Hank Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

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

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, opposition is premised upon the notion that we just can't trust a Federal employee who is charged with overseeing the protection of Americans through the rule process. We don't believe, on the other side, that a person can be conscientious and dutiful about trying to help people. Instead, they want to make it such that you can't issue a rule. You will gum up the process by extending it out for so long--another 6 months--despite the fact that the rule, as foreseen by a Federal employee--and it has gone through the notice and comments part of the Administrative Procedure Act, which has worked for decades. You just simply don't want government to issue a rule that can protect people. Why? Because it gets in the way of some big corporations' profits. That is what this is really all about, protecting profits at the expense of the health, safety, and well-being of the people. We don't trust a government worker to be able to provide good service to the people by promulgating rules that protect people. It is crazy, but that is what we are dealing with. I would ask that the very reasonable Jackson Lee amendment be favored by my colleagues in this body. Please vote ``yes.'' Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, when mankind first came upon this planet, I guess we were in caves and cavemen didn't have many rules. It was only the strong who survived. It was every man for himself. There were no morals about things, whether or not it is right or wrong. It is just a matter of your own personal survival. That was caveman thinking, and, unfortunately, we still have caveman thinking in the 21st century because we have a crowd that says that we should not have any rules of human conduct. Isn't it a fact that America is what it is now because of the rules that have been put in place to foster prosperity and freedom? That is what our government has done. It has been government of, by, and for the people. There has been a movement over the last 30, 40 years to turn people against government. This mantra is that government is too big, we don't need any rules to govern human conduct, let everything work itself out, and the free market system will make it rain for everybody. Well, we have seen, after 30, 40 years of practicing that free market way of thinking, that it doesn't work. Here we are still trying to cut the rules that guarantee the health, safety, and well-being of working people, of small business, of elderly people, and children. This is what this legislation is about, is gutting the rulemaking process. This is one of many attempts, incessant attempts, by my friends on the other side to try to cut government so that their friends in big business on Wall Street can make it rain for the rest of us. They don't make it rain for anybody but themselves. They put all of the profits in their pockets. They become billionaires. We have had a shift of wealth away from the middle class and working people in this country. Let's stop it from happening. Oppose this misguided legislation, H.R. 712.

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

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, the only reason for the unprecedented delay in agency rulemaking--the so-called diminishing transparency of the regulatory process--is that my Republican colleagues have argued that regulatory transparency is not important with regard to public participation in the rulemaking process. In a recent rulemaking process, millions of Americans commented on a single proposed rulemaking. It represented the largest public response in history to any request for public comment in a Federal rulemaking. Just last year alone, this extensive activity hardly suggests an agency process that is shrouded in secrecy and in need of reform. So with there being no evidence that consent decrees and settlements are collusion between Federal agencies and pro-human interest groups, there simply is no need for this legislation. I would ask my colleagues to vote against this, to vote it down.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 712, the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2015. Rather than bringing sunshine into the rulemaking process, it throws an after-midnight shade on this process. In fact, the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act pulls the plug on regulations that are in place to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the people. This misnomered legislation should be renamed the ``Bedtime for Consent Decrees and Settlements Act.'' Another great name is the ``Leave Volkswagen Alone Act.'' Title I of H.R. 712 imposes numerous burdensome procedural requirements on agencies and courts, requirements that are designed to hamstring and to ultimately prevent the use of consent decrees and settlements that ensure the enforcement of the law. Proponents of this provision argue that it is necessary because Federal agencies collude with pro-regulatory plaintiffs to advance a mutually agreed-upon regulatory agenda through the use of consent decrees and settlement agreements. According to my Republican colleagues, this so-called sue and settle litigation specifically allows agencies to skirt the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act to dictate the contents of an agency rulemaking or to bind agency action. Sadly, however, the majority has not put forth a single dust particle of credible evidence to support this claim. To the contrary, consent decrees and settlement agreements are important tools in ensuring the timely compliance with statutory deadlines that have been put in place by Congress to protect the environment and the public's health and safety. In fact, the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, reported in December of 2014 that there is zero evidence indicating that agencies collude with public interest groups in bringing these consent decrees, as the majority has often alleged. In its report, the GAO referred to these lawsuits as ``deadline suits'' because they simply compel agencies to take statutorily required actions within a designated timeframe. The GAO also found little evidence that deadline suits determine the substantive outcome of agency action because agency officials stated that