Hank Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I think what I gather is that we need better regulations. Therefore, we have to provide more requirements on OIRA with respect to the regulations it issues, while at the same time claiming that regulations are bad and we have unelected bureaucrats and all of this kind of stuff like that. So we need better laws to allow them to regulate better. Then we are going to give them 270 days, which is a little more than we give the average agency. Well, I thank you for that, but you have not increased the manpower of the agency to deal with the new requirements that you are stacking on them. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The real reason for this amendment is to help foster the gumming up of the Federal regulatory system. That is what it is all about. There are a lot of little small ways of doing that, heaping it on top of the larger measure, which is itself just inimical to good rulemaking. This is a game, and the American people are the big losers. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully claim the time in opposition.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Gerald Connolly wanted it to be known for the record that agency employees are already barred under appropriations bills from engaging in publicity or propaganda. Agency employees are specifically barred from engaging in substantial grass-roots lobbying campaigns when those campaigns are aimed at encouraging members of the public to pressure Members of Congress to support administration or department legislative or appropriations proposals. Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I appreciate my friend Mr. Young's amendment which establishes a 90-day compliance period for guidance documents when, in the underlying legislation, it makes clear that during any compliance period for guidance it is nonbinding. So I rise in opposition to this amendment which imposes an unnecessary and burdensome 90-day waiting period for agencies to issue guidance documents. Importantly, as a form of nonlegislative rule, guidance documents do not have the force of law and are not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act's notice and comment requirements. Section 104 of H.R. 5 already clarifies that these documents are not legally binding and may not be relied upon by an agency as legal grounds for agency action. This provision additionally requires agencies to make this document available to the public and provide a plain and prominent statement that the document is not legally binding. Given the requirements that already exist in current law and the additional requirements imposed by title I of this bill, it is difficult to ascertain why an additional 90-day compliance period for guidance that is not legally binding is warranted. Furthermore, in all cases, regulated entities have ample opportunity to challenge rules, including guidance, as ``arbitrary or capricious'' under the Administrative Procedure Act where an agency lacks statutory authority to issue the guidance or the guidance is otherwise legally unsound. Indeed, as Justice Elena Kagan noted in 2015 in Paralyzed Veterans v. Mortgage Bankers, the APA contains a variety of constraints on agency decisionmaking, the arbitrary and capricious standard being among the most notable. Accordingly, I oppose the amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment which would prohibit Federal agencies from making any public communications that would promote a pending regulatory action. We can all agree that the rulemaking process should be transparent, flexible, and accountable to the public. But rather than achieve this goal, my colleagues' amendment would decrease transparency in the rulemaking process and burden agency rulemaking with little corresponding benefits to the public. A variety of statutes, including the Administrative Procedure Act and agency specific statutes, already prescribe the method that agencies may communicate to the public with regard to proposed rules. Agencies should, and indeed are required by law to, communicate why rules are beneficial to the public. For example, in 2014, the Department of Defense proposed a rule to protect servicemembers and their families from predatory lending schemes. In a press release discussing the rule, the Defense Department highlighted the benefits of the rule such as ``this proposed rule would better protect Active Duty servicemembers and their families from excessive debt.'' This plain language explanation of the proposed rule would be flatly prohibited by this amendment. Indeed, there is little that an agency could discuss about a pending rule that would not be considered to be promoting the rule within the meaning of this amendment. In the context of the proposed deregulation actions, in 2003, Bush administration officials posed with chainsaws and scissors next to a stack of papers to promote efforts to cut red tape. It is doubtful that this form of public communication would be permissible under this amendment. By the way, to see the Bush administration officials with a chainsaw and scissors going at regulations reminds me of what we are doing here today. In the context of a veto threat of a similar antiregulatory proposal last Congress, the Obama administration stated that similar requirements would prevent agencies from efficiently performing their statutory responsibilities and potentially lead to a less informed public. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do so as well. