Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would be happy to sit down with the Senator from Delaware and go through it. I do not think it is a very good idea to write a bill on the floor. The Senator has the evening to look at it. We can go to your desk, and if there is something we can modify that would allow the Senator to support this amendment, that I can agree to, I would love to do that.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. ``if the court or agency, as appropriate, finds that the defendant''--in good faith determined based on the language of the rule or ``engaged in the conduct alleged to violate the rule in reliance upon a written statement issued by the appropriate official'' ``* * * stating that the action complied with, or that the defendant was exempt * * *'' I think that there is a lot of latitude by the court to determine. If we go on through the rest of the amendment and go over to the next section it says: No agency shall bring any judicial or administrative action to impose a civil or criminal penalty based upon . . . a written determination of fact made . . . after disclosure of the material facts at the time and appropriate review of those or in interpretation of the statute. Section (c), the third page is where I am reading from.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I think the Senator from Delaware is stating it correctly. Reading further through the amendment, after the part that the Senator read: ``No civil or criminal penalties shall be imposed'' if they find that the defendant ``engaged in the conduct alleged to violate the rule in reliance,'' and it provides all of the ability for the court or the agency to make the fact determination.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would say any court or any agency probably is going to be able to determine pretty carefully the difference between high ground and a swamp.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I say probably that situation is covered very well in our amendment, because it says that the agency shall not be able to impose the civil or criminal penalty after disclosure of material facts at the time and appropriate review. I think it is possibly covered very well.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would say to the Senator from Delaware that becomes a fact question for the agency or for the court to determine if a penalty is put forward.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The Senator from Delaware is correct, as far as I can tell from what you are saying. It is a matter of fairness, notice, retroactive interpretation, change, basic due process and basic fairness.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator. I appreciate the Senator from Utah working on this amendment, and I appreciate the fact that he is also cosponsoring the amendment. Mr. President, the Hutchison-Heflin amendment is also cosponsored by Senators Nickles, Craig, and Lott. The purpose of our amendment is to prevent agencies from bringing enforcement actions seeking criminal and civil penalties when due process and fair notice are not followed. In some cases, agencies have sought to impose penalties retroactively based on a new agency interpretation of a rule or a new factual determination even where the person against whom the action is brought has reasonably relied upon a prior agency interpretation or determination. Now, because of this, corporations are forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defend civil and criminal cases brought under the various Federal statutes. These millions, of course, take from that business's ability to grow and create new jobs. It is hurting our economic vitality in this country that we have to spend so much fighting regulations that are unfairly put forward and that the company either does not have notice of or the interpretation has been changed and the company cannot reasonably be expected to know there has been a change. Now, we in Congress bear a large share of the blame for this situation. For example, we have created open-ended environmental enforcement statutes which call for penalties of up to $25,000 a day in civil cases, months and even years in Federal prison for criminal cases without having to provide proof of actual damage to the environment or the intention to violate a single provision of the Federal regulations. Now is the time to put common sense and justice back into the equation. This amendment would add a new section 709 to the Administrative Procedure Act to prevent penalties from being imposed for unpublished, inconsistent and retroactive agency interpretations in civil and criminal actions. My amendment would codify into administrative law the fundamental principle that an agency must give the regulated community adequate notice of its interpretation of a statute or any rule enforcing that interpretation through civil or criminal penalties. We are talking here about people going to prison, or we are talking about huge fines that can make a difference, especially in a small business, as to whether that company can keep on going, if it can hire new people, if it can buy that new machine. That is what we are talking about. The $25,000 a day fine is not small potatoes and especially if you are a small business. Such notice may be lacking where the agency's interpretation of a rule in question is not made clear to the regulated community or where the agency states that the rule does not apply to certain conduct or where the agency attempts to apply a new interpretation but does it retroactively. It is fine that there is a new interpretation, but I think the people who are responsible