[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEATH BY A THOUSAND REGULATIONS:
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S CAMPAIGN
TO BURY AMERICA IN RED TAPE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 14, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-43
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-639 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
______________________________________________________________________________
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Daniel Flores, Senior Counsel
Kim Waskowsky, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 14, 2023.................................... 1
WITNESSES
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Mr. Anthony Campau, Principal, Clark Hill Public Strategies
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Prof. Casey Mulligan, Professor in Economics, University of
Chicago
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Mr. Adam J. White, Co-Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray
Center for the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason
University Antonin Scalia Law School
Oral Statement................................................... 8
The Honorable Sally Katzen (Minority Witness), Professor of
Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, New York
University School of Law
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses
are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository
at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Memo, March 16, 2023, re: Biden Family; submitted by Rep.
Burlison.
* Memo, May 10, 2023, re: Biden Family; submitted by Rep.
Burlison.
* Report, ``Burden is Back: Comparing Regulatory Costs Between
Biden, Trump, and Obama''; submitted by Chairman Comer.
* Statement for the Record, National Association of
Manufacturers (NAM); submitted by Chairman Comer.
* Report, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Per Curiam,
``Regulatory Budgeting in the U.S. Federal Government'';
submitted by Chairman Comer.
* Statement for the Record, American Chemistry Council (ACC);
submitted by Chairman Comer.
* Statement for the Record, Opportunity Solutions Project
(OSP); submitted by Chairman Comer.
* Report, Public Citizen, ``Your Wish Is My Command: Corporate
Capture of the Regulatory Process Evident in Trump's First Two
Years''; submitted by Rep. Lynch.
* Article, Politico, ``Former Guiliani Associate Raises
Questions About Hunter Biden's Hard Drive From Hell'';
submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Campau; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Prof. Mulligan; submitted by
Rep. Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. White; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.
DEATH BY A THOUSAND REGULATIONS:
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S CAMPAIGN
TO BURY AMERICA IN RED TAPE
----------
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Comer, Gosar, Foxx, Grothman,
Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Fallon, Donalds, Armstrong,
Perry, Timmons, Burchett, Boebert, Fry, Edwards, Burlison,
Raskin, Norton, Lynch, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Khanna,
Ocasio-Cortez, Porter, Bush, Brown, Stansbury, Garcia, Frost,
Lee, Casar, Crockett, Goldman, and Moskowitz.
Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and
Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome everyone
here today.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Today's hearing will shine a bright light on President
Biden's whole-of-government regulatory blitz that began on his
first day in office. From sweeping executive orders to massive
costly agency regulations, the Biden Administration has spared
no expense when it comes to transforming America, much of which
has been done without a clear delegation from Congress.
In just his first few days in office, President Biden
issued far-reaching executive orders that radically altered how
Federal agencies approached climate issues. The Department of
Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of
Health and Human Services, and several other agencies launched
a government-wide effort to push out regulations to
fundamentally change American life. It is estimated that just
three of Biden's Administration's rules will cause $1.5
trillion to be spent over the next decade. We know what that
means for businesses and consumers: higher cost of doing
business, higher prices, and fewer choices in the marketplace.
And we know that this overreach will only continue the
expansion of the executive branch power at the expense of the
American people.
It did not have to be this way, and it was not long ago
that we were on the right track to limit Federal regulatory
excess that holds back economic prosperity. The prior
Administration implemented substantial reforms to limit
regulatory overreach, producing great economic successes.
According to the 2020 Economic Report of the President, the
Council of Economic Advisers estimated that regulatory reform
was on track within 5 to 10 years to raise real incomes by
$3,100 per household per year by increasing choice,
productivity, and competition. That is over $3,000 more in the
pocket of every household in America as a result of a smart
approach to regulation. Also, according to that report, just 20
of the Trump Administration's deregulatory actions were
expected to save consumers and businesses about $220 billion
per year after they went into full effect.
President Biden ran on being a ``unifying'' President, but
instead he has used his platform to strip away those regulatory
reforms we know were positively impacting the economy and
replaced them with historic levels of new red tape. The Biden
Administration wasted no time eliminating deregulatory
policies, and instead cleared the way for President Biden's
radical, costly, and burdensome agenda. The last thing any
consumer or business wants to do is spend more time and more
money on paperwork. That is something on which we can all
agree.
With historically high inflation, most consumers and
businesses simply do not have extra cash laying around to pay
someone to fill out reams of more paperwork for them.
Fortunately, Republicans in Congress know what a thoughtful,
efficient, and results-driven regulatory system looks like, and
that is what I and my colleagues in this Republican majority
are here to support. This Committee and the House Majority will
continue to hold the Biden Administration accountable for its
extreme regulatory overreach and pursue legislative solutions
to ensure commonsense regulatory reform.
When America is not tied down with red tape or buried under
heaps of Federal paperwork, America's small businesses,
workers, and communities are capable of soaring to new heights
of prosperity, and with more economic prosperity comes more
economic opportunities. And these opportunities will do more to
help Americans create, innovate, and thrive than any regulation
pushed through by unelected bureaucrats. We saw this during the
previous Administration, and the results speak for themselves.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today to
testify, and with that, I yield to the Ranking Member for his
opening statement.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you kindly. Most Americans
support government regulation across a whole wide range of
industries and social activities, on everything from auto
safety, to food and drug inspections, to alcohol and tobacco
advertising, to mine safety and occupational safety and health
rules. But the public sees the process of crafting regulations
as opaque and inscrutable, and often it is, which is why
regulated industries and their well-paid lobbyists have so
often been able to capture the regulatory bodies that are
supposed to be regulating them.
The truth is that regulations have a profound effect on
every aspect of our daily lives. Regulations affect the quality
of the air we breathe, the safety of the food that we eat, and
the quality of the water that we drink. Regulations keep us
safe at work and protect us against hazardous chemicals and
asthma-causing air pollution. They influence the ways we travel
and how we bank. They help us ensure that the products that we
buy are safe for our children.
Now, some politicians like to say that they are anti-
regulation, but of course they are pro-regulation when it comes
to restricting our personal rights and our freedoms. Take a
look at what is happening in Republican-controlled legislatures
and local governments across America. Republicans in states
like Florida, South Carolina, and Missouri are using government
to regulate what kinds of healthcare Americans can access, what
kinds of books we can read, which bathrooms we can use, the
ways in which people vote, and what students learn in school
about slavery and American history, Jim Crow and racism.
Republicans are vehemently pro-regulation when it comes to
advancing an ideological agenda that is theirs.
It is true that the corporate-dominated GOP today does not
support railway safety regulation, anti-pollution rules, and
occupational and mine safety rules, but the modern regulatory
state was actually created on a bipartisan basis. The key
difference between the parties today is that Democrats believe
that government regulation must be used to serve the public
interest of everyone, the common good of all. Republicans want
corporate CEOs and industry lobbyists to take over the
regulatory process and write the rules that serve their own
interests, and the GOP wants to use regulation to control
women's bodies, to screen the books that we read, and to take
over our school curriculums.
Former President Trump used his rulemaking authority to
deregulate industry for his business buddies, to divide the
public, to roll back more than 100 critical environmental
protections, and to advance regulations to restrict women's
access to healthcare, to weaken anti-discrimination rules, and
to undermine protections for students with Federal loans, to
name just a few of his agendas. He also handed the regulatory
process directly over to corporate special interests,
essentially allowing corporations to run the agencies that
should have been promoting public health and safety and
protecting the environment.
In contrast, the Biden Administration is using evidence-
based, commonsense regulations to protect American freedom and
to ensure that corporate interests will act in the public good.
The so-called regulatory burdens that our colleagues assail are
rules in the public interest. They include rules to protect
Americans against financially ruinous, surprise medical bills
and junk fees, like exorbitant credit card late fees, or check
bouncing fees, a rule to make it easier for people to get
hearing aids over the counter, a rule to ensure drinking water
does not include chemicals that are carcinogenic, and a fuel
efficiency rule projected to provide net benefits of up to $1.6
trillion by 2055, including by improving public health and
reducing climate change.
The American people must pay attention to the methods by
which we create our rules. These methods, which are contained
in the Federal rulemaking process, had not been updated in
decades. But in April, President Biden issued an executive
order to modernize them, strengthening democracy by further
advancing the transparency, the inclusivity, and the
effectiveness of Federal Regulations. President Biden's
regulatory modernization plans promote efficiency and fairness.
Well-funded corporations should no longer have outsized
influence on Federal rulemaking simply because they have the
time and resources to bombard Federal officials. The Biden
changes require Federal officials to proactively seek out the
voices of those who are underrepresented in, but still
critically affected by, the rulemaking process, including
people with disabilities and people living in rural areas.