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 5 which would exempt from the bill rules that improve the employment retention and wages of workforce participants, especially those with significant barriers to employment. When President Obama took office in 2009, he inherited the worse economic depression since the Great Depression. Since then, President Obama's ``North Star'' on domestic policy has long been to make the economy work for the middle class and for those fighting to join it. Notwithstanding historic austerity levels and a Republican Congress more interested in winning elections than putting Americans back to work or increasing wages, President Obama has largely achieved this goal, while rescuing the auto industry and signing tax cuts for middle class persons, as opposed to just simply big business. According to the leading economic data, private sector businesses have created more than 15 million new jobs. The unemployment rate has dropped well below 5 percent to the lowest point in nearly a decade, wages are rising, and the poverty rate has dropped to the lowest point since 1968. And more people have health insurance than ever before. This has all occurred during an administration that is pro environment, pro clean energy, pro workplace safety, pro medical care, pro Medicare, pro Medicaid, pro Social Security. In fact, during this time, our Nation has doubled its production of clean energy and reduced carbon emissions faster than any other advanced nation. Notwithstanding this progress, there is still much work to be done for millions of Americans in every part of our country who are out of work, underemployed, or have not seen significant wage growth postrecession. But they should understand it was the Republicans who caused that to happen by not wanting to work with the President and members of the Democratic Party to make things better for working people in this country. Congress should be working tirelessly now across party lines to find solutions to persistent unemployment and stagnant wages, such as a public infrastructure investment agenda that will increase productivity and domestic output while turning the page on our historic underinvestment in our Nation's roads, bridges, and educational institutions. Unfortunately, this bill, H.R. 5, is not one of those solutions. The Regulatory Accountability Act is nothing short of a train wreck for critical public health and safety protections that ensure that our air is clean, our water is pure, and that our workplace, vehicles, homes, and consumer products are safe. Freeing corporations from the costs of protecting Americans against harmful activity is not the right path forward to increasing employment and wages for all. It is a giveaway to the corporate sector that supports them. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is that my friends on the other side of the aisle, in their quest to satisfy the big businesses that fund these campaigns, don't like regulations that protect the health, safety, and well-being of Americans, including children, including the elderly, the weak, the sick. They are trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act; trying to kill those regulations; trying to kill regulations on Dodd-Frank, which is protecting people from financial ruin by Wall Street barons. This is an incessant march toward a deregulatory environment. We can't let it continue unabated. We must protest. We must speak out. We must do the right thing to protect the people of this country. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to attend votes on Tuesday, January 10, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: Motion on Ordering the Previous Question on the Rule providing for consideration of both H.R. 5 and H.R. 79--Vote ``no''; H. Res. 33-- Rule providing for consideration of both H.R. 5 (Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017) and H.R. 79 (HALOS Act)--Vote ``no''; H.R. 79--Velazquez Amendment Made in Order--Vote ``yes''; H.R. 79--Clay Amendment Made in Order--Vote ``yes''; H.R. 79--Final Passage--Vote ``no''.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Representative Cedric Richmond as he takes the helm of the CBC and manages this exercise tonight; and also Representative Marc Veasey, who will be the point man for doing these Special Orders. We are called upon tonight at a critical time in the Nation's history. We have a new President coming in who is polarizing, divisive, inexperienced, and immature. He is making some selections for his appointments, and the Senate has the opportunity to weigh in on those appointments. So what is happening is that there are incomplete and missing answers to the Senate questionnaires that appointees like Senator Jeff Sessions, who I rise in opposition to, have completed and sent in. This puts the Office of Government Ethics that vets these candidates at a severe disadvantage of not having the information that they need in order to vet these appointees, like Senator Jeff Sessions. They don't have the information that they need. So we also have a compressed schedule of nominees to be considered over the next few days. This, combined with the incomplete answers, puts us in a position of not having enough information to conduct full, fair, thorough, and sifting analysis and vetting for the American people. These are the people who are going to serve them into the future. So I am very concerned, especially about a guy like Senator Sessions who has a history of being opposed to civil rights for certain Americans. Now, there are those who would say that this took place 30 years ago, all of the things that he said and did prior to becoming a