for dealing with these regulations certainly should know if the regulation interpretation has changed. Section 709 would impose limitations on the ability of Federal agencies to pursue civil or criminal penalties for alleged violations of rules in circumstances where the imposition of such penalties would be inconsistent with basic principles of due process. Now, courts routinely will uphold principles which this amendment embodies. The codification of the principles would deter agencies from pursuing these cases in the first place and save unnecessary legal expense. We know litigation is expensive and burdensome, particularly for small businesses. Many defendants are forced to settle a case and pay a reduced fine because to fight it would be more expensive. So even if the finding is plainly unfair, a company may just pay the fine to avoid the costly litigation expenses. That is not the way the Federal Government should rule. Federal Government agencies that we delegate should be fair. We are not against the businesses of this country. We are for them. We want business to succeed because that is how we create the economic vitality and the jobs that keep our country going. Agencies that are used to being given a considerable measure of deference when their regulatory interpretations are challenged in a nonenforcement context sometimes misunderstand that fundamental principles of due process should take precedence over the concept of deference when civil and criminal penalties are at stake in court. Section 709 will discourage Government regulators from initiating unjustified enforcement or other actions by reminding them through clear statutory pronouncements of their obligation to provide businesses with adequate notice of their regulatory responsibilities and their duty to enforce the regulations fairly. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment, to apply the same principles of due process and justice that are embodied in our Constitution and in our enforcement of civil and criminal laws to the enforcement of agencies' rules. That is what this amendment does. This amendment says that the basic rules of fair play--notice before you are going to have a penalty assessed--would be in this code so that agencies would be on notice and so, of course, the person or business that has to comply with these regulations will know exactly what they are being required to do. That is a concept that is well settled in our Constitution, in the framework of our Government and in the laws that we pass. Basic fairness and due process has been the foundation of our Government. My amendment today just puts those basic principles into the Administrative Procedure Act so that everyone is on notice--the Federal regulator is on notice and the regulated entity is on notice-- that there will be fair and due process. Mr. President, that is what this amendment does. I hope that we can get a fair debate on this, because I think it is a very important concept for us. But it is essential that everyone have the same book to read from, the same playing field to play on; that everyone is on notice of what the regulations are going to do, what the interpretation by the regulators will be. We put that in the code so that everyone knows what they are required to do--the agency and the regulated. I would like to see a time in this country when we did not have an adversarial relationship between our regulators and our businesses because, after all, we want our businesses to succeed. We want our companies to export overseas. We want the jobs to be created in America. Why cannot business be a partner rather than an adversary? That is what my amendment will try to do by putting everyone on notice that they have to have a fair and due process. But it is going to take more than that, Mr. President. It is going to take an attitude by everyone that we are going in the same direction, that we want to have good, solid, firm regulations. If a business gets out of line, we want to make sure that business gets back in line. But we want to do it in a partnership, not an adversarial relationship. I think just putting it down on paper is the responsibility of Congress. It is our responsibility to say what the parameters are, and that is what this regulatory reform bill does. This regulatory reform bill sets the parameters. It makes Congress do what it should have done a long time ago. And that is, tell the regulators what the congressional intent is. Why would we pass broad general guidelines, delegate our responsibility to the regulators to enforce these broad general guidelines and then be surprised when they do things that we never envisioned? It is our responsibility to make sure they know what our intent is so that when we delegate that responsibility, they stay within those limitations. It is our responsibility, Mr. President, but I think rather than broad general guidelines, we need to be more specific. This is a specific. This amendment does put in the Administrative Procedure Act exactly what everyone must do--the people making the regulations and the people following the regulations. It is our responsibility to make it clear. I think this will go a long way toward stopping the over litigation, the money that is wasted on lawsuits, instead of going into the bottom line so that a business can grow and prosper and export and create jobs and keep our economy able to absorb the new people that want to come into our system and the immigrants that are coming into our system. That has been a hallmark of this country, and that is what we want to continue. That is why this is such a good bill and so important that we pass it. So, Mr. President, I am going to stop and let those who might have other views state them. Let us have a good debate, but I hope that my colleagues will realize that this is a very important amendment for fairness, for justice, for due process and for making sure that everyone is singing from the same hymnal, that we all know what is expected of us, that we know that there will not be a law in this country or a regulation in this country that a company will have to fight when they did not even know that it was on the books. That is the purpose of this amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Explain it, and then as soon as the Democrats who wish to speak on the issue come, we would work out a time agreement?