Tim Griffin

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I hear what the gentleman is saying. I agree wholeheartedly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is that the issue is not regulation. The issue is excessive regulation. The issue is overregulation. I've got a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. I love them dearly and hate to get on that plane when I have to come up here from Arkansas and have to leave them back at the house. I want them to have clean air and clean water, and I don't know anyone--the folks here tonight included-- who are against all regulation. Regulation when used properly protects us, the kids, et cetera. This is not about whether to regulate or not. This is about excessive regulation, overregulation, the regulatory process that does not consider cost-benefit, that does not consider the impact on jobs, that does not employ common sense, Washington regulators who don't speak with folks impacted on the ground, well-intentioned though they may be, who don't look at the impact and at the potential impact of their overregulation. That's what I hear from my colleagues. I agree wholeheartedly, and I think that is a critical distinction to point out because we always hear folks saying, You just want no regulation. That's a false choice. That's a straw man. That's not anyone's argument that I've heard. The issue is one of overregulation, of excessive regulation.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Sure.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I have heard story after story from small- town bankers, community bankers, who say that not only are they deciding not to loan to folks based on character and based on relationship, but they're being told they can't. They're being told they can't. They are community banks, the sources of credit. The source of money for small-town America are being told who they can and cannot lend to. Their judgment is being taken away from them, and they're saying, Look, you don't have to decide. We're going to regulate that. We'll tell you who you can loan to and who you can't loan to, never mind the fact that you've known them for 20, 30, 40 years, generation after generation. We're going to control this from Washington. This President talks about his financial reform bill going after Wall Street. Actually, the folks on Wall Street backed it. What it ended up doing is hurting the folks that had nothing to do with the financial collapse in the first place. Small-town community banks got the brunt of a lot of this because the big banks can afford the extra regulation and compliance. The small banks cannot. So, what the President's bill did is it ignored Fannie and it ignored Freddie-- the problems--and then it went after banks. It made Wall Street happy in many ways. Many of them got on board and endorsed it. And then who took the brunt of the burden, the regulatory burden? Small-town banks. Small-town banks.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman from Virginia. I know we're running short on time, so I just want to say to the folks listening out there, wherever you may be, these are not new ideas. Some of the ideas you've heard tonight on tax reform, regulatory reform, energy exploration and making the Federal Government live within its means and investing in infrastructure, these are not ideas that just came up this week. You may ask yourself, why haven't we passed these a long time ago? Why haven't we worked on this before? Why are we just talking about it now? We have been for over a year. For over a year we have been working on these issues. Many of these ideas we've passed. Let's take tax reform. We talked about that in our budget over a year ago--it will be a year, I guess, in April. Regulatory reform, I can't count the number of bills--not including mine, I just introduced mine--but we have passed bill after bill after bill that deals with regulatory reform. What about energy exploration? I literally can't count the number of bills that we've passed that deal with energy exploration, particularly the Keystone pipeline, bill after bill after bill. If there's any softening in the President's position on the Keystone XL pipeline, you can bet it's because we have been relentless in this House--relentless in this House--pushing the President to allow for the construction of that pipeline. We've got a long way to go, but we'll keep pushing. On the issue of the budget and living within our means, we've been fighting this battle for over a year. So none of this is brand spanking new. A lot of these ideas we've been fighting for for over a year, and we'll continue to. But we've got to keep talking about them, keep talking about them. So what's happened after we passed them? Well, a significant number, about 30 or so, have passed this House, and they go right down to the other side of the building, and they sit in the Senate. Many of us grew up in the 1970s and saw the little cartoon, ``Schoolhouse Rock,'' the little bill sitting on the Capitol Hill steps out here somewhere. That little cartoon taught me the fundamentals of our democracy, how a bill becomes law. It passes this House, and then what happens? Well, it has to go down to the Senate. Unfortunately, they haven't passed a budget out of the Senate in over a thousand days. So you can bet they haven't passed our bills, either. So we've addressed a lot of this stuff. And we're going to keep talking about it and keep pushing and keep pushing. But a lot of it is sitting right down there in the Senate waiting for action, going nowhere. So if you're wondering what's happened to these ideas, that's where they are. And we are continuing to work on them here, continuing to pressure the Senate and the President to try to work with us to get this stuff done, because these pillars--tax reform, regulatory reform, energy exploration, getting the Federal Government to live within its means and having a commonsense budget, and as part of that, addressing our infrastructure issues, all those together, they all relate to jobs. So we'll keep fighting for jobs. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and recognize the life and work of one of my constituents, Mr. Leon Helms, who will retire at the end of this month. Leon received his B.A. degree from Henderson State University. From 1954 to 1956, he served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army at installations at Nuremburg and Munich in Germany, and Fort Benning, Georgia. Since that time, Leon has enjoyed a distinguished banking career, spanning 55 years. Leon, a graduate of the National Trust School and the Louisiana State University School of Banking of the South, began his career in the area of personal trust at Commercial National Bank. After this, he spent a number of years at First Commercial Bank where he was manager of the bank and the personal trust administration department. For the past 11 years, Leon has served as a senior advisor at Delta Trust. His service there has proved instrumental to the growth and success of the trust department. Leon is also a distinguished member of Arkansas's legal profession. He received his J.D. from the School of Law at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and he is a member of the Arkansas State Bar Association as well as the Pulaski County Bar Association. He was the 2005-2006 President of the Pulaski County Bar Association. Leon's dedication to his community is demonstrated through his volunteer activity with a number of organizations. He also serves on the boards for the American Lung Association of Arkansas, the Arkansas Lighthouse for the Blind, and the Central Arkansas Estate Council. He also serves on the advisory board of the Jones Eye Institute. Leon and his wife, Ardith, reside in Little Rock, Arkansas, which is in my Congressional district. It is here that they will enjoy Leon's retirement. It is an honor to represent Leon, and I congratulate him on his long and distinguished career, on his retirement, and for his dedication to his community and his nation.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 3261.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 919, my battery went out on my beeper, and so it never went off. As a result, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.'' Stated against:

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I rise in opposition to the motion, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you. Eleven months ago on the floor of this House, the President of the United States promised the American people to ``reduce barriers to growth and investment. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.'' Those are the words of the President of the United States in this body. I couldn't agree more. That very month, the President issued an Executive order that said, ``Our regulatory system must promote economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.'' I couldn't agree with the President more. The President said our regulatory system ``must identify and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends,'' and that it ``must take into account benefits and costs.'' I couldn't agree with the President more. He was right. The President's words were correct. He was right when he spoke here. When our regulatory system doesn't meet this standard--the President's supposed standard--it kills jobs, suppresses economic growth, and locks us ever further into stagnation. We see the evidence all around us. I recently hosted a jobs conference in Little Rock, in my district, at the President Clinton Library, which brought together a diverse group of over 60 private sector job creators. They were there to discuss how Federal policies affect their ability to succeed in the marketplace. The job creators that I heard from in Little Rock that day overwhelmingly agreed and were of one voice, almost unanimous: the Obama administration's over- regulation of the private sector injects uncertainty into the market, which stifles job creation. One of my constituents, Susan Gunaca, a constituent of mine who owns a number of International House of Pancakes restaurants, said this, ``As a business owner today, I am in a constant posture of defense.'' Let me be more specific. Some of the jobs conference participants worked for companies that provide low-cost electricity to Arkansas families and businesses, but even their mission is under siege by the Obama administration's EPA, which is intent on forcing some power plants offline. The compressed timeline for many recently issued regulations requires too much in too short a timeframe for these electricity providers to comply. Sandra Hochstetter Byrd of the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives put it this way: ``As a for instance, the two most prominent rules, Utility MACT and the Clean Air Visibility Rule, could actually cause us to have to shut down our coal plants if they're not extended.'' If plants get shut down, electricity costs will go up and more jobs will be lost. We will not sit idly by and watch as this administration kills jobs in Arkansas or in any other State