Senator 20 years ago. Some will say that all of these things that have been cited about Senator Sessions are 30 years old. We have to look at what has occurred in the life of Senator Sessions to make us think that he has changed. It takes a courageous person like George Wallace to come forward and say: I was wrong for being a racist. It takes a strong person like Lee Atwater to say: I was wrong. Senator Sessions has not said he was wrong. There is nothing that Senator Sessions has written that says: I apologize for what I did back then. There is nothing that he said. Certainly his legislative record, which is only nine bills over the last 20 years--three of which were ceremonial in nature--there is nothing in that legislation that would lead us to conclude that he has changed. So he is going to be bad for the Attorney General's office. I conclude by asking my Senate colleagues to think carefully about what you are about to do and say ``no'' to Senator Jeff Sessions.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, we can't blame a $20 trillion deficit or debt on nameless, faceless bureaucrats. We can blame a lot of that debt on the George Bush administration and the legislators who voted for tax cuts for the wealthy that were not paid for and funded two wars that were not paid for. That is what we can blame that $20 trillion debt on. Again, if you are in favor of net neutrality, you should oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the King amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), my friend.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As far as unelected bureaucrats that we have heard people rail against, speaker after speaker today being concerned, those are nothing more than the civil servants that make our government work. They protect our water, protect our air. They protect us, as a matter of fact--the FBI, the law enforcement. These are good people who go to work every day, work hard, like my dad did, for instance. He was a civil servant. I guess you could call him an unelected bureaucrat. He did everything during his job that he needed to do, and he retired with dignity. There are so many others who work for the post office. They work for TSA, Homeland Security. They are doing nothing but working a job honestly, and they deserve more than to be referred to derisively. We need them. Mr. Chair, I am in opposition to this legislation. We need real solutions for real problems. In stark contrast, however, the REINS Act attempts to address a nonexistent problem with a very dangerous solution. We need legislation that creates middle class financial security and opportunity, not legislation that snatches that away. We need sensible regulations that protect American families from economic ruin and that bring predatory financial practices to an end. We need workplace safety regulations that ensure hardworking Americans who go to work each day are protected from hazardous environments on the job. We need strong regulations that protect the safety of the food that we eat and the air that we breathe and the water that we drink. Unfortunately, H.R. 26 does nothing to advance those critical goals. This explains why more than 150 organizations strongly oppose this legislation, including Americans for Financial Reform; the American Lung Association; Consumers Union; The Humane Society of the United States; the League of Conservation Voters; Public Citizen; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Earthjustice; the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards; the American Public Health Association; the Environmental Defense Action Fund; the Center for American Progress; and the Trust for America's Health. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 26. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 26, which would exempt from the bill rules that improve the employment retention and wages of workforce participants, especially those with significant barriers to employment. Since one of the justifications, or the main justification, for this underlying legislation is to promote job growth from corporate titans at the expense, by the way, of health and safety of Americans, at least, we could exempt from the bill rules that improve the employment, retention, and wages of workforce participants, especially those with significant barriers to employment. When President Obama took office in 2009, he inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. This economic quagmire was created by misguided Republican policies that put profits ahead of people, resulting in reckless decisions on Wall Street that cost millions of Americans their homes and jobs. In other words, the Great Recession was caused by the collapse of the financial markets due to an unreliability and instability of the predatory lending market, which had taken hold. There was so much paper out there on Wall Street that was worthless because it was based on these homes that people couldn't pay the notes for, and all of that was caused by deregulation, lack of regulation. Now we have a period with Dodd-Frank coming into play and the financial markets improving, the protection and economic security of American families increasing, being strengthened. Now, at the beginning of this Congress, we get legislation to gut the Dodd-Frank regulation and other regulations that would protect people from excesses of the corporate community. I am just asking, in this amendment, that we don't let it apply in the case of situations where the bill improves employment retention or wages or workforce participants, especially