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, if I could ask the Senator from Utah a question, would the Senator like for me to proceed with the amendment?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Yes. I am happy with 10 minutes equally divided.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Yes. Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio is correct that there were objections. I think a number of those have been taken care of. I hope that by tomorrow, perhaps, we can have a short debate or even have an acceptance of the amendment. I feel that we have addressed many of the concerns in that letter. So we can take it up tomorrow and go from there.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of Senators Heflin, Hatch, Nickles, Craig, and Lott, as well as myself. It is the Hutchison-Heflin amendment. Mr. President, this is an amendment that we will debate tomorrow. It is an amendment that is going to try to put into the Administrative Procedure Act parameters that would not allow an agency to retroactively penalize a business that does not have reasonable notice of a regulation. So I think it is going to be an important amendment. I think we will have good bipartisan support for it. I ask unanimous consent that we lay it aside.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. We are almost there. Maybe after the vote.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the Injunction of Secrecy be removed from the Investment Treaty with Trinidad and Tobago (Treaty Document No. 104- 14), transmitted to the Senate by the President on July 11, 1995; that the treaty be considered as having been read for the first time, referred with accompanying papers to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until the hour of 9 a.m. on Wednesday, July 12, 1995; that following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period for the transaction of morning business until the hour of 9:45 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each, with the following exceptions: Senator Santorum, 10 minutes; Senator Murkowski, 10 minutes; Senator Simpson, 15 minutes; Senator Dorgan, 10 minutes. Further, that at the hour of 9:45 a.m., the Senate resume consideration of S. 343, the regulatory reform bill.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will resume consideration of the regulatory reform bill tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. Further amendments are expected to the bill. Therefore, Senators should expect rollcall votes throughout the day tomorrow and into the evening in order to make progress on the bill.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am committed to improving our air quality, but we can't expect cities to meet arbitrary deadlines for air quality attainment if the EPA is going to hamper rather than help their efforts. The EPA required, as part of its enhanced monitoring program, an emissions testing system that was expensive, burdensome, and ineffective. Even though the Clean Air Act itself does not mandate centralized testing, the EPA decided that, to prevent fraud, all cars would have to be tested at a State facility. It cost Texas over $100 million, but has been found to cause little or no additional reduction in emissions. Tests have found auto emissions virtually unchanged when similar centralized programs were initiated in other metropolitan areas. Decentralized testing is far less burdensome on drivers; instead of centralized testing at State-supervised facilities, private repair stations and remote sensing could be used at far less cost without loss of effectiveness. The fewer than 10 percent of the vehicles that account for more than half of all emissions do not emit the same amount of pollutants from day to day. They often escape penalties by failing tests on one day, and then passing on the next. Testing should focus on identifying and repairing these vehicles first, and reducing the burden on everyone else. Cities with a high portion of their emissions from cars and trucks-- such as Dallas/Fort Worth in Texas--have been unable to reduce their emissions because of the EPA's mishandling of the Clean Air Act's automobile emissions testing requirements. They deserve adequate notice of what will be expected; an effective, low-cost, and efficient plan; and sufficient time to comply. The choice by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments of a 1996 attainment date for moderate areas requires attainment before implementation plans can be put in place, and air quality improvements shown. Today I am introducing a bill to give moderate nonattainment 2 additional years to meet the attainment date for air quality. An extension of the deadline gives Dallas/Fort Worth, and other moderate nonattainment areas throughout the United States, a chance to prove themselves without being reclassified as serious non-attainment areas. It will give cities time to implement plans next year and