they have not and would never agree to settlements in a deadline suit that finalize the substantive outcome of the rulemaking or declare the substance of the final rule. Earlier this year, Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate for Public Citizen, also clarified during the legislative hearing on H.R. 712: ``All of the settlements scrutinized by GAO pursuant to the EPA's rulemaking authority under the Clean Air Act went through the public notice and comment process, allowing all members of the public an opportunity to comment on the rule before it is finalized.'' This finding confirms that there is no credible evidence supporting the proposition that Federal agencies engage in backroom deals with pro-regulatory groups in order to circumvent the EPA or to substantively bind the Agency in a subsequent rulemaking. In the absence of actual evidence of collusion between Federal agencies and plaintiffs, H.R. 712 addresses a nonexistent problem through a series of requirements that are designed to undermine the rule of law by preventing the enforcement of statutes that have been passed by Congress to protect the public and that are designed to slow down agency action and bust the door wide open to almost anyone who wants to impede agency action by intervening in these actions. Now, is it the working people, small-business owners, or retirees who are asking for this kind of relief from regulations that protect the health, safety, and well-being of them? No. It is not the people. It is the big corporations that want this legislation to pass. For example, H.R. 712 would allow for nearly any private party to intervene in a consent decree, revealing the legislation's true purpose, which is to stack the deck in the industry's favor in order to avoid the enforcement of the law.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, they talk about all of the regulations that have been promulgated during the Obama administration as if the Obama administration is the only administration that has promulgated rules of conduct. Certainly we have had rules associated with the unveiling of the very successful Affordable Care Act. There were a lot of rules put into place to prevent insurance companies from taking advantage of people. Preexisting conditions are outlawed. All of these are regulations that were associated with the Affordable Care Act. We have parents being able to keep their kids on their insurance up to the age of 26 and no discrimination between men and women. Those were rules that have stimulated jobs in America because 22 million people who did not have access to the healthcare system now have access to it. More jobs have arisen because of that. That is a direct result of regulations. The same thing with Dodd-Frank, which protects people from Wall Street overreach. Those rules have created opportunities for small businesses to come in and start creating real jobs in America. So rules are good for our society. This legislation cuts that ability to create wealth for everyone else. So I would ask that this amendment be approved by my colleagues. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of my amendment to H.R. 712. H.R. 712 would significantly delay and possibly stop the Federal rulemaking process by making it easier for regulated industries and well-funded antiregulatory entities to delay or prevent agency action and prohibiting any rule from being finalized until certain information is posted online for 6 months. This assault on the regulations is based on the false premise that Federal regulation stifles economic growth and job creation. My amendment confronts this fallacious assumption by excepting from H.R. 712 all rules that the Office of Management and Budget determines would result in net job creation. As with many other deregulatory bills we have considered this Congress, the proponents of H.R. 712 argue that it will grow the economy, create jobs, and increase America's competitiveness internationally, but we cannot pretend that this politicized legislation is about economic growth or American prosperity. As I have noted during the consideration of each of the antiregulatory bills that we have considered in the 114th Congress, there is simply no credible evidence in support of the reiteration of so-called job-killing regulations undermining economic growth. Zero. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that unemployment has fallen to 5 percent despite Republican obstruction of everything that Democrats have put forward that would grow the economy. While there is more work to do to grow the economy and help our Nation's middle class, there have been 69 straight months of private sector job growth. That is 13.7 million private sector jobs created amidst a regulatory system that is pro-worker, pro-environment, pro- public health, and pro-innovation. And to those who would brush aside these strong employment figures, the Department of Labor has also reported that claims for unemployment benefits have dropped to the lowest levels in over 40 years. While I would submit that regulations passed during the Obama administration have had a largely positive effect on sustainable economic growth, the reality is that there is little correlation between regulations and the economy. Don't just take my word for it. Take the word of the San Francisco and New York Federal Reserve Banks, which found zero correlation between employment and regulation. Take the word of The Washington Post, which gave two Pinocchios to industry estimates of the cost of regulations earlier this year. Take the word of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which has debunked claims that regulations have a trillion-dollar cost to the economy. Mr. Chairman, we need real solutions to help real people, not another thinly veiled handout to large corporations. I ask that my colleagues support my amendment to protect jobs. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of the Jackson Lee amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

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

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say how much I appreciate the gentleman from Florida's bipartisan work on this issue. I look forward to working with the gentleman on this issue as well as other issues of joint concern, like criminal justice reform and the restoration of the Voting Rights Act.