in this great country. The President hasn't been to Arkansas in a long, long time; but I would be happy to show him the impact of over-regulation firsthand. Republicans in Congress took the President at his word on regulatory reform to heart. We said, Hey, you're right, Mr. President. We're going to do something about it. We saw the evidence of overly burdensome regulations all around us. So what did we do? We got to work. We wrote a bill, the Regulatory Accountability Act, to reform a regulatory system so that it does exactly what the President said it should do. We built the bill on the very terms of President Obama's Executive order. It calls on agencies to consider the benefits and the costs before they regulate. It calls on agencies to use the best reasonably available science. It calls on agencies to ``use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends.'' And it does so while ensuring that agencies will achieve every single statutory objective Congress sets before them. Recognizing the soundness and goodwill of this effort, several of our Democratic colleagues joined us to cosponsor this bill. A bipartisan group of Senators introduced companion legislation in the Senate. It's time to adopt this legislation. It's time for the President to match his actions to his words by signing this bill. But today, when this legislation comes before us, we hear a different story from too many on the other side of the aisle. When legislation comes to the floor of this House that will at one and the same time protect the American public and free business from unnecessary shackles on job creation, we hear a different tune. When it's time to really take action to help America's job creators, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle run from their responsibilities to protect a regulatory status quo that is killing job creation as we speak. Mr. Speaker, if you want to know how to create jobs, then just ask job creators. If you want to know what's stifling job growth, ask the job creators. They know. It's their job to know. They will tell you to pass this bill now. When we have the opportunity to pass regulatory reform, President Obama shows his true colors: All talk, and no action. What a shame. He threatens to veto a bill that is built directly on the terms of his own executive order on regulation. He threatens to veto the very bill that would make his own words permanent for the benefit of the Nation. And this political motion to recommit is laid before us in an attempt to assure that the President doesn't have to do what he promised. And it makes no sense because our bill addresses the precise issue of reducing drug costs raised by the minority. Luckily, the majority of this House will vote to pass this bill. 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 the Americans who desperately want those jobs.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I have joined some of my colleagues here tonight to talk about the most pressing issue in this country, which is job creation, private sector job creation and what we need to do to get our country back on the path to prosperity and job growth. I had a jobs conference in the Second Congressional District, my district, down in Arkansas in Little Rock a couple of weeks ago. We held it at the Clinton Library. It really was an extension of the 25 or so town halls that I've had this year in that we talked a lot about jobs. And I thought that a jobs conference would be a good idea because who better to ask about job creation than job creators. So we had five panels, over 60 panelists, and I wanted to hear from the job creators in the Second Congressional District. I asked them two main questions: What are the obstacles that you face in creating jobs, and what opportunities do you see? As I indicated earlier, this was really an extension of what I've been talking to constituents about for the 9 months I've been in office, and even before that. I expected I would hear answers to those questions consistent with what I have heard in town halls, in meetings in my office, and throughout the year, and I wasn't surprised. What I heard from the over 60 panelists that gathered at the Clinton Library in Little Rock a couple of weeks ago, what I heard was uncertainty is the number one obstacle to job creation in this country--uncertainty. Now, I've heard that word used a lot since I've been here. I heard it a lot last year when I was traveling around my district before I ever came to Congress. And it was pretty clear, has been pretty clear to me, and still is, that uncertainty is the biggest problem we face. The job creators that gathered in Little Rock at the jobs conference were from the manufacturing industry, energy industry, health care, retail, financial services, aerospace, infrastructure, construction, real estate, you name it, agriculture. We had folks from all across the spectrum, and they all indicated that uncertainty is the biggest obstacle to job creation. What kind of uncertainty were they talking about? Well, the number one type of uncertainty cited by job creators was regulatory uncertainty. They indicated at the conference, this jobs conference, that, number one, in many instances they know new regulations are coming, but they have no idea what they're going to be. So they have no idea whether they're going to be able to comply with those by spending a little extra money, no extra money, or a whole lot. They're also concerned about regulations that are floated. They're floated out by the agencies as a potential regulation that may