still have 2 more years to meet the 3-consecutive-year requirement for air quality attainment. The 2-year extension also will give the EPA time to overhaul its Clean Air Act automobile inspection and maintenance program and administer it fairly across the country. Dallas/Fort Worth has worked hard to improve its air quality, as I am sure other moderate nonattainment cities have, too. With the exception of enhanced monitoring, Dallas/Fort Worth has improved air quality; almost half of the 145 tons per day emission reduction requirement to achieve attainment under the computer model are in place today. Many of the largest employers have implemented voluntary employee trip reduction programs. In order to provide moderate areas with the flexibility necessary for the proper [[Page S 9718]] implementation of the Clean Air Act, and to take into account Federal mistakes in administering this program, I urge the Senate to enact this change as soon as possible.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am very glad to follow the Senator from Tennessee. I think he made some very good points, and I think it is important that the people of America see some of the things that are happening in this country that we have to fix. The buck stops right here, and only we can do it because we have passed these laws, and the regulators have gone far beyond what Congress ever intended. I am the cochair of the Republican Task Force on Regulatory Reform. Because of that, I have heard from literally hundreds of employers, from Texas as well as small business people all over our country. I have heard dozens of absurd, even silly, examples of the impact of the Federal regulatory excess in our daily lives. Senator Hatch from Utah, who has been managing the bill, has started talking about the 10 most absurd regulations of the day. He is now up to 20, and I am sure he is going to have 10 more tomorrow, that will just make people wonder what in the world is in the water up in Washington, DC. It is going to be a good question, and I have a few myself that I want to share, to show the importance of passing this bill, to try to take the harassment off the small business people of our country. The many egregious stories about the enforcement of some of these regulations have become legendary, and the people are asking us to say, ``time out.'' We are not the All Star baseball game tonight, but we know what time out is, at least for baseball, and this time out is to get the regulatory train back on the track. Common law has relied on a reasonable person approach. The standard behind our laws should be: What would a reasonable person do under these circumstances? But many of our Federal regulations seem to be designed to dictate the way in which a person, reasonable or otherwise, must act in every single situation. You know that is impossible. You cannot anticipate every single situation that might come up and write a regulation to cover that. What happens is you have too many regulations and people do not know what is really important. What are the regulators going to really enforce? And what is just trying to get to some bit of minutia? We have really taken the reasonableness out of the equation, and we have failed to allow for the application of good, old- fashioned common sense. For that reason, this debate is dominated by examples of Government out of control. Let me give you a few. They may not rival Senator Hatch's, but these are stories that have been related to me. Take the case of a plumbing company in Dayton, TX, cited for not posting emergency phone numbers at a construction site. The construction site was three acres of empty field being developed for low-income housing. OSHA shuts the site down for 3 days until the company constructs a freestanding wall in order to meet the OSHA requirement to post emergency phone numbers on a wall. There is a roofing company in San Antonio, TX, cited for not providing [[Page S 9712]] disposable drinking cups to their workers despite the fact that the company went to the additional expense of providing sports drinks free to their employees in glass containers which the employees in turn used for drinking water. In this case you have a company that went the extra mile, went beyond just paper cups and water. They gave them the sports drink because that gets into the bloodstream faster. They did not meet the lesser standard and, therefore, were cited by OSHA. Then there is the case of Mrs. Clay Espy, a rancher from Fort Davis, TX. She allowed a student from Texas A&M to do research on the plants on her ranch. He discovered a plant which he thought to be endangered and reported his finding. The Department of the Interior subsequently told Mrs. Espy that she could no longer graze the cattle on her family land. They had been grazing cattle there for over 100 years. But they were afraid that her cattle might eat this weed. Yes; eat the weed. It took a lawsuit and an expenditure of over $10,000 by Mrs. Espy before the Department reversed its ruling and declared that the weed was not, in fact, endangered. Even more absurd, if you can believe it, is the Texas small businessman who happened to have painted his office the day before an OSHA inspection, and he was cited for not having a material safety data sheet on his half-empty can of Sherwin-Williams paint. Then there is the employer cited at a job site, in which a hot roofing kettle was in use, because the job foreman was not wearing a long-sleeved shirt. The foreman was wearing a long-sleeved shirt but he rolled up his sleeves between his wrists and his elbows because of the weather. Recently OSHA contacted a parent company of a chain of convenience