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

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

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this amendment establishes additional criteria for the commission's one-sided review of all Federal regulations, authorizing it to identify rules for repeal that may limit or prohibit agencies from adopting technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness in order to lower regulatory costs. Although this criteria, itself, may be unobjectionable on its face, it does nothing to change the commission's cost-only, deregulatory, and dangerous mandate under title I of H.R. 1155. Furthermore, rather than allowing agencies to modify or improve existing rules to accommodate for technological changes, this amendment would only create a basis for eliminating rules. For instance, this amendment would authorize the commission to identify for elimination a rule protecting workers against discrimination, regardless of the rule's benefits, if the costs associated with the rule could be mitigated by adopting new technologies to improve efficiency. In other words, no matter how important and beneficial a rule prohibiting discrimination may be, it could be eliminated if the commission determines that it somehow encumbers agency efficiency. That is laughable. As the administration notes in its Statement of Administration Policy, which threatens to veto this bill should it reach the President's desk, this bill lacks any ``mechanism for making thoughtful and modest modifications to rules to improve their implementation and enforcement,'' which is often the best course of action before we scuttle a rule or as we try to make the regulation work. Accordingly, I must oppose this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would strike title II of H.R. 1155, which would require agencies to undertake a regulatory CutGo process to repeal rules identified by the commission with little to no consideration of the rules' benefits prior to issuing the new rule. These regulatory CutGo provisions would apply to every new agency rule, no matter how important or pressing, for every regulatory agency. Alarmingly, title II would also require agencies to undertake a notice and comment process for all rules eliminated through CutGo because, as I noted earlier, agencies are unable to simply rescind the rules. Thus, this bill would substantially delay or even prevent new regulations through this burdensome and time-consuming requirement. As several of my colleagues' amendments demonstrate, the bill's regulatory CutGo procedures are unsafe, dangerous, and would tie the hands of agencies responding to public health crises requiring timely regulatory responses. In fact, this bill lacks any mechanism for consideration of public policy and safety, which would leave no option for agencies to issue emergency rules to protect the public and environment from imminent harm. The bill's proponents claim that title I of H.R. 1155 would allow the commission to consider whether the costs of the bill are not justified by the benefit to society. As Professor Levin testified during the subcommittee's consideration of a previous version of this bill, the catchall language of subsection (h)(2)(I) would allow the commission to recommend the repeal of ``any rule promulgated by any agency if it deems the rule's requirements to be unnecessarily burdensome.'' In short, the commission would be completely free to disregard any benefit of the regulation by proceeding under this language or the bill's other advisory language. Furthermore, H.R. 1155 is silent on what methodology the commission must follow, requiring only that it must have one, which leaves the window wide open for absolutely no consideration of the benefits of regulation. While consideration of the cost of regulations is sometimes important, there is overwhelming consensus that the benefits of regulation vastly exceed the costs. In both the Republican and Democratic administrations, the benefits of our regulatory system of regulatory protections have made our country safer, stronger, healthier, and cleaner. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has observed that these benefits ``include, among other things, ensuring that workplaces, air travel, foods, and drugs are safe; that the Nation's air, water, and land are not polluted; and that the appropriate amount of taxes is collected.'' The GAO reported in 2007 that while ``the costs of these regulations are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the benefits estimates are even higher.'' In 2012, the Office of Management and Budget likewise concluded that even by conservative estimates, the benefits of major regulations exceeded the costs on a 2-to-1 basis over the past decade. Between fiscal years 1999 and 2009, the benefits of regulations produced a net benefit of $73 billion, vastly exceeding the regulations' costs. This evidence overwhelmingly refutes the bald assertion that regulatory costs are burdensome, eliminate jobs, or harm our economic competitiveness. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, to oppose this misguided bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to H.R. 1155, the SCRUB Act, a one-way ratchet with the sole aim of prioritizing costs over benefits through the reckless elimination of rules without consideration of their benefit. This legislation would shift the costs of rules from corporations to consumers, while posing substantial burdens and delays to agencies, thereby undermining public health and safety. Title II of H.R. 1155 prohibits agencies from issuing a single new rule until the agency first offsets the cost of the new rule by repealing an existing rule specified by the commission. These regulatory CutGo provisions would apply to every new agency rule, no matter how important or pressing, for every regulatory agency. For instance, any expert regulatory agency seeking to promulgate a new rule to safeguard vehicles from ignition switch failures, to keeping our water clean from chemical contamination, or to protect our hospitals in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease would first have to eliminate an existing rule, which would trigger a new rulemaking process altogether to rescind that rule, causing years in delays. Furthermore, title II lacks any mechanism for agencies to issue emergency rules that protect the public and environment from imminent harm. These procedures are dangerous and would tie the hands of agencies responding to public health crises requiring timely regulatory responses. Additionally, agencies are unable to simply rescind rules. Instead, the APA requires that agencies follow the same notice and comment procedures to eliminate a rule as would be required to issue the same rule in the first place. Thus, under the bill's requirements, prior to promulgating a new rule, agencies would likely need to prepare two sets of proposals: one for a new rule and one for eliminating an existing rule required by the commission through regulatory CutGo. This process may take anywhere from a few months to several years, especially when the underlying rule involves complex issues. Lastly, the SCRUB Act is a dangerous solution in search of a problem. Each branch of government already conducts effective oversight through retrospective review of agency rules, narrowing the delegations of authority to agencies controlling agency appropriations and conducting oversight of agency activity. Congress also has the specific authority under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove any rule that an agency proposes. Rather than meaningfully streamlining the rulemaking process, regulatory CutGo would ossify the regulatory system by causing years of delay in the rulemaking process, creating additional layers and burdens in the regulatory system. In total, the SCRUB Act would essentially function as a choke hold on Federal agency rulemaking; therefore, we should change the name of the SCRUB Act to the ``Scrooge Act.'' It delays any new action by an agency and drains agency resources and taxpayer dollars in a time of widespread budget austerity. Lastly, I would comment that imposing the same regulatory burden on a dairy farmer as is imposed on an oil producer or an oil company sounds to me like the oil companies have been having a great day with the rules around here of late if they have got to do what we require a dairy farmer to do. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters).

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, it is clear that the driver of the SCRUB Act is not the dairy farmer, but it is the oil company and those as rich and powerful as those are. So, in summary, H.R. 1155 is yet another antiregulatory bill on the big corporation wish list, saddling American taxpayers with a $30 million check for a bill that wouldn't create one job beyond the membership of the commission itself. This bill has serious flaws, and I would urge my colleagues to reject it. Vote ``no'' on H.R. 1155. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman. Today, we are just about ready to vote on an omnibus spending bill, which is a part of the tax extender bill that we, or that some passed today. I did not vote for it. I was opposed to the tax extender bill, which added $622 billion to the Nation's long-term debt, unpaid for, and largely tax cuts to the wealthy. There are some features in the tax extenders bill that were appealing. For instance, it enhanced the child tax credit. It made it permanent, along with the enhanced earned income tax credit. Those are important for middle class people, working people. Those are very important, and we did the right thing on those. But, unfortunately, they represented a small part of that $622 billion, two-thirds of which was a giveaway to the wealthy through various tax loopholes. So Congress did that dirty deed today, and it blew a hole in the Nation's long-term debt. And you know what is going to happen? Because while you have reduced the amount of resources that the Federal Government takes in to be able to give back to the people who are governed, in the form of transportation dollars, healthcare dollars, education dollars, national security dollars, things that we have to pay for; in other words, you can't have the freedoms that we enjoy and the prosperity that we all enjoy, without having a government that lays down this infrastructure, and that is what our tax receipts pay for. We have been cutting Federal revenues since 1980. It has been almost 40 years we have been on an incessant cutting of government. We have been spending a lot of money. We have been spending without paying for it. That is what has created the debt, largely because of wars, unfought wars, and tax cuts. So while we have things to pay for, we haven't been paying for them with tax moneys. We have been paying for them with the promise of taking in tax moneys, and we continue to increase the debt by cutting taxes. So how do you then pay for the government that we need when you are cutting these taxes? Well, we pay for this government every year when we have these spending bills that come up, and they tend to always come up at the end of the year, when everybody is ready to go home, and when government is about to shut down because it hasn't