President Biden's regulatory modernization plans
incorporate the interests of future generations. Up to this
point, agency cost benefit analyses undervalued the benefits of
regulations for our children and our grandchildren. The
proposed changes should have bipartisan support. They use the
same formula used by the George W. Bush Administration to
ensure that future generations receive the consideration they
deserve. President Biden's modernization plans will allow us to
better tackle national problems.
In 1981, the threshold for qualifying a rule was
significant, was set in an annual impact of $100 million.
However, the threshold was never raised to adjust for inflation
in more than 40 years. The new threshold of $200 million allows
officials to focus scarce resources on timely review of the
most significant and substantiated rules. President Biden's
regulatory modernization plans will better measure Americans'
actual lived experiences. The proposed changes reflect the
reality that the costs and benefits of a regulation affect
different groups of people and communities with different
degrees of intensity. Corporate interests that prioritize
short-term profits over long-term public safety and welfare
will likely oppose these changes in regulatory protections
because they have a financial interest in the status quo. But
Democrats are committed in ensuring that everyone is fairly
represented and considered in the rulemaking process.
Regulations are a legal tool in democracy to serve the
public good. Republicans want to dismantle certain government
regulations or red tape to allow corporations and industry to
regulate themselves, even when the public health and safety and
our environmental security are on the line. Democrats are
committed to ensuring that government protects and benefits the
health and safety of all the American people while preserving
the individual liberties and rights of the people. I yield back
to you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back. I am
pleased to welcome an expert panel of witnesses, who each bring
experience and expertise that will be valuable to today's
discussion. I would first like to welcome Anthony Campau.
Hopefully, I pronounced that right. Campau.
Mr. Campau. Campau, yes.
Chairman Comer. Campau from Clark Hill Strategies, who
previously served as Chief of Staff and Counselor at the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs within OMB. Next, we have
Casey Mulligan, who currently serves as a professor of
economics at the University of Chicago, and previously served
as Chief Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under
the Trump Administration. Next, we have Adam White, who is co-
Executive Director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study
of Administrative State within George Mason's Scalia School of
Law. Mr. White is also a Senior Fellow of the American
Enterprise Institute. Last, we have Sally Katzen, professor of
practice and distinguished scholar in residence at the New York
University School of Law. Professor Katzen previously served as
Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs during the Clinton Administration.
I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here today,
and I look forward to your testimony. And with that, I now
recognize Mr. Campau for his 5-minute opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY P. CAMPAU
PRINCIPAL
CLARK HILL PUBLIC STRATEGIES
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Comer,
Ranking Member Raskin, and distinguished Members of this
Committee, it is an honor to be here with you today. Thank you
for having me. I would like to note at the outset that I am
here in my personal capacity to share with you some perspective
based on my experience in government, not on behalf of my firm
or any client. My aim is not to wade into any particular rule
or area of policy, but to talk with you generally about some
basic good regulatory practices and some important regulatory
process reforms.
To be clear, the measures I am about to discuss are not
political. They are reforms anchored in experience and good
regulatory practices that, frankly, are agnostic to one's
policy preferences. We built on keen insights of the Carter,
Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. We rooted our
reforms in the longstanding good government recommendations of
bodies like the Administrative Conference of the United States,
the American Bar Association, the Organization for Economic
Development and Cooperation, and the World Bank. Our government
champions these values around the world, and you will find most
of them reflected in the good regulatory practices chapter of
the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, which passed both
chambers of Congress with overwhelming majorities, bipartisan
majorities.
That said, prior to 2017, something was terribly off with
our Federal regulatory system. New regulations were issuing at
an astounding rate, and many of the core principles and
practices I am about to discuss were getting short shrift. The
White House Council of Economic Advisers said that from 2000 to
2016, the annual trend was for regulatory costs to grow by $8.2
billion each year. Some analysts measured the cumulative costs
of regulations in the trillions of dollars in 2016, even
exceeding the total amount of taxes collected that year, and
small businesses regularly reported that cumulative regulatory
burdens was their No. 1 concern.
Then in 2017, for the first time in my former office's
record, something astounding happened. Rather than continuing
to climb higher and higher as they had every year in the
previous records, the total cost of new regulations across the
Federal Government actually went down through the floor,
beneath the X-axis into negative territory. They said it could
not be done, but we did it. By the end of just our second
fiscal year, we had saved on net $33 billion in new regulatory
costs. During the same period in the previous Administration,
the government imposed a net $245 billion. That is a $278
billion difference in approach.
So, what made possible that dramatic turnaround? The U.S.
Federal Government implemented a set of regulatory process
reforms that significantly improved the overall regulatory
environment, allowing the government to continue protecting
health and safety while also providing more room for
innovation, public engagement, personal freedom, consumer
choice, and economic growth. Those reform measures included,
one, providing more transparency on regulations under
development; two, improving agency guidance practices,
including by making it easier for the public to actually find
the guidance that governs them; three, providing more
opportunities for public engagement in the rulemaking and
guidance processes; four, developing and sticking to a
regulatory budget; five, conducting a retrospective review of
older standards; six, encouraging the use of rigorous benefit
cost analysis in an ever larger universe of actions; and seven,
ensuring regulatory policy was anchored in the best reasonably
available public-facing information.
Unfortunately, many of these reforms were implemented by
executive orders that have since been rolled back.
Consequently, the Federal Government is again issuing rules at
a record pace. One recent study noted that at its halfway
point, the Administration had already imposed $110 billion more
regulatory cost than the Obama Administration at that same
point. It is also worth noting that this estimate only covers
rules that actually include economic analysis. Most rules and
the vast majority of guidance documents include no such
analysis, which means they are left out of these calculations.
Further, recent actions have adjusted the relevant thresholds
for analysis, making it possible, if not likely, that even
fewer rules will be included in these calculations in the
future.
Congress should step in and make these commonsense, well-
grounded regulatory process reforms permanent. I have covered
the measures in more detail in my written testimony, and I look
forward to discussing them with you today. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. A point of order, Mr. Chairman. Did we swear
these witnesses in?
Chairman Comer. We did not.
Mr. Raskin. Oh, OK.
Chairman Comer. We did not, and that was my fault, so we
will do that right now.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please
stand and raise their right hands.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative.
So now, I recognize Professor Mulligan for your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF CASEY MULLIGAN
PROFESSOR IN ECONOMICS
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Mr. Mulligan. Good morning, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member
Raskin, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity
to discuss with you today how our Federal regulation has
evolved over time. Thousands of new regulations are issued each
year. My testimony summarizes new regulations since 2009, their
time pattern, and the magnitude and character of their
aggregate costs.
One finding is that the rules finalized by the Biden
Administration through the end of 2022 imposed costs of nearly
$10,000 per household, which is $1,300 more than the burden of
the Obama Administration rules during the comparable timeframe.
Regulatory paperwork, or red tape, is notorious, and it is
significant. However, opportunity and resource costs are 10
times the red tape.
Remember the government orders that shut down schools and
businesses. Those rules took away valuable opportunities to
learn, trade, innovate, and realize our full potential. The
time it took to write and read the shutdown order or the cost
of the paper it was written on paled by comparison to the lost
opportunities.
Another misconception is that regulation is primarily about
keeping the air and water clean. Excluding three or four fuel
economy rules, less than a third of rules and their costs are
environmental. Much more common are business regulations, rules
about employment contracts, telecommunication, consumer
finance, or healthcare business, to name a few. If you look at
my written testimony, about the third page, I have a chart,
Figure 1, that shows additions to regulatory costs by
administrative rulemaking in the current and two former
Administrations so that we can compare 2-year periods with,
say, 4-year periods or 8-year periods. The figure shows
everything on the per year of rulemaking. Both measures show
that President Trump either reversed or sharply slowed
additions to regulatory costs. Both measures show the Biden
Administration adding costs, surpassing those in President
Obama's comparable period.
The first measure of regulatory costs comes from the
agencies that promulgate the rules. A big problem with their
estimates is they typically treat the red tape like it is the
only cost. Therefore, I prepared a second cost measure. The
Biden Administration has been adding costs according to that
measure at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking, not
counting regulatory cost created by statutes and other non-rule
regulatory actions. The inflation-adjusted equivalent shown in
my Figure 1 is $5,000 per household per year of rulemaking for
the rules finalized in 2021 and 2022. These costs are spread
over time rather than concentrated in the first year that the
rule takes effect. If that pace accelerates, as it did during
the Obama years, cost would near $60,000 per household after 8
years of rulemaking. President Trump's pace was in the opposite
direction.