or may not be implemented. And those sorts of regulations give these job creators great pause because they don't know whether they're going to have to comply with them. And it's not just one agency and it's not just one industry. I will say that the EPA's name came up more than any other. The job creators made it very clear that there are a number of regulations coming out of the Federal agencies that they are concerned about, and the EPA has issued a number of regulations and some that are yet to be enacted that these job creators were very concerned about. I heard from the panelists the common theme that they're not against regulations. We've always had regulations, at least since I've been around, and we're going to continue to have regulations. And we need reasonable regulations to keep our water and air clean. I have a 4- year-old and a 19-month-old, and I want them to have a clean and safe environment. But we're not talking about just regulations, reasonable regulations; we're talking about excessive, overly burdensome regulations that in some cases require such drastic steps to comply that they just run people out of business. We've dealt with a lot of those here in the House trying to reverse some of the stuff coming out of the administration. I heard from our energy industry, the energy corporations and the electric cooperatives--some of the panelists represented those companies--and they indicated if some of the EPA rules are implemented as they have been proposed, they could result in the shutting down of several power plants in Arkansas, with a potential impact of raising energy costs 25 percent. Now, these same panelists said, Look, we're not necessarily against this sort of regulation, the sort of regulation they're referring to, but the time frame for compliance is so short that there's no way, it's almost humanly impossible for them to comply with some of the EPA's mandates. So we heard a lot about the EPA, but not just the EPA. HHS, the Department of Labor, many other agencies here in Washington put out regulations often with no or little regard to the impact those regulations are going to have on the folks back in my district and around the country. So regulatory uncertainty was specifically identified as an obstacle to job creation in this country. In addition to regulatory uncertainty, there's uncertainty over the health care law. Is the health care law even going to be implemented or not? Certainly I voted to repeal the health care law that passed in the last Congress. I think we need health care reform, but not the health care reform we got. Now the courts are looking at the health care law and there's a good chance in some folks' opinion and my opinion that the Supreme Court might strike the individual mandate portion of the President's health care law, the health care law that we have now. So there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding that. There's also uncertainty over our fiscal situation. The President had a perfect opportunity to lead after his bipartisan debt commission came out with some recommendations. I don't agree with all of them, but it was a good place to start. But instead, right after they came out with their recommendations late last year, early this year the President came out with his budget--no reform of Medicare to save it, no reform of Social Security to save it, no reform of Medicaid, just keep on spending. So we missed an opportunity there. But the debt is a part of that uncertainty. The debt impacts our currency valuation, and it impacts our markets. You don't have to look far. Just look at what's going on in Europe. It's sort of like you're looking in a crystal ball, and what's going on in Europe is potentially--not identical--but potentially, in some regards, our future. That's where we're headed--more uncertainty. So, it was very clear, after listening to all of these job creators, that the problem is not that the Federal Government hasn't spent enough money. We've spent $1 trillion on the last stimulus at a cost of about $300,000 per job. Discretionary spending has gone up 84 percent under this administration. I don't think, in fact, I know, that spending is not the problem. It's the uncertainty that the job creators addressed. So what we're going to talk about here tonight is what we've been doing for the last 9 months to address the uncertainty on regulations with regard to the debt and our spending, and with regard to our Tax Code so that we can remain competitive. What have we been doing here in this body, in the majority in the House, to address the uncertainty that I think, beyond dispute, is the biggest obstacle to job creation in this country? And I'm citing the job creators of my district. We've been doing a whole lot over the last 10 months. We passed a lot of legislation. I think we've had about 800 votes. Unfortunately, a lot of those good ideas are stacking up like cordwood over in the U.S. Senate. We pass it, send it down to them, and they stack it up. That's the way it's worked for the last 10 months or so. I am happy to be joined by my colleagues here. I thought we'd talk a little bit about the different things that we passed that the American people would have heard a lot more about if they had been acted upon and become law. But most folks don't hear a lot about them because they go down to the other end of the building and they just sit there like that little bill sitting on Capitol Hill that some of us grew up with as a cartoon. It's just a bill, it's not a law. I am happy to have my friends join me here tonight on the floor to talk about jobs and what we've been doing in the House over the last 10 months. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. If I can mention one thing, on the issue of the debt, we don't have to solve it overnight. We didn't get in this mess overnight, and we certainly aren't going to solve it overnight. But I sort of analogize it to going on a trip. If you're going to travel from Arkansas to Washington, D.C., you don't have to get there instantly, but you need to have a roadmap. You need to know where you're going, and everybody in the car needs to have confidence that the person driving is taking you in the right direction. If you're driving from Little Rock to Washington and you start seeing signs that say ``L.A. 100 miles ahead,'' you're going to wake up everybody and figure out what happened. So we don't need to deal with this debt overnight, but we need a credible plan that brings us back to balance, that brings us to a sustainable path and that gives people confidence--not confidence that it's going to be fixed immediately, but confidence that the path we're on will eventually get us back to where we need to be. I yield to my friend.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman from New York for his thoughts. Before I yield to my friend from Wisconsin, I'd like to just revisit some of what you said. We've identified the problem as uncertainty. I think we're all confident of that based on talking to our constituents and job creators. And we, over the last 9 months, have passed a number of bills that support the different aspects of our plan to get this country moving again and creating jobs. Number one, fundamental tax reform. We need it on the individual side; we need it on the corporate side. Regulatory reform. We have passed countless bills that reform the regulatory process or address specific regulations. And dealing with the debt. We've been trying to raise the issue of spending and overspending--and have raised it successfully numerous times over the last 9, 10 months. We haven't been able to do as much as we'd like; we are just one body here in the House. But dealing with the spending and forcing the Federal Government to live within its means has been and continues to be a priority. And also, what the gentleman from New York mentioned, is the importance of energy exploration and energy development to our national security, because we want to depend on our own energy sources or at least on our friends in Canada; but it's also very important in terms of job creation. The energy development that we could have in this country could create up to, some say, at a minimum, 1 million jobs. I was watching a new show on the networks last night, on NBC, and they had a whole segment on what's going on in North Dakota with some of the shale drilling and how there are just tens and hundreds of jobs waiting to be filled in this country, in that part of our country, because of energy exploration. So tax reform, regulatory reform, dealing with the debt so that we can invest in infrastructure, which is so important to economic development and energy development, those are critical. And if you want to talk about a jobs plan or what have you, or jobs bills--it's not jobs bill; it's jobs bills. We've been passing jobs bills since January. In fact, as I indicated before, they're piling up like cord wood in the Senate. I yield to my friend from Wisconsin.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman. Before I yield to my friend from Colorado, I just want to follow up on a few issues. We call the jobs-related bills that we've passed here that will help the private sector grow the forgotten 15 because these are the bills that made their way down to the Senate and just sat there. The only problem with that is it's not 15 anymore; it's 16 or 17 or 18. And they're not one bill. It's more complex than that. They're plural. There are a number of jobs bills, a few of them: the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, H.R. 872; the Energy Tax Prevention Act, H.R. 910; Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, H.R. 1230; Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act, H.R. 1229. These are all related to job creation, getting the private sector creating jobs again, and the list goes on and on. Now, one of those is the North American-Made Energy Security Act, H.R. 1938. Now, this bill is also just sitting in the Senate. It passed the House July 26 of this year. Now, we're up here talking about bills and legislation and what have you, but speaking for me, and I think I can speak for my colleagues here, we're talking about bills and legislation and laws, but ultimately we're talking about policies that will allow folks who are hurting back in our districts who have been out of work--we're talking about how bills that have passed into law would help job creation, which will help those folks who are still looking. I'll give you a specific example. There's a company called Wells Fund in Little Rock. And they make massive pipe. And they're talking about expanding. Well, what are they waiting on, or what is one of the things that they're looking at that is a potential obstacle? They make the pipe for the Keystone pipeline. Why are they in Little Rock? Because they're right there at the port of Little Rock. So they can really haul a lot of steel in those barges, and they've got a huge high-tech, state-of-the-art facility. It's an Indian-based company, lots of jobs right there. They want to expand, they want to create more jobs. They're building