.S. unless the Secretary authorizes that it can come in upon a finding that is needed. Many of you may be wondering why we are discussing sugar again. Since the House last debated the farm bill, the negative effects of the sugar program have only gotten worse. While proponents of the current sugar program claim it is ``no cost,'' nothing could be further from the truth. The sugar program has cost American taxpayers more than $250 million since July. To put this in perspective, in less than 3 months this broken policy has cost American taxpayers $250 million, which is almost as much as the amount of money available for an entire year for The Emergency Food Assistance Program, TEFAP, the USDA program that purchases commodities for food banks. It is nearly $50 million more than the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for our Nation's senior citizens. I urge my colleagues to support this motion. Comedian Jay Leno recently joked--``The Department of Agriculture wants to use our tax money to buy 400,000 tons of sugar to limit supply and boost prices so sugar producers can pay back government loans that they could default on. You follow me here on this? We loaned them money and now we're giving them more money so they can pay back our loan. You still wonder why we're 16 trillion dollars in debt?'' Sadly, this is no longer a joke. This is the reality of the sugar program and it is the American taxpayer who is saddled with the cost of this program. Since this government shutdown began we have been intensely debating the spending priorities for our country. I don't know how we can justify this horrendous program at all! While I wish we were able to go further in reforming the sugar program, today we have the opportunity to return a small bit of sanity to the program Please join me in supporting the Pitts sugar reform resolution to restore common sense to America's sugar policy.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials on H.R. 3233.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 3233) to extend the period during which Iraqis who were employed by the United States Government in Iraq may be granted special immigrant status and to temporarily increase the fee or surcharge for processing machine-readable nonimmigrant visas, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on the floor of this House in 2011, the President of the United States promised the American people that ``to reduce barriers to growth and investment . . . when we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.'' That very month, the President issued an executive order that said ``our regulatory system . . . must promote economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.'' He said our regulatory system ``must identify and use the . . . least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends.'' He said our regulatory system ``must take into account benefits and costs.'' He was right. When our regulatory system doesn't do these things, it kills jobs, suppresses growth, and locks us ever further into economic stagnation. But, Mr. Speaker, those were just the President's words. His actions have been starkly different. Since 2011--indeed, throughout the President's administration--a flood of new major regulations have been burying America's job creators and households at record levels. As a result, economic growth is down; America's competitiveness is down; job creation is down. Regulatory costs are up. The President isn't reducing barriers to growth and investment. He isn't fixing unnecessary burdens on business. He's piling them on. To make matters worse, when Congress now declines to legislate the President's misguided policies for him, he increasingly is resorting to unilateral regulatory actions to legislate by executive fiat. Mr. Speaker, the time is right to pass the REINS Act. The REINS Act, in one fell swoop, assures that Congress--the body to which the Constitution assigns the power to legislate--will at last stand accountable for the most significant legislative decisions imposed on the American people through regulation. And in that same fell swoop, the REINS Act puts an end to Presidential end runs around Congress through legislation cloaked as regulation. Instead of helping REINS Act supporters to seize this moment for the benefit of Main Street families and small businesses, opponents of the bill offer this motion to recommit. But the motion seeks only to distract from the need to reform our regulatory system and reduce unnecessary burdens on the public. Worse, it seeks to distract from the need for Members of Congress to stand accountable for the regulatory actions committed in its name. I ask my colleagues: Why should any Member of Congress be afraid to stand accountable for the most costly legislative decisions that the government imposes on the American people? This motion to recommit represents the politics of diversion and division. It takes virtually every major legislative area off the table from the REINS Act. It weakens the country. The politics of courage and accountability is what is needed to build this country up. I want to commend the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young) for sponsoring this legislation. I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, reject this motion to recommit, and show America that Congress can act for the good of job creators and Main Street Americans who desperately want and need jobs. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GOODLATTE

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