A common view is that people are unaffected by regulation
if it does not apply to their company, or it does not restrict
a product that they buy. That is a mistake. Ultimately, we are
all affected through higher prices, lower incomes. A nice
example is the wages of barbers, which far outpaced inflation
for a century. During that same time, their productivity on the
basic hair cutting at least hardly changed at all. But barbers'
real wages increased almost entirely due to what was happening
outside their industry. It is the same with regulation. The
wage trend in your occupation depends a lot on what is
happening in other jobs.
My written testimony shows a couple of detailed examples
where deregulation reduced internet service prices so much that
it moved the aggregate inflation rate. Another example connects
deregulation with falling prescription drug prices. Earlier, we
estimated that candidate Biden's regulatory agenda by itself
would reduce real wages by 2.5 percent relative to Trump's
policy. Although Biden's regulatory campaign promises are not
yet finished, the executive orders and agendas indicate that it
intends to fulfill those promises. That involves losing maybe 2
years' worth of normal wage growth due to just the added
regulation.
Small businesses are especially burdened, as the Chairman
mentioned. New Federal regulations are also regressive,
especially because many rules from health insurance and onward
are, in effect, forcing middle-class and lower-income families
to have champagne tastes on a beer budget. I estimate that
something like the Biden pace of regulation would, as a share
of income, cost the lowest-income families seven times more
than the high-income families.
I look forward to continuing the discussion.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Mr. White
for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ADAM J. WHITE
CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
THE C. BOYDEN GRAY CENTER FOR THE
STUDY OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
ANTONIN SCALIA LAW SCHOOL
Mr. White. Thank you, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member
Raskin, distinguished Members of the Committee. I am grateful
for the opportunity to testify today, and in my opening
statement, I would like to make four main points. The first has
to do with the administrative agencies themselves. Any
conversation like this about administrative agencies and
regulations tends to involve a lot of numbers, a lot of very
specific rules, often a lot of acronyms, but I would like to
focus on two main themes or trends of recent years.
The first has to do with the regulatory initiatives and
ambitions of a number of agencies. Agencies now, more than
ever, are the center of gravity in government and policymaking
and the center of gravity in terms of the political energy
around policymaking. And because of that, or with that, a
number of agencies are showing great ambition in pursuing
transformative rulemaking initiatives, transformative not just
in terms of the industries or the public interest, but also
transformative in terms of the agencies themselves. A number of
longstanding agencies are pursuing ambitious new regulatory
programs that would fundamentally change the mission of the
agency.
At the same time, the second trend I want to focus on is
the issue of regulatory uncertainty. A number of agencies are
achieving their policy aims right now not just by imposing new
regulations, but by taking down a lot of guidance or other
rules or standards that allowed for regulatory certainty to
take hold. Agencies are leveraging uncertainty, and I think
that is very, very worrisome in terms of the stability of the
rule of law.
My second point has to do with the Supreme Court. At the
same time that this is happening in the administrative
agencies, the Supreme Court has undertaken a number of
decisions in recent years and decades to make administration
more lawful and less unsteady. I think the most prominent in
recent years has been the major questions doctrine through
which the Supreme Court has tried to read agency statutes,
especially longstanding agency statutes, much more reasonably
in terms of not just the Constitution, separation of powers,
but also in terms of the experience of those agencies going
back decades or more. The major questions doctrine, I think, is
an important judicial tool for limiting agency adventures.
But at the same time, the Roberts Court has issued a number
of decisions that helped to make administration steadier, more
predictable, more transparent, and more analytically rigorous,
and including not just cases involving the Biden Administration
or the Obama Administration before it, but even the Trump
Administration. During the Trump Administration, we saw a
number of Supreme Court decisions that pushed back against
agencies for not sufficiently explaining their regulatory
decisions. So, across the board, the Roberts Court, for nearly
2 decades, has tried to make the administrative process more
lawful and more steady, and I think that is important because
of my third point.
My third point is about the Constitution, and especially
the Constitution's founding purposes. Of course, the
Constitution was created to ensure checks and balances and to
protect individual liberty, but another theme of the founding
generation was the need for good administration, by which they
meant steady, lawful, and energetic administration. And a
number of the Roberts Court's decisions, I think, trend in that
direction, at least in terms of the steadiness of
administration.
In my written testimony, I go on probably at too much
length about the writings of the founders and explaining how
they saw good, steady administration, but I think it is
important not just for its own sake, but also it is an
important way to understand what the Roberts Court is doing.
Alexander Hamilton said that the true test of a government is
its tendency and aptitude to produce a good administration, and
I think that is something we all need to keep in mind.
And then my fourth and final point is about Congress. So,
much of what we are discussing today is just a downstream
effect of the fact that, over the course of decades or more
than a century, Congress has delegated immense powers and
immense discretion to administrative agencies. A lot of what
Congress is doing in terms of procedural reform, what the
Roberts Court, the Supreme Court is doing is trying to dampen
the effects or limit the effects of immense agency discretion.
So, the first thing Congress could do to help solve some of
these problems will be to modernize and reform the underlying
substantive legislation. But in addition to that, there is a
lot the Congress can do, as I describe in my testimony, to
improve the procedures that agencies use and also to improve
the procedures for judicial review of agency action. And I
would say that as we enter a moment when the White House and
OIRA are beginning to undertake changes of their own, that I
think will unsettle some things, I think now, more than ever,
it is important for Congress to ensure greater stability in the
administrative state.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. Now I recognize Sally Katzen for
an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF SALLY KATZEN
PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE AND
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Ms. Katzen. Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for including
me on this panel.
Now, the title of this hearing, ``Death by a Thousand
Regulations,'' is certainly catchy and clearly sends a message,
but with respect, I do not believe it is either accurate or a
constructive frame for considering a very important subject in
the lives of Americans. The title reflects the fact that
regulations do not have a good name in some quarters.
Criticizing regulations and calling for their repeal is a
popular applause line, but whenever focus groups are asked to
identify which specific regulations should be repealed, they
are often stymied.
As Ranking Member Raskin said, they do not want to repeal
regulations that ensure that their medicines are safe and
effective, that their meat is inspected, properly labeled, and
free of contaminants, that the air is clear, their water
drinkable, the National Parks accessible, their automobiles
protective in the case of accidents, that they are protected
from injuries and illnesses in their workplaces, their markets
are transparent and a level playing field, just to name a few.
Now, while some accuse the agencies of running amok, it is
important to remember that no agency is a free agent. They can
only do what Congress has delegated to them. Congress decides
the objectives or the goals, but it does not have the bandwidth
to specify the details to stay current on changing technology
or evaluate the science. So, Congress delegates to agencies,
and then some turn around and condemn the agencies for doing
what they were told to do: carrying out the law.
Meanwhile, the agencies operate within well-established,
precise procedural and substantive constraints, which involve
public participation, responsiveness to comments, analysis of
the intended and unintended consequences of their proposals,
review by OIRA to ensure that the benefits of the proposals
justify the costs, and then challenges in courts, where
independent judges determine whether an agency has used the
proper procedures, whether any of its findings in policy
determinations are arbitrary and capricious, and whether they
stay within the statutory limits set by Congress.
Now, regulations that survive this process have contributed
much to our well-being and success as a Nation. Nonetheless,
some will complain and object to any burden or restraint placed
on them, and these complaints are seemingly accepted
uncritically by some and, indeed, amplified for those who are
looking for simple sound bites.
Now, several of the other witnesses today recite numbers of
regulations and the cost of regulations. I have not heard very
much about the benefits of regulations. Numbers, as we know,
can be slippery in any context. What are you measuring? What is
the baseline? What is the appropriate time periods? People can
pick and choose, and so in my written testimony, I include some
numbers, too, which support the fact that the Biden
Administration is at or below the level of his Republican
predecessors.
I also provide examples of what I would characterize as
unequivocally good regulations, such as an HHS Medicare
Advantage auditing requirement that focuses on measures to
reduce over billing, which is a crime. This rule will reduce
the drain on the Medicare Trust Fund and benefit all qualifying
seniors, or the FDA rule finalizing the sale of hearing aids
over the counter rather than solely by prescription, thereby
making these products that are extremely beneficial to older
individuals more available at dramatically lower costs. And if
I focus on benefits for an older generation, please forgive me.
My self-interest is showing.
I briefly describe other rules, such as the MATS rule,
which is limiting the amount of mercury, which is a neurotoxin
that is particularly pernicious to the unborn and little
children. Are these regulations killing us? Hardly. Are they
tying us up in red tape? Certainly not.