been funded. So what did we do this year? We did the same thing we did this year that we did in previous years, and that is to wait till the last minute, put together a 2,000-plus-page spending bill, and then we spring it on Members of Congress in the dead of night, and give us 2 days, 2 full days to be able to read through it, and then vote on it. We are scheduled to vote on it tomorrow. It is not a great way of doing bills in this country, and that is what we have been doing, giving away resources. We did that today. Tomorrow we will pass this spending bill. They call it two bills, but really it is one bill that has been split into two parts. The first dirty deed was done today. The next dirty deed will be done tomorrow, the spending bill. Now, the spending bill has a lot of stuff in there that should not be in there. Why should you have a spending bill, and then you turn around and give away the Nation's resources, the Nation's oil? You're going to remove a 40-year prohibition on the production of crude oil to be sent overseas for refinement. You are going to remove that ban in a spending bill that was unleashed on us just 2 days ago, 2,000 pages, a spending bill. But why are you giving a break to the oil industry? Why are we going to vote to remove that ban on sending our precious oil offshore to be refined, thus costing us good middle class jobs here in America? Those refinery workers, they are going to lose their jobs because we are going to allow the oil to be exported so that it can be refined in a foreign nation by workers who are not paid commensurate to what we are paid over here, and then we are going to import our own oil back into our country at a higher price. It doesn't make sense, ladies and gentlemen. We need to be weaned from foreign oil, and we do that through producing our own oil. But if we are going to then send our oil overseas to be refined, then the only person, the only folks that are getting rich off of that are the oil companies. They have been getting rich for a long time, and we are giving them another opportunity to make billions and billions of dollars more. It is the oil that belongs to this country. And so it is wrong that we do that. This is one of the features in our spending bill tomorrow, and I disagree with that. I think most Americans probably do, and many Members of Congress do also. But, yet, there will be many who will pass this bill just simply to get out of here and keep the government open, and that is not a great way of doing business. That is not the way we should do business in this country. America deserves better. The citizens deserve better.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and my privilege to serve alongside you, Congresswoman, with all of the bigness of your heart and the care that you have for people, particularly those who are on their way up. You don't have anything against those who are already in place and doing well, but your heart is constantly on display toward those who are less fortunate. I am just privileged and honored to join you in that quest. Today has been a great day. This morning, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in America. And to think back 150 years and look at the 100 years it took from that point to get to the point where we could pass a Voting Rights Act here in America, and then from that 50-year point up to today to be addressed by an African American President of the United States shows what kind of values we have in this country, what kind of opportunities we have in this country. And so I am just filled with great tidings during this holiday season; however, I am not carried off by the winds of prosperity that may have come to some of us while to others the winds of prosperity have passed us by for various reasons, despite all of the progress that we have made as a people. As it stands now, Congresswoman, it is not a Black or White thing; it is a people thing. We have more Caucasian Americans living in poverty than we have African Americans. So poverty is not a discriminator when it comes to national origin, when it comes to race, or when it comes to sex. The fact is we have more women living in poverty and we have more children living in poverty. There is nothing to be joyful about that. We have more elderly people falling into poverty today. My heart cries out for Caucasian Americans between the ages of 45 and 60 who, studies show, are meeting an early and untimely death at their own hands--suicide. Also, alcoholism and drug abuse are ravaging that particular demographic, as well as liver disease and other chronic ailments. It all, I would posit, stems from the sense of hopelessness that pervades the people at this particular time. We see all of the prosperity. We see the prosperity of the few, the top 1 percent. You can look at the top 10 percent and see the concentration of wealth in this country. You see it, you watch the TV, and you aspire for all of the goods that are displayed to you on TV, but yet there is a sense of hopelessness about you being able to achieve that, despite the fact that you are working two and three jobs and still qualify for food stamps and other social services. We are realizing that, despite the hard work and the effort, the playing field is not level and the game is skewed in favor of the few on top at the expense of the masses on the bottom, and so something is wrong with that picture. That is an imbalance that we need to correct. So that is why I am so happy to work on the Out of Poverty Caucus. Some say, ``Why try? It can never be done''; but I am one of those who say that, if we don't try, it won't be done. If we try, it can make a difference. I