those with barriers to employment. So, according to leading economic indicators, private-sector businesses have created more than 15.6 million new jobs. The unemployment rate has dropped to well below 5 percent to the lowest point in nearly a decade, and incomes are rising faster, while the poverty rate has dropped to the lowest point since 1968. This has all occurred during an administration that is proenvironment, proclean energy, and proworkplace safety. In fact, during this time, our Nation has doubled our production of clean energy and reduced our carbon emissions faster than any other advanced nation. And the price of gas is down to roughly $2 a barrel, despite all of these cumbersome and oppressive regulations by the Obama administration that the other side complains about. Notwithstanding this progress that has been made, there is still much work to be done for the millions of Americans who remain out of work, underemployed, or have not seen significant wage growth postrecession. Congress should be working tirelessly across party lines to find solutions to persistent unemployment and stagnant wages, such as a public investment agenda that will increase productivity and domestic output while turning the page on our historic underinvestment in our Nation's roads, bridges, and educational institutions. Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, this bill, the REINS Act, is not a jobs bill. It is a legislative hacksaw to the critical public health and safety protections that ensure our Nation's air is clean, our water is pure, and our workplace vehicles, homes, and consumer products are safe. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, which establishes an idiosyncratic process establishing an automatic sunset of public health and safety protections. It requires that agencies conduct an annual review of current rules to designate 10 percent of its existing rules to be eliminated within 10 years of the bill's enactment unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of approval for eligible bills. Now, I understand to the listening public that sounds kind of complicated, but the bottom line is they want to do away--my friends on the other side of the aisle--with net neutrality, which is something that a Federal agency requires. So if you want the Internet, which we all built and paid for through the Federal Government through our taxes and then we turned it over to the private sector, but we still have a public interest in the net being neutral so that all traffic flows equally over the Web without some being slower than others according to how much you can afford to pay. That is not fair. So this King amendment is a part of a regulatory scheme proposed by this legislation, the REINS Act, which is going to hurt Americans. It is going to hurt the health, safety, and well-being of the people when you are not able to have clean water, clean food, edible food, safe products, clean air, and clean water. These are the things that the REINS Act gets at. It doesn't want Americans to be healthy. It doesn't want the Internet to be neutral. Why? Because corporate America and Wall Street put people in office to do their bidding. That is what the REINS Act is all about. This King amendment will make it worse. Under current law, Federal agencies already conduct an extensive retrospective review process of existing rules and have already saved taxpayers billions of dollars in cost savings. Since 2011, the Obama administration has made a durable commitment to ensuring retrospective review of existing regulatory protections. Under Executive Orders 13563 and 13610, the administration has required that of agencies. According to Howard Shelanski, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under the Obama administration, the Obama administration's retrospective review initiative has achieved an estimated $37 billion in cost savings, reduced paperwork, and other benefits for Americans over the past 5 years. Furthermore, as the Obama administration has stated in the context of a veto threat of a similarly draconian antiregulatory proposal in a previous Congress, ``It is important that retrospective review efforts not unnecessarily constrain an agency's ability to provide a timely response to critical public health or safety issues, or constrain its ability to implement new statutory provisions.'' That is what the King amendment would do. In fact, because agencies are already committed to a thorough review process to identify and eliminate regulatory burdens, it may be impossible for agencies to make additional cuts without severely affecting public health and safety. Lastly, while the majority has repeatedly noted that H.R. 26 is forward-looking legislation, this amendment would make the bill apply retroactively to protections and safeguards that exist at the bill's date of enactment, a bald attempt to gut protections adopted by the Obama administration, including net neutrality. Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I reserve the balance of my time. Statement of Administration Policy h.r. 427--regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015--rep. young, r-in, and 171 cosponsors The Administration is committed to ensuring that regulations are smart and effective, and tailored to further statutory goals in the most cost-effective and efficient manner. Accordingly, the Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 427, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015, which would impose an unprecedented requirement that a joint resolution of approval be enacted by the Congress before any major rule of an Executive Branch agency could have force or effect. This radical departure from the longstanding separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches would delay and, in many cases, thwart implementation of statutory mandates and execution of duly-enacted laws, create business uncertainty, undermine much-needed protections of the American public, and cause unnecessary confusion. There is no justification for such an unprecedented requirement. When a Federal agency promulgates a major rule, it must already adhere to the particular requirements of the statute that it is implementing and to the constraints imposed by other Federal statutes and the Constitution. Indeed, in many cases, the Congress has mandated that the agency issue the particular rule. The agency must also comply with the rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 551 et seq.). When an agency issues a major rule, it must perform analyses of benefits and costs, analyses that are typically required by one or more statutes (such as the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act) as well as by Executive Orders 12866 and 13563. In addition, this Administration has already taken numerous steps to reduce regulatory costs and to ensure that all major regulations are designed to maximize net benefits to society. Executive Order 13563 requires careful cost-benefit analysis, public participation, harmonization of rulemaking across agencies, flexible regulatory approaches, and a regulatory retrospective review. In addition, Executive Order 13610 further institutionalizes retrospective review by requiring agencies to report regularly on the ways in which they are identifying and reducing the burden of existing regulations. Finally, agency rules are subject to the jurisdiction of Federal courts. Moreover, for the past 19 years, the Congress itself has had the opportunity, under the Congressional Review Act of 1996, to review on an individual basis the rules--both major and non-major--that Federal agencies have issued. By replacing this well-established framework with a blanket requirement of Congressional approval, H.R. 427 would throw all major regulations into a months-long limbo, fostering uncertainty and impeding business investment that is vital to economic growth. Maintaining an appropriate allocation of responsibility between the two branches is essential to ensuring that the Nation's regulatory system effectively protects public health, welfare, safety, and our environment, while also promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation. If the President were presented with H.R. 427, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the eloquence of the gentleman from the great State of Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), my friend out of the great city of Memphis.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I listened intently to my colleague's opening remarks, and he seemed to try to justify the passage of the REINS Act, which I rise in opposition to, by the way, by saying that it has been the Obama administration's job-killing regulations that have put our economy in its position, which is one that is not good. Despite trying to convince the American people of that allegation, the American people are aware of the facts. They are aware of the fact that, 8 years ago, when President Obama came into office and under a Republican stewardship that used trickle-down economics as its model, this economy neared that of the Great Depression's. In fact, we call it the period of the Great Recession. This country almost went into a depression, and it went into a Great Recession because of George Bush's and the Republicans' policies of trickle-down economics, which Daddy Bush--George Herbert Walker Bush--once referred to as ``voodoo economics,'' and he was right about that. Let's look at where we were then and look at where we are now and ask ourselves: Are we not better off now than we were then? There are not many voices that could say, No, we are not better off now than we were then, because they know, since then, there have been 81 straight months of positive private sector job growth. They know that over 15.6 million new jobs have been added to our economy by President Obama. They also know that 30 million more people have health insurance and access to the healthcare system now than they did back then. They know that regulations had to ensue from the passage of the Affordable Care Act in order to enable those 30 million people to have coverage now. That is why they want to introduce this legislation to cut regulations. They want to try to hurt the Affordable Care Act. They also know that regulations had to spring forth from the Dodd-Frank, Wall Street regulation, legislation that was passed in this body. They know that those regulations have protected the finances and the financial security of Americans who are doing far better now than they were 8 years ago when President Obama took office. The American people know that they are much better off now. They know that bankruptcies have gone down. They know that foreclosures have gone down. They know that they have better jobs. They know that things are better now than they were back then. You will remember and the American people will remember that on the very day of President Obama's first inauguration, Mitch McConnell and a cabal of Republicans met from both the House and Senate, crying in their beers at a Capitol Hill bar. They embarked on a strategy to-- what?