Now, while many are concerned about and trumpet
deregulation, Adam White has worried about the disruptive
effects of lack of stability and uncertainty for businesses. I
am even more concerned with the fact that deregulations can
lead to disasters, the deep recession in 2008, and the very
recent failure of some banks caused by the deregulation of the
banking industry, the death of workers in plants and in coal
mines from lack enforcement of safety regulations, the
disproportionate number of patients during COVID in nursing
homes that died compared to the rest of the population, and the
recent spate of railroad derailments.
Now, those who call for deregulation will often say that,
whatever benefits are there, this restrains our freedom and our
liberty, contrary to the American way. Now, to be sure, the
traffic signal at the busy intersection might delay, and
thereby restrain, your freedom if you approach a red light and
have to come to a stop. But it is a modest delay, and the
benefit of not being plowed into by a car coming on the cross
street certainly justifies----
Chairman Comer. Ms. Katzen, if you could wrap it up. We are
a minute and a half over the 5 minutes, but we will let you
wrap it up right here.
Ms. Katzen. Thank you, sir. Certainly, justifies the burden
imposed on you. So, I think there may be some restraint on
individual activity, but the aggregate liberty is enhanced for
all Americans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your graciousness.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. Now, we will begin the
questioning portion, beginning with the gentleman from Arizona,
Mr. Gosar, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The total cost of all
regulations on the books amount to a little more than $1.9
trillion in 2021. This means that if the U.S. regulatory state
was its own country, it would have the 8th highest GDP in the
world. Think about that. Not surprisingly, Joe Biden is the
greatest regulator in history. In his first year in office, he
oversaw regulatory burdens that was four times as great as
Obama in his first year in office. Biden's regulations have
sought to eliminate combustion engines, gas stoves, fossil
fuels, and power plants. However, a less conspicuous area of
regulatory overreach is Biden's war on critical minerals.
In January of this year, Biden's Interior Department
canceled copper mine leases held by Twin Metals in Northern
Minnesota due to regulatory violations, even though the leases
were previously renewed by the Trump Administration. A few days
later, Biden's EPA cited a seldom-used section of the Clean
Water Act to kill the Pebble Mine in Alaska, abandoning the
extractions of one of the largest deposits of copper and gold
because they said it would harm salmon populations. Pebble
Mine, for example, contains an estimated $400 billion worth of
critical minerals which are essential to our economy and our
R&D. Just think about how many jobs were lost and livelihoods
affected. Resolution Copper, a mine near Superior, Arizona,
some of whose regulatory hurdles have been instrumental in
overcoming through legislative action in 2015, continues to
remain idle as its managers wade through regulation barrier
after regulatory barrier.
Another impact of crushing regulation, ironically, is an
over-reliance on under-regulated mines in Third World countries
infamous for human rights violations and environmental
degradation. While the EPA worries about the potential problems
with salmon in Alaska, unregulated gold mining in the Third
World poisons 15 million people. We desperately need to rein in
regulations instead of continuing to let them barrel out of
control.
To that end, Trump's executive order eliminating two
regulations for every one is a policy approach that I admire.
The dirty truth is that lobbyists who can represent big
businesses love regulations as they destroy the competition,
which does not have the resources and lawyers to comply. In
fact, the military is a great example of that. Congress has the
duty to protect small businesses, who are the backbone of the
economy as they are job creators by curtailing the state.
Now, questions. Mr. Campau, in your testimony, President
Trump's policy to remove two rules for every one rule added was
actually not as impactful as requiring each agency to have a
regulatory budget. Could you please go into that a little bit
more?
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Congressman. The point that I was
making there was that the regulatory budget is often known by
the shorthand phrases like ``two for one'' or ``one and two
out.'' And I just wanted to note that it was, in fact, an
instrument in service of what I consider to be the sort of core
regulatory budget, which was in the first year, in 2017, a
zero-dollar cap on new regulatory activity, and then in the
outyears, a number to be determined by the Administrator of
OIRA in collaboration with the agencies in a ground-up process.
So, there was some criticism around the two for one. Well,
what constituted an out? What constituted an in? And what I
said was that there was some flexibility in the ins-and-outs
calculations, which was clearly articulated in the guidance
that implemented the order. But the core of the budget, which
was the dollar aspect of it, was, I think, pretty much not
criticized. The total savings over the course of the 4 years
was just under $200 billion on net across the entire Federal
Government.
Mr. Gosar. That is incredible. So, Mr. White, coming back
to you. So, part of the testimony was about implementation and
enforcement. So now, at least one-third of our budget is
associated with healthcare, so there was a rule passed. It was
one of the last bills signed by President Trump about excluding
the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Exemption for medical
insurance industries. Would there be some reason why you would
feel that the Department of Justice would not enforce that?
Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. I am very sorry to say I
am not familiar with that particular legal provision. Let me
say more generally that given the sheer number of regulations
currently on the books, in addition to all the statutes,
agencies have enormous enforcement discretion, which can then
be leveraged, or that, at the very least, creates a lot of
uncertainty.
Mr. Gosar. And quickly getting to that point.
Mr. White. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. Congress can dictate in their appropriations
more specifically where the money can be spent. Is that one of
the regulatory controls as well as the reauthorization of those
programs?
Mr. White. Yes, it can be, and it should be. Congress'
power of the purse is one of the most important tools it has
for the sake of good policymaking and good enforcement, and
anything Congress can do to improve its use of that tool, I
think, would be a good thing.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you very much.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we get regulation
right, we avoid disaster. When we get regulation wrong, we
court disaster, like on April 5, 2010, when a massive methane
and coal dust explosion ripped through the Upper Big Branch
coal mine in West Virginia of the Massey Energy Company,
killing 29 miners, the country's worst coal mine disaster since
1968 when 78 people were killed in an explosion then.
The 1968 disaster led to passage of the Occupational Safety
and Health Act of 1970, which helped to cut workplace
fatalities by 60 percent within 30 years. That is thousands and
thousands of lives that were saved. But by 2000, rightwing
propaganda and corporate greed had undermined enforcement of
occupational and mine safety laws. The Massey coal company in
West Virginia had hundreds of regulatory violations, but weak
enforcement and regulatory capture meant that the company acted
essentially with reckless impunity before the explosion took
place.
Just 15 days after that explosion rocked the mountains of
West Virginia, another catastrophe rocked the Gulf of Mexico,
when BP's Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded and 11
people were killed there, and 200 million gallons of crude oil
poured into the Gulf of Mexico in one of the worst oil spills
in history. In response, the Department of Interior created the
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and put
important rules in place to make sure this devastating chapter
would never be repeated. But the Trump Administration rolled
back those regulations for creating what it called potentially
unduly burdensome requirements for Big Oil to comply with.
Now, Ms. Katzen, can you explain what the corporate crusade
for deregulation means in reality, giving us a few examples?
Ms. Katzen. Thank you, Mr. Raskin. I think it is fair to
say that most businesses are very concerned about their bottom
line, and they will seek to protect it. And to the extent that
there are proposals that will increase their costs, and thereby
decrease their profits, that they rail against them. We have
seen during different periods during President George W. Bush,
there was a group that got together and came up with a wish
list of regs to get rid of that had very little substance to
them and where the costs saved were miniscule compared to the
benefits derived from them.
Mr. Raskin. All right. And that is not because the
corporations are evil.
Ms. Katzen. No.
Mr. Raskin. It is because they are rationally seeking their
profits, and they want to give the return to the shareholders.
But the role of a government is to regulate in the interest of
the entire public, not just the people who profit from a
particular business.
The Clean Air Act was adopted in 1970, and in that 20-year
period, it looks like the benefits were massive in terms of the
health of the population, but also economically, those have
been estimated to be in the range of $6 trillion to $50
trillion. That is what it has meant to our economy to have
clean air in the country. So, isn't the premise of regulation
that it is not just going to take care of our people in terms
of food safety and water safety and so on, but it is going to
economically benefit all of society?
Ms. Katzen. Yes, that is certainly a component of it. And
while the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, it was amended in
1990 because of its success, and the provisions for EPA were
strengthened and enforced because so much good had flowed from
the original act.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. Nobody likes regulation, especially when
we are talking about government theocrats telling women what
kind of healthcare they can and cannot get in different parts
of the country, or trying to restrict people's travel in order
to keep them from getting the healthcare they want. But when we
say we want to get rid of regulation in the abstract, everybody
would agree to that. But as you were saying before, if we are
talking about dismantling Clean Air Act rules, or Clean Water
Act rules, or mine safety rules, or airline safety rules, vast
majorities of the American people reject that. Isn't it true
that an effective functioning regulatory state promotes the
freedom of the people?
Ms. Katzen. I believe it does, and it promotes the economy.