up that pipe. And we've got an administration that's not sure how they feel about the Keystone pipeline that's going to allow for more energy to come from our neighbors through the north instead of from around the world? They're not sure about the Keystone pipeline that will create energy- related jobs right here in the United States? Where I come from, the Keystone pipeline's a no-brainer. That means you don't even have to think about it. And now I read actually a few minutes ago, I got a news clip that the President now has decided that he's going to make the ultimate decision on the Keystone pipeline. If I was making that decision, I'd take about 2 seconds. It's absolutely critical that we build this both for national security and for energy here at home in terms of jobs. Now, on the issue of regulations, I want to touch on it real quickly before I pass to my good friend from Colorado. At my jobs conference that we had a couple of weeks ago, senior vice president Ken Kimbro of Tyson Foods--we've all heard of Tyson. My kids and I, we love the chicken. We've all heard of Tyson. Ken Kimbro, senior vice president, says this about regulations in general: ``I understand the intended consequences of regulations, but it seems like we turn a blind eye to the unintended consequences of what that's going to mean to us in Arkansas, our industry, to the State of Arkansas, and to the jobs that support everything that we do. And it seems to be lost in an academic exercise without the consequence of what's going to happen. And we face it across the full spectrum of government agencies, and it's terribly frustrating because we all want to do the right thing.'' Now, on the regulatory front, he's identified the problem. I had another panelist who owns ten International House of Pancake restaurants. I love them. I like to eat breakfast there. Here's what she said, ``As a business owner today, I am in a constant posture of defense.'' Is that what we want? We want job creators in a constant posture of defense? So I just want to put in a plug. I have just introduced a bill called the Job Creation and Regulatory Freeze Act. It's somewhat similar to a bill introduced on the Senate side by Susan Collins of Maine, and it puts a moratorium on all major regulations coming out of this administration until January of 2013. And my colleague on the Senate side, hers is for a year. I didn't think a year was sufficient because at the end of that year the administration could just implement regulations that are waiting. So I say let's take it through January to Inauguration Day of 2013 because this administration has not gotten the message on overregulation. This bill would stop major regulations being implemented, new ones, until 2013.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. In fact, on the Keystone bill that I mentioned, H.R. 1938, that was passed on July 26, 2011, the North American-Made Energy Security Act, looks like there were 47 Democrats that joined with us on that bill. Many of our Democrats joined us in a bipartisan effort. But again, stacking up like cordwood on the steps of the Senate.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman from Colorado. I just want to make a few points, and then I'll yield to the gentleman, my good friend from Wisconsin. First of all, I want to make clear that the number of the bill that I have just introduced, the Job Creation and Regulatory Freeze Act, is H.R. 3194. Earlier, we were talking about commonsense regulations, and I want to mention one regulation. I had a constituent fly to D.C. to discuss something with me. She lives outside my district, this businesswoman, but she has numerous stores in my district. She has 300 stores in four States. They're convenience stores. She came to me and met with me in my office right up here in the Longworth, and she had some other folks with her. They told me the problem that they have with horses coming into their convenience stores. I said, Excuse me? She said, Yes. We're being told by the Department of Justice, through the Americans with Disabilities Act, that we have to let horses/ponies come into our stores if someone wants to bring a horse or a pony into the store. I asked, Why would anyone ever need to bring a horse or a pony into your convenience store? They said, Well, apparently, it's not common. I didn't think it was common, because I'm 43, and I've never heard of anyone taking a horse into a convenience store; but she told me, in the way some folks rely on seeing eye dogs, some other folks in the country rely on horses for balancing or for whatever other service that horse provides, maybe guiding them. I'm not sure of all the details. The validity of that aside, I took her at her word that people were in the practice of taking horses into stores. She said, Look, I've got liability problems here potentially. People are going to bring horses in. They might kick somebody; they may be dirty; they may dirty up the store; they may knock things over. I said, Okay. If someone relies on a horse, that's fine; but why do we have a Federal regulation on this? I've never even heard of it. We have people being paid to draft rules that deal with horses going into stores. I almost couldn't believe it. So I did a little research with my staff. Sure enough, she wasn't kidding. She wasn't making this up. ADA, title III, regulation 28 CFR, part 36, section .36.302: ``Modifications in policies, practices, or procedures.'' There is a provision entitled, ``Miniature Horses'': A public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability. Now, if individuals have to rely on horses for balance or guidance or whatever, then that's absolutely fine. I just find it incredible that the Federal Government is telling a businessowner, who has never in her life even heard of a horse coming in a store, that she has to comply with this and has to make sure that there is room for a horse to get in--or a pony or a miniature horse. I just think that this is where common sense comes in. We obviously can't regulate for every contingency, but apparently we're trying to. So I'm taking a closer look at this to try to get some more information, but I think it's one that at first impression tells me we need to apply a little more common sense with regard to regulations. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman, I thank all my friends for being here tonight, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the Speaker, and I thank the gentlemen for joining me tonight here on the floor. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Get things done.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would make a quick point on that if I could. Some folks who want to invest, they've had the dream all of their life to create a small business, a little shop, maybe it's a bike shop, but to create that business. A lot of them are going to look at the metaphorical race, see the obstacles, and refuse to enter the race.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield now to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've been listening here on the floor today, and I heard some folks mention the need for action on the issue of jobs. I agree. Some of them said, hey, there hasn't been much action. There has been a lack of action, I think was the quote that I heard here on the floor earlier. I'd like to talk about that a little bit. There has been a lot of action on the issue of jobs in the House. When folks talk about the Congress, they sort of group the House and the Senate together. I understand that, but the House and the Senate are two separate bodies, and the leadership in the House and the leadership in the Senate have two different visions of where this country ought to go. As it relates to the House, there has been a lot of action. We've passed about 90 bills in the House this year. During that same timeframe, the Senate passed 20. A lot of those bills that we've passed here in the House directly relate to the issue of job creation and in helping our country get back on its feet. Many of us understand that government is not the key job creator in this country. The private sector creates jobs, and the government can make things better or make things worse for job creators. My hope is that we're working to make things better--to create an environment where the private sector can then flourish, can innovate, can advance, and create jobs. Now let's talk about the action here in the House. We've got a number of bills that we've passed that relate to job creation, bills that were then taken down to the other side of this building and given to the Senate. That's where they rest. They're just sitting there. A lot of us grew up in the seventies. We remember ``Schoolhouse Rock.'' We remember that little bill sitting on Capitol Hill. That bill can't become a law unless it passes this House, the Senate, and then the President signs it. Well, that little bill was passed out of here. It's waiting on the Senate to do something about it, that little jobs bill, and there's a whole host of them down there with it. Let me mention a few of them. First and foremost, when we got here in January, we voted to repeal ObamaCare, the health care law that recently passed. Why did we do that? Because it is a source of angst, uncertainty, out-of-control government spending, and excessive regulation the likes of which this country has never seen before. We voted to repeal that on the first day of the first week back. The first week we got here we sent that over to the Senate, and they didn't pass it. We passed H.R. 872, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. No Senate action. We passed the Energy Tax Prevention Act to block some of the EPA's controversial excessive regulations. No action on that. We passed H. Res. 72, asking our House committees to inventory regulations and look for places we can trim them back, reform them and save. No action like that in the Senate. H.R. 1230, Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, a bill, along with several others that we passed, to encourage energy exploration. No action in the Senate. The Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act. No action in the Senate. Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act. No action in the Senate. We can go on and on and on. One of those things that we passed here that the Senate hasn't passed is a budget--a fundamental document for managing one's finances. We passed one here. They haven't had a budget in the Senate for, I think, about 2 years now. For 888 days, no budget in the Senate. So we've done a lot here in the House. Congress as a whole hasn't acted on a lot of this stuff, but we've done our part, and we've sent it down to the other side of the building, to the Senate. We're waiting for action on many pieces of critical legislation that can help this country get back to job creation. I would now like to yield to my friend from Illinois.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you for joining us here on the floor today. We appreciate it very much. I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.