--make sure that President Obama would be a first-term President. So they resolved to oppose everything that he proposed, and they certainly did. Despite unprecedented opposition from the Republicans' just saying ``no'' to everything, the American people know that they are in a better position today than they were at this time 8 years ago when coming into the Obama administration. The Republicans want to introduce legislation to do away with the rules and the regulations concerning the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank legislation, which has protected the financial security of Americans over the last 8 years. That is why they come forward with this so-called jobs bill. This regulatory reform bill called the REINS Act is not going to produce or create one single job. What it will do is cut measures to protect the health, safety, and well-being of Americans. This misguided legislation would amend the Congressional Review Act to require that both Houses of Congress pass and the President sign a joint resolution of approval within 70 legislative days before any major rule issued by an agency can take effect. In other words, this bill would subject new major rules to nullification by Congress through an unconstitutional legislative veto by one Chamber of Congress. Following Republican attempts earlier this week to gut ethics and oversight rules that are necessary to police corruption, it is telling that the REINS Act is the next bill that the House would consider in the 115th Congress. Americans should understand what the game plan is of the Republicans. They want the fox to guard the henhouse. That is why the very first act that they tried to get passed was reform of the House ethics regime. They wanted to neuter it, place it under the control of the Republican-controlled House Ethics Committee, where it would then languish and die like a prune on a vine that was unwatered. That is the first thing they came up with, and the American people called them on it and wouldn't let them pass it. So they have postponed it. America needs to keep their eyes on this Congress to make sure that they don't follow through with that measure that would install the foxes over the henhouse. What they want to do is install the corporate foxes over America's henhouse with this REINS Act. The REINS Act is central to the Speaker's so-called Better Way agenda, which is really only a better way for rich, corporate elites to further insulate themselves from public accountability and is emblematic of the same tired and crony-capitalist proposals that have been kicked around by opponents of environmental and public health protections since the 1980s. In fact, in 1983, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was then a counsel to President Reagan, criticized a similar proposal as unwise because it would hobble agency rulemaking by requiring affirmative congressional assent to all major rules and would seem to impose excessive burdens on the regulatory agencies. In addition to being an unmitigated disaster for public health and safety, proposals like the REINS Act will actually do major harm to regulatory reform attempts, as the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in 1981. Then a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Justice Scalia cautioned: ``Those in the Congress seem perversely unaware that the accursed `unelected officials' downtown are now their unelected officials, presumably seeking to move things in their desired direction; and that every curtailment of desirable agency discretion obstructs (principally) departure from Democrat-produced, pro- regulatory status quo.'' Now, it is not often that I quote Justice Scalia, but, ironically, I do so today. The REINS Act also imposes deadlines for the enactment of a joint resolution approving a major rule that could charitably be referred to as Byzantine. So as not to use too lofty language, I will just declare that this thing is like throwing a monkey wrench in a well-oiled machine. Under new section 802, the House may only consider a major rule on the second or fourth Thursday of each month. In 2014, for example, there were only 13 such days on the legislative calendar. I think on the legislative calendar for 2017, there are only about 13, maybe 14 or 15, such days where we could consider these major rules on this legislative calendar. I would point out that there are approximately 80 such rules of importance that come through in a typical year. Furthermore, under new section 801, Congress may only consider such resolutions within 70 legislative days of receiving a major rule. This creates a lot of red tape that threatens to end rulemaking as we know it, and that is the exact, precise intent of this Congress. Even if agencies reduce the number of major rules in contemplation of a bill's onerous requirements, Congress would still lack the expertise and policy justifications for refusing to adopt a major rule. As over 80 of the Nation's leading professors on environmental and administrative law noted in a letter in opposition to a substantively identical version of this bill, without this expertise, any ``disapproval is therefore more likely to reflect the political power of special interests, a potential that would be magnified in light of the fast-track process.'' Lastly, by flipping the process of agency rulemaking so that Congress can simply void implementation by not acting on a major rule, the REINS Act likely violates the presentment and bicameralism requirements of Article I of the Constitution. It is my pleasure to oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) to present her amendment in her absence.