It is interesting that we are talking about ``Death by a
Thousand Regulations'' at a time when the growth of jobs in
this country is terrific. We have got less unemployment than
ever, and the strength of the economy is remarkable, so I am
not quite sure how these two play together very well.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Foxx from
North Carolina for 5 minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am very, very
grateful to you for scheduling this hearing, and I thank the
witnesses for being here. I particularly thank Mr. White for
his very clear comments about what the effect of regulations
are on our economy and on our culture. We all know the Biden
Administration's regulatory overreach is out of control. It is
all too common for me to hear from my constituents about new
rules and regulations from the Administration that will put
them out of business and destroy their livelihoods.
We cannot allow this disregard for the cost imposed by the
Federal Government through regulations on families, businesses,
and even local governments to continue increasing unaddressed.
Last month, I introduced H.R. 3230, the Unfunded Mandates
Accountability and Transparency Act, or UMATA as we call it.
This bill would bring real transparency and accountability to
the regulatory process by requiring the true cost of new major
regulations, including those passed on to state and local
governments to be carefully calculated and considered before
implementation.
The Biden Administration has displayed a pattern of grossly
underestimating the cost of new regulations while greatly
exaggerating the purported benefits by gaming the current
system. We need to make sure that Federal rules and regulations
do not unduly burden families and job creators and slow our
economic engine. So, I am going to ask Mr. Campau, Professor
Mulligan, and Mr. White, would the reforms contained in UMATA
help reduce the burden of future rules and regulations? Mr.
Campau?
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Congresswoman Foxx. Yes. UMATA, the
statutes amending, is a terrific statute, and I think it
unfortunately does not get implemented as robustly as it ought
to be, and I welcome the changes in UMATA.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Mr. Campau. I think that they----
Ms. Foxx. Professor Mulligan?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes. Thank you for your question. I have also
been looking at the individual rules from the Biden
Administration, and they are dramatically undercounting costs.
Sometimes they say they are cutting costs when they are really
creating them. And anything you could do to get a better
accounting for those costs so that the people and the Members
of Congress could know better what is happening, I would think
that would be helpful.
Ms. Foxx. And Mr. White?
Mr. White. Thank you, Congresswoman. I would just add,
first, I think it is good for Congress to set these analytic
standards for agencies. Second, I think it is important for
Congress to ensure meaningful judicial review of agency
analysis to make sure that they are properly rigorous. I am
thinking it is just the end of the school year. I know it is
better when students do not grade their own exams, but rather
have the teachers grade them, and I think it is a good thing
when there is at least some check and balance outside of the
executive branch on the agencies' analysis.
Ms. Foxx. Yes, and I think you all have alluded to it
today. We can write legislation a lot more tightly than we
write it, and that has been something I have been working on
for a long time.
You all have talked about the Trump Administration issuing
a series of executive orders to reform the way Federal
regulations are issued. Many of these ideas were inspired by
legislation worked on in the House and by Members of this
Committee. Are there aspects of UMATA that were implemented in
the Trump executive orders? Mr. Campau, I will give you that
question.
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Congresswoman. Yes, we tried to
expand and strengthen the role of analysis. It is something
that has been agreed upon over the decades on a bipartisan
basis that analysis is important, and we tried to strengthen
its role anywhere whenever we could. I noted in my written
testimony several ways that we went about that, and the
transparency aspects of it as well absolutely crucial. We took
major transparency steps with respect to the unified agenda
with respect to posting rules for engagement earlier on across
the board.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Professor Mulligan, I do not have much
time left, but you mentioned in your testimony that the cost in
the Biden Administration in the first 2 years is about $10,000
per household of rules and regulations. It is really a
staggering burden. Is there anything that the Biden
Administration has done to justify this absurd new regulatory
burden?
Mr. Mulligan. No, I am not sure they have acknowledged it.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Connolly from
Virginia for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Well,
Professor Katzen put her finger on the title of this hearing,
which shows you the intellectual dishonesty of you all being
here because this hearing is all about confirmation bias. And
that bias is predicated on a false narrative and a mindless
narrative that all regulation is burdensome, most of it is
unnecessary or duplicative.
It reminds me of the scene in ``Amadeus'' where Amadeus
puts on his very first production for the Emperor of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. And the Emperor goes to greet him
after the performance, and Mozart asks him, ``What did you
think,'' and the Emperor goes, ``Well,'' and the Court Composer
goes, ``Too many notes,'' and the Emperor goes, ``Yes, too many
notes. Cut out a few, it would be perfect.'' That is the
approach to regulation, for every new regulation, let us cut
out two, as if they are all the same. There is no intellectual
distinction between saving a life and making sure a drug is
pure.
Professor Katzen, Upton Sinclair, at the turn of the 20th
century, wrote a book called ``The Jungle''. It led Theodore
Roosevelt, a Republican President, to actually insist on
regulation on food safety for the first time in America. Did
Americans benefit from that series of regulations do you think?
Ms. Katzen. I think they did.
Mr. Connolly. Ralph Nader wrote a book called ``Unsafe at
Any Speed.'' That book led directly to more intensive
regulation of the auto industry. Did that save lives?
Ms. Katzen. I think it did.
Mr. Connolly. And by the way, did the auto industry crash
as a result of this ridiculous or--from that lady from North
Carolina's word--absurd regulation?
Ms. Katzen. I do not think it did. It is still thriving.
Mr. Connolly. No. No. Rachel Carson wrote a book called
``Silent Spring'' that led to the environmental movement in the
United States and the creation of EPA under a Republican
president, Richard Nixon. Well, we have already heard you, but,
I mean, do you think that that movement, the environmental
movement in both clean air, clean water, and looking at
dangerous pesticides and chemicals, was that a good thing?
Ms. Katzen. I think that was a very good thing, and your
questions also show that books are good----
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Ms. Katzen [continuing]. And should not be banned.
Mr. Connolly. Oh, well, that is the kind of regulation some
people seem to like. Now, is there a cost when we do not
regulate? They have talked a lot. We have only heard about the
cost of regulation. What about the cost of the lack of
regulation? Does that ever happen?
Ms. Katzen. It has happened, unfortunately, too frequently
with disasters, such as those mentioned by Mr. Raskin and some
of the ones that I have talked about, where lives are at stake,
or in the financial area where savings are lost.
Mr. Connolly. So, during Trump's 4 years, and apparently,
that was just the paragon of deregulation. Thank God, you know,
somebody cared. He reversed rules requiring oil and gas
companies to monitor and repair leaks in the facilities,
blocked coal companies from dumping debris into local streams,
and mandating braking system upgrades for high hazard trains,
hauling flammable liquids like oil and ethanol. Gosh, what
could go wrong with rescinding those kinds of regulations?
Ms. Katzen. Derailments and explosions and threatening the
air, and, therefore, the lives of the people in East----
Mr. Connolly. Any example come to mind of what could go
wrong with that recently?
Ms. Katzen. Recently, yes, there have been several. Three
or four, I think.
Mr. Connolly. And, for example, the one in Ohio, if I
recall, not only did they have to evacuate parts of the
community, but they are not worried about long-term
environmental costs from the exposure to toxins from that
derailment. Is that correct?
Ms. Katzen. That is correct, and it is consistent with what
we saw after 9/11. We thought after 9/11, that it was just at
that time, but people who were on the site have suffered
unbelievably torturous----
Mr. Connolly. So really, it is sort of in the eye of the
beholder, isn't it, in terms of deregulate or regulate at your
peril, and somebody else is deciding what risks you ought to
take. And the risk of this philosophy of regulation is bad, let
us deregulate everything we can, is that the risk then falls on
the public in terms of health, safety, and life and limb, and
we have seen the consequences of taking that risk all too
often. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Biggs from Arizona
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been really
interesting. We have got one witness who basically thinks
regulations should be apparently endless because they all save
lives. So, I thought I would just bring up some places that we
regulate.
You checked out the ketchup regulations lately? You checked
that out? The ketchup regulations define very clearly what
ketchup is. Normally, we would say how about the marketplace
determine that. I go in and I get the one brand, and I think it
is a little too thick. I am not going to buy it next time, or I
buy one. It is a little too thin, I do not buy that next time.
The ketchup regulations are not designed necessarily for safety
because you got a whole host of safety regulations over here.
Ketchup regulation is about thickness, et cetera.