stores in Texas threatening to conduct compliance inspection after OSHA learned two employees had gotten into an argument and someone had thrown a punch and struck the other. Well, in Texas, that is not a big, unusual event, I have to say. But it was unusual to the OSHA representative who demanded a complete report of the incident and threatened to follow up with a compliance inspection if the report was not completely satisfactory and timely. Mr. President, these numerous horror stories which have come forward since we began our efforts for regulatory reform provide convincing, I hope, evidence of a Government regulatory process that is out of control. It demonstrates the need to introduce common sense and reasonableness into a system where these qualities seem to be sorely lacking. These cases also highlight the way the regulatory excess has been allowed to drift into absurdity. When was it decided and by whom that the Federal Government should become the national nanny? Indeed, the absurd is becoming the norm as millions of Americans who operate small businesses and work for a living know and understand. It is Congress that has refused to acknowledge how long overdue are the fundamental reforms that we need to bring common sense into the equation. We must recognize that the Federal Government cannot issue a rule that will fix every problem which involves human behavior. That is why one of the messages sent by the American people in 1992, and again in 1994, was, ``We have had enough, and you had better fix it.'' Mr. President, that is what we are trying to do with this bill. It is one of the most important pieces of legislation that we will take up this year in the reform that the people asked us to make last year. Have we heard the message? That is really the question. I am not sure that everyone in Washington really understands. I am a small business person and I know what it is like to live with the regulations and the taxes that we have put on the small business people of our country. We must reverse this trend. Our Government must be put to the test. We must put our financial house in order, and we must decrease the size of the Federal Government and return many of these programs to the States. The 10th amendment says that the Federal Government will have certain specific powers, and everything not specifically reserved to the Federal Government will be left to the States and to the people. Somehow we have lost track of the 10th amendment, and we aim to get it back. And this bill, the Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Act of 1995, is one way that we are going to get this country back on track and put the Government that is closest to the people down there in charge and to get the Washington bureaucrats--who have never been in small business, who really do not understand what it is like to meet a payroll, to worry about your employees, to not be sure if you are going to be able to feed the families that work for you--we are going to make sure that the Federal bureaucrats that do not understand that are no longer in control. If we are going to be able to compete in the global marketplace, we have to change the regulatory environment. We passed this year GATT and NAFTA last year. We did that to open markets. We wanted to open free trade in the world so that we would be able to export more. We will import more, too, but we will export more. But we have told American business, yes, we are going to give you free trade, but we are going to make you compete with one arm tied behind your back. We are going to put so many regulatory excesses on you that we are going to drive up the prices and the costs, and you are not going to be able to compete in this global economy that we have created for you. Let us put in perspective just how much this costs the businesses of our country. The businesses are the working people. The cost of complying with current Federal regulations is estimated at between $600 and $800 billion a year. That is about the cost of the income tax. Corporate and individual taxes totaled almost $700 billion in 1994. So if you put the stealth tax of regulation, $600 to $800 billion a year on top of the income taxes that you pay, you can just double the checks that you wrote on April 15. You can double it because that is the stealth tax, the cost of Federal regulatory compliance. We need fundamental change to the current regulatory process. The Regulatory Reform Act of 1995 is what will make this happen. Businesses, especially small businesses, are finding it increasingly difficult to exist in this current regulatory environment--the same small business sector that is the engine of the economic growth of America. Government is not the economic engine of America. It is the small business people of this country that are the economic engine, and sometimes they think the Federal Government is trying to keep them from growing and prospering and creating the new jobs that keep this economy vital, so that we can absorb the new people into the system, the young people graduating from college, the immigrants that are coming to our shores for new opportunities. We have to make sure that those opportunities are there for our future generations. We have the responsibility to make sure that the regulators are doing what Congress intends for them to do. The Regulatory Reform Act of 1995 is the way to restore congressional intent and hopefully, Mr. President, common sense. That is the mission that we must have this year, so that the people of America know we heard their voices last year and we are going to make the changes, however hard it may be, they asked us to make. So, Mr. President, regulatory reform is a very important step that we must take. We must balance the budget. We must have regulatory reform. We must have a fair taxation system. We must not raise taxes, but, in fact, we will lower taxes and give the people back the money they rightfully earn and should be able to spend for themselves. Mr. President, I thank you for helping us lead this country and do the right thing for the working people who are trying so hard to raise their families and do a little better for their families than maybe they were able to get as they were growing up. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah. I wanted to answer one point of the Senator from Louisiana on his amendment, and that is the point that the small entities would be covered under the reg-flex amendment that we adopted yesterday. In fact, the reg-flex amendment covers cost-benefit analysis, but there are many small entities that would not get the risk analysis that is covered by this bill, and these are the entities that would be lost between the $50 million and $100 million threshold. So it is very important to the small towns and the water districts and the small businesses that they have the availability of risk analysis for sound, good regulatory bases, just as the larger entities would, and perhaps they need it even more because they do not have the legal staffs that are available in the upper echelons. I did want to make that one point so that it was clear that we need risk analysis and the sound basis that risk analysis would provide for the $50 to $100 million category that would be left out if we adopt this amendment. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would just like to respond briefly and say that I think it is a matter of where you err. And while the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana would err perhaps by saying that we could always lower the threshold if we found that we needed to because so many people were exempt, I would err the other way. I would say, let us set it at $50 million and make sure that every regulation that we can possibly make well thought out and well documented is, in fact, well thought out and well documented. And if we have to raise the threshold later I would rather have to do that than to have to come in and try to lower it because so many people are harassed with regulations that did not have the scientific basis and the risk analysis and the cost-benefit analysis. So I think it is a matter of do we err on the side of doing too much or do we err on the side of doing too little? I would rather protect the people, the small business people of this country, the small towns of this country, the small water districts of this country, and then if it becomes an onerous burden on the Federal agencies I am sure we will hear about that and we can always up the threshold. But I want to make sure that every regulation that we can possibly make be well thought out, well documented in science, have a cost-benefit analysis, and in fact does have those criteria. So, I do appreciate the position of the Senator from Louisiana. But I just think it is more important for us to err on the side of caution and protection of our small business people and our small towns than the opposite, so that people are in a threshold of $50 million than the $100 million and they do not have those well-thought-out regulations.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I, like my colleague from Georgia, appreciate what the Senator from Louisiana has done in this bill. He has worked to try to make it a good bill. But I am concerned if we raise the threshold that there might be people in that $50 to $100 million category--cities, towns, maybe counties, maybe school districts or water districts, some of our smaller entities--that really might not have the protection of the good science, of the peer review, the ability to have cost-benefit analysis and risk analysis. I think what this bill does is so important to provide the basis upon which people will know out in the open what the effects of these regulations are, and it will have the effect, of course, of making the regulators think very carefully before they do these regulations. Passing this bill in itself is going to have an effect on regulators in making [[Page S 9699]] sure that they know exactly what they are doing as they affect the small businesses of our country or, indeed, the local taxpayers of our country. So I join with my colleagues in saying that I think it is very important that we not leave that $50 to $100 million range. In fact, I have to say if it were my choice, I would not have a range at all that was a floor. I would have from zero because I think no matter what the regulation is, if it affects your business or your small town or your water district, this is going to make a difference in the way you are able to provide jobs or serve your taxpayers. So I do not think we should have any range that is excluded, but certainly I think the higher range is going to provide hardship for people who probably do not have the legal staffs to really have their viewpoints known as well as the people in the larger categories. So I respectfully argue against this amendment as well, and hope that our colleagues will not have that group in the $50 to $100 million category that might not be covered by sound science, science in the sunshine, cost-benefit analysis, or risk analysis. And if it is a burden on the large agencies, then perhaps we will have the effect of fewer, more important, good regulations rather than so many regulations that do cause a hardship on our smaller entities. Mr. JOHNSTON addressed the Chair.