Mr. GOODLATTE. I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding, and I support his amendment. Mr. Chairman, interrelated Federal regulations are a common feature of the modern regulatory landscape. Numerous major regulations form part of a web of regulations agencies develop to implement one statutory division or one statutory goal. In addition, numerous regulatory statutes entrust rulemaking authority over a given problem to more than one agency. This is the case, for example, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' joint authority over wetlands. It is also the case with the EPA's and the Department of Transportation's joint authority over fuel economy standards. The amendment requires that agencies, when they submit new major regulations to Congress for approval, provide a list of related regulatory actions that the submitting agency or other agencies have taken or will take to implement the same statutory provision or regulatory objective. Seems pretty reasonable to me to have to find out what other regulations are impacting the same objective. This helpful amendment will provide Congress with more complete information on the extent of regulations agencies have taken or plan to take to implement an authorizing statute or achieve a regulatory goal. That information will better enable Congress to determine whether to approve or disapprove the submitted regulation. This can only improve congressional accountability and the regulatory process, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I commend him and support this important amendment. The REINS Act restores to Congress the accountability for regulatory decisions that impose major burdens on our economy. This amendment strengthens congressional accountability for regulations under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. You know, ObamaCare? That legislation that has 400 new authorities, 400 new ways for the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other bureaucrats to regulate the American people, businesses, large and small, local governments, State governments, health care providers? Yeah, that one. Imposed over the will of the American people, implementation of ObamaCare has demonstrated that the act imposes a detrimental and unworkable reform of the Nation's health care system. And one after another, promises made to the American people by the act's supporters when the law was passed have been broken. Moreover, the Obama administration's own actions to waive or suspend ObamaCare requirements have made clear that regulatory actions to implement the act form a ``seamless web.'' Too often, actions to avoid one adverse effect of the act's implementation send ripple effects of unfairness or other harmful consequences throughout the ObamaCare web, requiring adjustments to other aspects of implementation. This, too, justifies the amendment's requirement that Congress approve any new regulation promulgated under the act, and I urge my colleagues to support this excellent amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it's my pleasure to yield 2 minutes on this job-creating legislation to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith), a great new member of the House Judiciary Committee,

Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, since 1996, the disapproval process described by the gentlewoman from Texas has succeeded just one time. During that time, tens of thousands of regulations have been passed; and if people think that all but one of them were just fine, I would suggest it's just the opposite. It's the process right now--the inability of the Congress to rein in regulations that are out of control--which is lacking, and that's why we need the REINS Act, so that regulations that cost more than $100 million come back to the Congress for approval. It is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee and the vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time it's my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. A year and a half ago, the President of the United States came to give his State of the Union address here in the House Chamber and stood at the podium just below where you're standing right now. He had a long list of legislative items he wanted the Congress to pass. At the conclusion of it he said, If you don't do it, I will. I'm paraphrasing, of course. The question that many of us had was: By what authority in the United States Constitution does the President of the United States have the ability to do something that he has come to the Congress to ask to be passed legislatively and to tell us, if we don't do it, he's going to do it himself in the executive branch? Well, the way he does it, when he's not stopped by lawsuits and other means, is he simply has regulations passed to accomplish those objectives. You know what? Thousands of regulations are passed every Congress compared to a few hundred laws that are passed. All we're asking here today is that for those regulations that cost the American people $100 million or more, that they have to come back here and be approved by the Congress rather than have executive fiat control that. This is the representative democracy here in the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. This is the people's House. We have the authority to pass laws, and we definitely are concerned about the welfare and well-being of our American people. But when we add trillions of dollars in costs to the expenses of American families, $11,000 per family, that's a stunning thing to think about what money could have been spent on other things. Yes, of course, some of those regulations are necessary, but many of them are not. Many of them needlessly add cost and create an ever-growing bureaucracy in the executive branch. We need to have ways to rein that in. The most effective way to do that is to start with the largest regulation. Many people would say, well, we should do it for all regulations. That ought to be our objective, to make it very clear that we do not want to see regulations passed that are ineffective, that are needless, that add costs. Starting with those that cost more than $100 million, it is absolutely appropriate for the elected