How about this one? I could pull it up on here. You go over
cheese. Just look at the cheese regulations. Those have nothing
to do with safety, but you got Asiago cheese and old Asiago
cheese, and you got brick cheese, and it is pages and pages and
pages of regulations. And guess what? If you do not adhere, and
if your Asiago cheese does not quite meet that regulation,
guess who investigates you? It is the same people who made the
regulation. Who is going to impose sanctions upon you? The same
group of people. Let us see who else. Oh, buns, buns, hamburger
buns, bakery goods, pages and pages. They are in three
different sections of the CFR. Man, you can go after buns, but
by golly, we are not overregulated. Microphones, they are
regulated. Everything comes back to regulation.
And so, I think one of our witnesses testified just moments
ago that they are the center or axis, or whatever, of basically
lawmaking and policymaking in America today. Really are. Really
are.
How about this one? This was fun, coming from Arizona. The
EPA was going after Arizona, demanding that we pay to clean up
some pollution in the Grand Canyon. They acknowledged that it
was causing no harm to either the Canyon or to personnel. But
the thing that really drove us crazy is that all of that was
coming over, being blown over from the Southern California L.A.
Basin, but we were going to get stuck paying for cleaning it
up. And the process that they were invoking upon us, based on
their regulations, would have cost us tens and tens of millions
of dollars, and yet they admitted it would not change the
appearance, nor would it actually clean the air. That is what
you get when you rely solely on regulations.
How about this one in Arizona? OSHA came after Arizona and
said you have not, as required, adopted our Federal fall
standards, our regulations. We are going to come after you and
shut you down, and we are going to take away your ability to
enact our OSHA standards that we are imposing upon you. Our
response was, but our fall standards are more rigorous and
statistically show a safer fall standard than the Fed's, but we
ended up getting sued. We sued back, and we had to settle and
say we will be less safe, and we will have to adopt the Federal
standards.
When I hear people say that ``man, if you do not have
Federal regulations, you are not going to be safe,'' I think,
well, who is actually applying those Federal regulations? It is
virtually every state. Arizona DEQ applies the EPA standards
for the most part. Arizona's Occupational Labor Department
imposes, in many cases, more rigorous regulatory standards than
OSHA, but we are stuck because OSHA wants to come in and pose.
You want to know why people say we are getting
overregulated? It is because even when a state undertakes its
own regulatory constraints and its own regulatory framework,
the Federal Government insists upon its regulations coming in
as if everybody in a state is a total dumpkin. That is
overreach, and that is the authoritarianism of the fourth
branch of government, Federal regulation, Federal Ministry of
State. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. Very good. The Chair recognizes the
gentlelady from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for 5 minutes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have to
commend Congressman Connolly for his strong performance, and he
took my reference to ``The Jungle'' that I wanted to discuss
today as well. But, you know, it is really just astonishing to
me that we are having a hearing today about regulations, not a
specific regulation, just regulations. Are they good? Should
they exist? Let us dig into it.
We long know that regulations are written in blood. That is
very often what is communicated by people, by communities, by
labor, by workers, by many more, and even now, you know,
hearing a mockery of cheese, right? You have a Republican
saying, oh, look at how tightly regulated our government is. We
even regulate cheese. Well, pregnant women cannot eat all forms
of dairy because this is bacterial. This is a food that
contains bacterial growths, and it poses risks, but perhaps if
the other side of the aisle had more fluency and had more
knowledge of a woman's body, perhaps they would suffer less in
this policymaking.
Let us look at other current regulatory rollbacks that
Republican party is currently trying to pursue. Let us talk
about airlines. Right now, we are seeing that lawmakers and
Republicans are currently trying to push rollbacks on airline
regulations. This has come with the forceful pushback from the
Pilots Association as well as communities that have suffered
and who have lost families on this, but let us dive in. What we
are seeing right now is Republicans trying to rollback a rule
on the number of hours that pilots must require in order to be
licensed. And, Ms. Katzen, are you familiar at all with the
Federal Aviation Administration's 1,500-hour rule?
Ms. Katzen. Very lightly. Yes, I am aware of its
requirements.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes. This rule requires a pilot in
training to have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time before
flying a commercial plane. Seems pretty reasonable to me. If
you are dealing with thousands of people and transporting
thousands of people and commanding an airplane, seems like you
should have pretty thorough training. This rule was enacted,
not because of some bureaucrat having an idea somewhere, but it
was enacted in 2010, following the Colgan airplane crash that
tragically killed 50 people near Buffalo, New York. Now, once
the rule was mandated by Congress, FAA implemented the law. And
we are hearing the same arguments from the other side of the
aisle saying these regulations are too onerous, that it is too
much of an imposition, but these families have paid the price.
They have paid the price. When we see these regulations, and we
have heard it, you know, themselves, including from the
President of the Pilots Association, saying these regulations
are written in blood.
Food regulations. This Committee has overseen PFAS
poisoning. Communities that are often low income that do not
have anyone to protect them. Rural, urban, inner city,
wherever, they are poisoned when they are not protected, and
that is the actual term. People discuss the term
``regulation.'' What these are, are protections for people,
often who have no one else to protect them, who do not have a
corporate legal team to protect them, who have endured loss,
who have endured disease, fertilities, cancers. This is why we
have regulations.
Ms. Katzen, from your experience, and expertise, even
though a rule is mandated by Congress, for a rule like this to
be implemented, it would still have to go through an extensive
process, correct?
Ms. Katzen. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And a rule like this will go through an
extensive process oftentimes to ensure safety for people,
right?
Ms. Katzen. Correct. And the input of those on the ground
who may know more than those who are drafting the rule, so it
is an informed process.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And unsurprising to no one, this
regulation had a massive impact on fatalities with the pilot
training hour requirement. From 1990 to 2010, the FAA counted
1,720 fatalities involving passenger and cargo flights. Once
the rule was finally implemented, from 2011 to 2021, the FAA
counted only 14 fatalities--14--only 14 fatalities after
implementing this rule, when the direct years prior to that we
saw 1,720 Americans dead. And yet we are here discussing
rolling back a regulatory state, not even pointing out a
specific area, not even a specific area. I mean, what are we
here for? I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. But the purpose
of the Committee hearing is to talk about many different
regulations, and I am amused that the gentlelady is concerned
about raising the age, the regulation that limits the age for
pilots, when there is a shortage of pilots, but they are OK
with the President of United States who is more than 20 years
older than the middleman age----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Chairman, as you are referring me,
it is not age. It is training hour time, the number of hours
that an individual is training, not the age.
Chairman Comer. Well, part of the regulation is the age as
well. The Chair recognizes Mr. Armstrong from North Dakota for
5 minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All regulation is
burdensome. The question is whether or not it is necessary.
Being burdensome does not mean it is bad, and in a lot of
different instances, it is absolutely appropriate. But we
reference ``The Jungle,'' and I would reference another book
from that time. It is called ``An Unlikely Trust.'' It is about
the relationship between J.P. Morgan and President Teddy
Roosevelt because at the time of Carnegie, at the time of
Rockefeller, at the time of one of the most popular Presidents
in the history of the country, J.P. Morgan was the most
powerful man in the world.
And as we are busting trusts, and as we are moving through
all of those things, in developing workers' rights, and
fantastic things from, quite frankly, a fantastic President,
big business figured out something else. They can comply with
regulation. The cost of compliance for a large company is
pretty simple to do when you have an entire floor full of
lawyers, full of people. And what that costs them in regulatory
compliance, they make up for in market share because you know
who cannot comply? Small businesses.
Dodd-Frank was never supposed to apply to small businesses,
never was, because regardless of how you feel about the
financial collapse, 2010, you know who did not do it? The
credit union in North Dakota. But you know who had to comply
with Dodd-Frank? The credit union in North Dakota. And when you
have three employees, and you have to hire two more just to
deal with Federal regulatory and compliance, you know, you do
not have any more, a credit agency in North Dakota. And we are
talking about death by a thousand cuts, and that is fine, but
sometimes there is just one.
Right now, the Biden Administration is running a
regulation, Rule 111 of the Clean Air Act, and it is going
through the process, and there are a lot of egregious things
that exist in it. But you know who is going to be OK with that?
Larger oil companies. They will figure out how to comply. You
know who is not? Small oil companies, the ones that produce oil
and gas in Western North Dakota, and how they continue to deal
with this. Professor Mulligan, talk to me about that, and the
nature of the regulatory regime and how it exists, and why it
is so detrimental to small businesses as compared to large
corporations?
Mr. Mulligan. Thank you for your question. I think you
explained it pretty well in terms of the specialized resources
that a large corporation would have to deal with that. You may
find the 2020 Economic Report of the President interesting.
There we talked about. Yet first of all, my testimony was about
things since 2009. ``The Jungle'' and those things were, like,
before my grandparents who are all dead. The regulations had
been going in and out in the last few years are very different
than the ones from a century ago.