think that with the proper people in place to make the policy decisions that we make here in Congress, there is so much that we can do to relieve poverty in this country and to offer opportunity for people who only want to work hard and play by the rules. They long for the day to return when they can look at their children and their grandchildren and rest assured knowing that the opportunities for them will be at least, if not greater than, those that existed for themselves. And so our job is to make things better on the ground for people. Our mission is to help those who need help. There are always going to be some people who need it, and there is nothing wrong with helping somebody who needs help. In fact, that is what living is all about: serving your fellow man. That is why I am here. I know that is why you are here, and I am just happy to serve with you. I would add that it has been 51 years since 1964 when President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty, an ambitious set of initiatives to increase access to education, spur job growth, and improve nutrition and health to our poorest Americans. Fifty-one years later, it is estimated that up to 45 million Americans live in poverty. In the greatest Nation on Earth, there are 45 million starving children, impoverished seniors, and families that struggle every day to obtain the bare necessities to survive. I know how it feels because, for 1 week, I tried to exist on the food stamp challenge with you, Congresswoman, and that was tough. I got off of it after, I think, about 5 days. To try to exist on what we give the average food stamp recipient is quite tough. In Georgia, 25 percent of the people who are 50 or older and whose income level is less than $22,000 a year struggle with hunger. In my district, that is an important issue, because in DeKalb County, 10 percent of the people live below the poverty line, and the majority of those are children. In Rockdale County, it is 13 percent.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment to H.R. 8. This amendment is another example of pro-corporate, anti- environmental legislation designed by large corporations to restrict access to the courts for the average citizen. The Gosar amendment ignores separation of powers by telling the Federal courts how to do their job, restricting the type of relief a court can grant, and penalizing successful challenges brought under the Equal Access to Justice Act. This, in turn, limits access to legal relief for those challenging government decisions. Let's say you are a farmer or a rancher or a landowner and you live adjacent to Federal land that is being leased out to an energy company for fracking and you are worried about what is going to happen to your drinking water, you are worried about the price of your house, and you are worried about the health of your children. Well, this amendment will greatly interfere with your ability to challenge the decision of the Federal agency granting the permit. It will tie the hands of the courts in terms of deciding the case in a fair and just way. For nearly 70 years, the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, has served as the foundation for administrative agency action and ensures that agency action taking place in the rulemaking process is fair, efficient, and flexible enough to accommodate the myriad of agency actions it governs along with the challenges of daily life. Judicial review of agency action is a hallmark of the APA, and it is critical to ensuring that government action does not harm or adversely affect the public. The Gosar amendment would discard decades of wisdom and jurisprudence preserving the right of judicial review. First, it would reduce the statute of limitations for judicial review of agency action under the APA to 90 days. This is down from 6 years for most claims brought against the United States in cases involving onshore and offshore energy leasing, development, and transmission on Federal lands. This razor-thin window for review would effectively immunize government action involving energy projects from public accountability, allowing those agencies to opt out of our civil justice system. Second, the amendment limits a judicial stay of final agency action by requiring courts to only consider whether relief would be the least intrusive or narrowly drawn relief possible to correct a violation. Courts, however, typically consider other things, such as where the public interest lies. This sweeping limitation would dramatically interfere with the courts' ability to provide relief, tilting the outcome against the public interest. Lastly, this amendment slams the door to the courthouse by prohibiting access to funds under the Equal Access to Justice Act. By enacting the Equal Access to Justice Act, Congress recognized that individuals and organizations should not be deterred from challenging unjustified governmental action simply because it costs too much. For three decades, veterans, seniors, persons with disabilities, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations from across the ideological spectrum have relied upon the Equal Access to Justice Act to challenge illegal government action. This amendment would cripple the rights of those concerned or opposed to an energy project by preventing those who cannot afford to litigate a case against a big corporation from recovering fees, expenses, and court costs when they win. It is time for this Congress to stand up for everyday Americans. I urge my colleagues to stand for the rights of the individual and local communities and oppose this misguided amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.