representatives of the people to have the final say on whether those regulations are, indeed, what the Congress intended when they passed the underlying laws upon which those regulations are based. That's all we ask in this legislation. It is reasonable. The American people want it. This Congress should pass it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is a good amendment to a good bill, and I support it. By requiring all new major regulations to be submitted to Congress for approval, the REINS Act provides a powerful check on overreaching executive action. This check could not come sooner. The Obama administration increasingly, and increasingly openly, is pursuing unilateral regulatory action to thwart Congress' decision not to pass legislation the administration desires. This includes legislation that would impose a carbon tax as part of the administration's climate agenda. The amendment guarantees that no carbon tax can be imposed unless Congress consents to it, no matter how much the Obama administration would like to impose such a dramatic tax by executive fiat. This is the people's House. This is where new public policy should be established, and this amendment is a good one to assure that this is where policy related to carbon taxes is made, not in the administration. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois for offering this amendment. It is another good amendment. I also want to say to my good friend from Tennessee that I was a little older when Richard Nixon was in office. We are not minimizing what he did; we are going to maximize the amount of attention that Congress pays to the EPA when they get it wrong, particularly when the Secretary of Agriculture determines that any regulation issued by the EPA will have a significant impact on a substantial number of agricultural entities. We ought to take a look at that. As a result, it subjects such regulations to congressional approval before they can become effective. This is an important step to rein in what is often regarded as the most overreaching of all Federal regulatory agencies. The EPA's actions and proposals have been particularly problematic for America's farmers, including small farmers. This includes, for example, the EPA actions aimed at farm dust. The Secretary of Agriculture has a greater incentive than EPA to ensure that potential adverse impacts on agricultural entities have been adequately and accurately assessed. The amendment guarantees that regulation that should be characterized as major due to their impacts on agricultural entities will be so characterized and submitted to Congress for approval. I urge my colleagues to support this very worthy amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. GOODLATTE. I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment. I share in my colleague's desire to bring more congressional scrutiny to regulations with high economic impacts, and I know that recent major regulations have hit West Virginia and the gentleman's constituents particularly hard. The Environmental Protection Agency's regulations that affect energy sources and power production are among the most troubling. The $100 million threshold for major regulations in the bill is consistent with definitions that have been used by Presidential administrations of both parties since at least the 1990s. However, regulations with a $50 million impact in today's economy will hit America's job creators and families too hard. This is particularly true of small businesses and the families that depend on them on Main Streets throughout the Nation. As a result, the amendment would make sure that Congress is accountable for regulatory decisions of this magnitude, which impose harm on an economy that can ill afford it. Therefore, I support the gentleman's amendment, and I urge my colleagues to join me in doing so.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to point out to the House that the assertion that this does not prevent a filibuster in the Senate is incorrect. If Members would examine pages 12 through 14 of the bill, they will see multiple ways in which procedural motions and substantive motions in the Senate are barred from undertaking a filibuster, and they must proceed through those points of order and other objections that might be raised to a final vote on this regulation under the REINS Act. This is a good thing because it will allow for expeditious consideration by the Congress of regulations. Whether they are needed or not needed, they ought to be considered by the Congress, especially if they cost more than $100 million to the American economy. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentlewoman from Texas that the bill prohibits a filibuster in the Senate from being used to block consideration of regulations that come before the Congress. We are making every effort to have that bipartisan collegiality that she suggests, but I don't think this amendment accomplishes that. The amendment seeks to shield the Department of Homeland Security from Congress' authority to approve regulations under the REINS Act. That shield should be denied. For example, take the Department's rule to extend compliance deadlines for States to issue secure driver's licenses under the REAL ID Act. More than a decade after 9/11 hijackers used fraudulent licenses to board airplanes used to murder 3,000 innocent Americans, DHS continues to keep this extension in place. This is the kind of decisionmaking that takes place at the Department of Homeland Security. Congress should use every tool it can to reassert its authority over the legislative rulemaking functions it has delegated to DHS, and the REINS Act is available to do that. I would urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and to support the underlying bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

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