But in the economics for the President, we talk about how
President Trump was deregulating entry into business, helping
small businesses get in. And we saw some evidence how the
stocks crashed of some of the bigger companies who were
protected by these regulations, and these allowed medicines to
get to people quicker, so it saved lives. The idea that
regulation saves lives, a lot of the regulations we have today,
they cost lives because they reduce competition. They make it
harder for people to get healthcare, to get medicines and
things like that, so the small businesses are very important
even for saving lives.
Mr. Armstrong. For me, the most concerning aspects of the
proposed Rule 111 is it would delegate regulatory authority to
third-party non-government organizations. The EPA is saying
this is such an important thing for emissions and all of these
things that they are going to allow activist NGOs to monitor
air quality in Western North Dakota. And instead of placing the
burden of proof on the actual activists who are regulating
this, the burden goes on to the company to prove that those
that does not work. That sounds terrible. That is insane. I
mean, I think the issue about the regulatory regime has a lot
more to do with pushing an ideology, which is where people get
frustrated with us.
So, Mr. White, should Congress revisit? I mean, the Supreme
Court is doing it for us, right? The EPA has been struck down
twice in the last 18 months. But how should we look back at
focusing Congress, so we ensure that these agencies are
actually passing a regulation based on conduct and not
ideology?
Mr. White. Well, first of all, the point you raise about
the outsourcing of enforcement power outside of government is a
very important point, and I am glad you raised it. Second, I
think Congress needs to modernize the Clean Air Act and other
statutes. Congress needs to write more standards itself so that
the agencies can focus on enforcement because as mentioned
before, enforcement is often sorely lacking. Sometimes the
problem is too much enforcement. Sometimes the problem is too
little enforcement. Congress should write the policies.
Agencies should enforce them.
Mr. Armstrong. And then I would just say, this particular
issue, the fight is not between regulation and no regulation.
The fight is between dual regulations are allowing states that
are already doing this work, like North Dakota, like New
Mexico, to continue the regulation. The Federal Government is
heavy handed, and it is not very dynamic. And with that, I
yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Bush from
Missouri for 5 minutes.
Ms. Bush. Thank you, Chairman. St. Louis and I are here
today in defense of strong government regulations that keep the
public safe. Republicans claim that regulations slow down the
economy and stifle innovation, but it is pure fantasy to expect
entire industries to self-regulate without government
oversight. Regulations like workplace safety standards enforced
by OSHA, environmental protection provisions enforced by the
EPA, FDA requirements for food production, all keep our
community safer. A world without regulations will look like
asbestos in our schools and workplaces, every corporation
dumping chemicals into rivers, and unfettered use of child
labor, and no safety standards for building construction, for
housing, transportation, agriculture, or consumer products.
According to my colleagues across the aisle, these
regulations do not matter, but that does not mean they are
anti-regulation. Republicans want to regulate access to
abortions. Republicans want to regulate access to gender-
affirming care. Republicans want to regulate books for school
children. None of those issues make us safer.
We have decades of research that proves giant corporations
like Walmart, Amazon, Exxon, Microsoft, Monsanto will cut
corners to save a few pennies, all while making their chief
executives and their shareholders even more rich. If we rely on
these industries to self-regulate, we will undoubtedly end up
with more public health crises. like oil spills and water
contamination, and I am not willing to pay that price. St.
Louis, home to Coldwater Creek and home to West Lake landfill,
we are not willing to pay that price.
While these examples are extreme, you may say, the premise
is not. Federal regulations and modern and effective regulatory
process keeps our community safer. Regulations keep the
financial system strong. They strive to keep drug prices low
and healthcare accessible and affordable. They ensure that
people trying to get a good education or buy a home for their
families are not defrauded by opportunistic and greedy
corporations.
Ms. Katzen, can you provide an example of a Federal
regulation that was rolled back during the Trump Administration
that has resounding impacts today?
Ms. Katzen. Well, there were many examples of rollbacks.
Profound, that may be in the judgment of the observer. I am
thinking of one that recently the Biden Administration is
resurrecting, and that is the gainful employment. We have an
industry of for-profit educational institutions that, with some
misleading data and other activities, attract a number of
people to spend a lot of money. And then they have no
opportunities ever to recoup that, because they are not well
trained, and they are not able to find the kind of employment.
And during the Obama Administration, they restricted taxpayer-
supplied support for those for-profit institutions, and
President Trump rolled that back. Now President Biden is going
forward again to reinstate that.
There are other examples in the environment. I think, Mr.
Raskin talked about mountaintop mining where companies come in
and just slice off the top of the mountain, and it rolls down,
and it contaminates the streams and the water supplies for the
communities around it. And then I think coal dust. I mean,
there are any number of instances where deregulation and
rolling back protections has led to disasters.
Ms. Bush. Thank you for those insights. As you say it,
there are countless examples of industries and companies
failing to self-regulate with catastrophic economic results.
This year, the United States experienced the second, third, and
fourth largest bank failures in history after banks like the
Silicon Valley Bank lobbied to repeal regulations put in place
by Dodd-Frank and then failed catastrophically. The oil and gas
industry pushed for deregulation and lax oversight that
contributed to the disastrous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill,
killing 11 people and causing an estimated $65 billion in
economic losses. At the urging of industry and referencing
standards drafted by the very industry it was supposedly
regulating, former President Trump's Department of Interior
rolled back safeguards to prevent another disaster. This is
absurd.
I will turn it back over to you. Thank you, and I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Grothman from
Wisconsin for 5 minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. At least before redistricting--I
do not know that it is true anymore--I had more manufacturing
jobs in my district than any other district in the country, and
I frequently hear two things. First of all, the level of
regulation compared to even 10 or 12 years ago, and I do not
think we had a crisis of under-regulation in the state in this
country 10 or 12 years ago. But the cost of new regulation and
the degree to which businessowners telling me they never could
have begun their company today because you have to pile on
these regulations one by one, but to get all of these
regulations when your major goal should be to produce a product
and get it out the door, would have made it impossible to start
the company in the first place.
And by the way, I have never heard of anybody ever in a
million years saying we should go back to the days of 1950 when
we just put chemicals in the water. The chances of that
happening are zero, but I would like a comment from, we can
say, Dr. White, as to the cost of regulations on a big
business, a big multinational business, or the small guy and
the cost of regulations in the United States compared to our
competitors in other countries.
Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. As it happens, I am
going to be spending next week in your state near Eagle River
where I am going to be enjoying not just the cheese that was
discussed earlier, but also nature and being out enjoying
nature. It is important to pursue both of these aims.
And to your point, Congressman, I just want to say, first
of all, big businesses can certainly bear the cost of these
things more than smaller businesses, and the effect of that is
a loss of innovation, a loss of startups, a loss of new jobs.
We are often spurred to act in favor of regulation because of
accidents and disasters, and that is a good thing. But we also
need to be spurred toward caution of over-regulation and the
cumulative cost of regulations because of the other disasters
that do not attract headlines, the disasters of families that
do not have enough employment income, jobs that are lost,
innovations and startups that are lost. The lost opportunity
for the United States and its small businesses and large
businesses to supply the world with natural resources that we
can produce much more cleanly and safely than other nations,
each of those is a disaster. And it is a disaster that we guard
against through smart regulatory analysis, looking at not just
the benefits of regulation, but also the costs and making sure
it is transparent.
Mr. Grothman. Do you think sometimes, and I wonder about
this sometimes. I can think of examples leading in this
direction, that big business likes regulation because they know
it forces out the little guy. I mean, if you have six factories
with a thousand employees each, you can adapt to the
regulations a lot more than some startup with 40 employees. Do
you believe that is kind of behind some of these regulations,
it is a way for big business to hurt the little guy?
Mr. White. Well, I remember a decade ago, when I was a
lawyer helping to represent a community bank that filed the
original constitutional lawsuit against Dodd-Frank, I was
struck by statements from the leaders of major banks, who would
often say that the large regulatory programs like Dodd-Frank
were the moat that kept competition from smaller upstarts at
bay.
Mr. Grothman. Exactly. I wish you could kind of repeat that
a little. The people who liked the big regulations are the big
guy who can, you know, spread the cost of learning about them
over a variety of different branches or different factories or
whatever. And that is why I can think of examples here of big
businesses who contact me because they are for big regulations
because they know it keeps the little guy at bay, and banking
is one area of that, right? To get the little bank with 15
employees, it is a lot harder to get up to speed as far as what
is going on than one of these big national dailies, right?
Mr. White. Yes, sir. Surely the larger companies and larger
banks would like to do away with a lot of regulation
themselves, but at the very least, they know that they are in a
better position to bear the costs. And a lot of these
regulatory frameworks force consolidation among the smaller
banks, regional banks, smaller companies into bigger companies,
creating a lack of competition and reinforcing a lot of the
problems that we see today.
Mr. Grothman. Any one of you can jump in on this. One area
I have also felt there is way too much regulation is in the
nursing home industry. And I felt that way 30 years ago, in
which nurses who work there would tell me they spend all day
filling out paper and did not have enough time for their
patients. Would any of you like to comment on that, the
percentage of manhours in a nursing home spent filling out
paperwork as opposed to spending your time taking care of the
older generation?
Mr. Campau. Congressman, I will take that. There is the
discussion about whether we want regulation or deregulation. I
would just note that in 2018, I believe our single biggest
deregulatory action, categorized as deregulatory action, was a
reduction in the paperwork associated with exactly what you
have just said, in nursing homes, inpatient hospitals, skilled
nursing facilities, home healthcare providers. It made almost
no material changes to the standards themselves. It just
reduced the interval of reporting, and just that reduction in
paperwork generated $8.2 billion in regulatory savings. That is
an extraordinary figure across the government and, again,
making almost no material change at all to the actual standard
themselves.
Ms. Katzen. But the reduction in some of the standards of
care did result in a higher proportion of people in nursing
homes dying during the COVID pandemic than senior citizens in
their own homes or in hospitals generally. And the nursing home
industry clearly suffered a huge loss of life at that time.
Mr. Mulligan. Yes, and that was a tragic situation that
would have lasted longer if it were not for Operation Warp
Speed, which was a deregulation that President Trump did in the
FDA and got the vaccines quickly to first and foremost the
nursing home residents.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Brown from
Ohio.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by
highlighting Savannah Williams-Huynh, our 2023 congressional
Foster Youth Delegate. Savannah, welcome to the Oversight
Committee.
Today I am pleased that we are holding a hearing to discuss
the Biden Administration's policies to protect the safety and
well-being of the American people. Unfortunately, President
Biden inherited a Federal Government in disarray. Today we have
learned policies enacted by the previous Administration
protected industries, like Big Pharma, and Big Oil, and the
wealthy, at the expense of everyday people. Right-wing
extremists, including some on the Federal courts have
repeatedly struck down regulations that enhance public health.
So, Ms. Katzen, because of our limited time, I would
respectfully request if you could respond by answering ``yes''
or ``no.'' Does the Administration have the legal authority to
enact rules to lower drug prices and mandate affordable
reproductive healthcare services?
Ms. Katzen. Yes, sort of.
Ms. Brown. OK. Ms. Katzen, are some of the rules and
regulations put forward by Biden-Harris Administration designed
to restore access to public health protections that the Trump
Administration stripped away?
Ms. Katzen. Yes.
Ms. Brown. OK. Thank you. The Biden-Harris Administration
has restored Federal funding to reproductive healthcare clinics
that provide a comprehensive array of essential reproductive
healthcare services. These efforts ensure that women in all
communities, regardless of income, have access to safe and
comprehensive medical care before, during, and after pregnancy.
Such access to affordable healthcare is especially important
for Black and Brown women who bear the brunt of the maternal
mortality crisis in this country.
Last, the Republicans' REINS Act goes as far as requiring
both Chambers of Congress to approve a major rule before it can
go into effect, giving each Chamber veto power over all
agency's actions. Ms. Katzen, what would it mean for public
health if a single Chamber of Congress had the power to block a
major regulation?
Ms. Katzen. The REINS Act has many problems embedded in it,
and there are some constitutional questions about Chadha and
one-house vetoes that are pertinent, but it would be an
absolute nightmare. Congress has a great deal of difficulty
doing its primary job of preparing a budget every year. How
could it conceivably spend the time and effort to review the
regulations that multiple agencies have been producing in
response to authorizing legislation? A nightmare.
Ms. Brown. Thank you very much. The Biden-Harris
Administration is using its rulemaking authority to defend and
enhance access to lifesaving healthcare. The burdens of unjust
regulations are not coming from the Biden-Harris
Administration. They are coming from the agenda on the other
side of the aisle. While Democrats work to protect Americans,
my colleagues attempt to regulate our history and culture. We
regulate pollutants. They regulate books. We regulate tax
cheats. They regulate the LGBTQ community. We regulate assault
weapons, and they regulate abortion.
So let me propose a question. Which requires strict
government regulation, giant industries or our school
librarians? Through rulemaking, President Biden is taking
decisive action to ban ghost guns, expand access to over-the-
counter hearing aids, remove chemicals from our air and
drinking water, and so much more. And because of that, I am
proud to support the people-centered regulatory action of the
Biden-Harris Administration. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Comer. Will the lady yield a question?
Ms. Brown. No, the lady will not.
Chairman Comer. OK. Well, Mr. Fallon, I guess, the Chair
recognizes you for 5 minutes. I was just going to ask what the
President's position was on regulating tax cheats, but the
Chair recognizes you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fallon. Chairman. Thank you. I think we might find that
out soon with a lot of the information that we have been
discovering of late.
You know, my colleague, Mr. Donalds, said the rhetoric that
you hear in committees are sometimes really remarkable. Want to
regulate books. Federal Government has not done that. That is
happening at the state level. And, yes, you know what we want
to regulate? I do not know. Explicit pornography in elementary
schools. Yes, I am all for banning those kinds of books in an
elementary school. Just, it is really astounding. Limited
government, low taxes, reasonable regulation. This is why I ran
for office in the first place because I believe in those three
things. We heard earlier that we are anti-regulation. That is
absolutely patently absurd. We are for reasonable regulation
because there is also such thing as over regulating.
And as a small business owner, I take particular umbrage
with that because I started with absolutely nothing. It is an
American Dream story kind of thing, and many Members of
Congress have done that. And you get crushed if you are a small
guy or gal trying to start a business with sometimes
regulation. It is a very dangerous thing to be very cutting. I
just think that we need to address that because really hearing
some of this, the Socialist Marxist talking points over and
over again, is just a beating. And I really try to talk about
substantive things here and not just constantly attack our
friends across the aisle.
So as the Chairman of the Economic Growth, Energy, and
Regulatory Subcommittee, we are no stranger to regulations and
the avalanche that has been unleashed by the Biden
Administration. Under Joe Biden, agencies across the government
have been issuing crippling and costly regulations at a record
pace. This is actually happening, and it is real, and it has
real consequences, and it costs the American taxpayer and the
American citizen more in the long run because it is
philosophical. Do you trust unelected government bureaucrats,
or do you trust the American people more? I trust the American
people more, and I will default to that every day.
Again, I am not saying we need to live in a world of sans,
absent of regulation, but we need to be reasonable about it.
That is one of the reasons why my home state of Texas, and
Florida, and North Dakota, states like that, are booming and
successful because we understand that concept, that there needs
to be a balance between entrepreneurialism, and business, and
the environment, and protections for consumers. There always
needs to be a balance, and that is why other states like
Illinois, New York, and California are bleeding opportunity in
business and people because people, ladies and gentlemen, vote
with their feet. And that is why you got one more electoral
vote and we got two because we are doing it the right way. And
people do not move to Texas for our majestic mountain visitors
or our refreshingly cool longest afternoons. California has got
all of that. They are doing it because they want opportunity
and prosperity and to live the American Dream.
You know, so according to the Foundation for Government
Accountability, Joe Biden has issued more than $200 billion in
new regulations in his first year in office. Two billion. So, I
have got just a couple of questions to some very smart people
that are visiting with us today, as witnesses.
Professor Mulligan and Mr. White, some of the most
substantial and, you know, things that were impacted by more
regulations are low-income communities get to have to bear the
brunt of that, unfortunately, whether it be through higher
electric bills or vehicle costs, and they do not have a lot of
margins of error, as well as retirees and investors through
climate disclosures and ESG rules impacting returns. What are
some of the examples of downstream impacts of excessive
regulation? Professor, do want to go first?
Mr. Mulligan. Higher prices.
Mr. Fallon. Yes.
Mr. Mulligan. And in my testimony, it was Figure 2, I
showed how the earlier Congress had deregulated
telecommunications and the big drop in the price of your
cellphone plan and your home internet plan, which is a big part
of the budget for lower-income families. It was such a big
thing that the Federal Reserve was puzzled. Why is inflation
going down? And it is because one thing that this previous
Congress had done to deregulate and make it easier for a wider
range of choice for internet consumers.
Mr. Fallon. So, you are saying choice actually brings down
the cost and free market competition?
Mr. Mulligan. It was competition, yes.
Mr. Fallon. Interesting. Well, do you think these increased
regulatory burdens? So, they clearly increased prices, but what
do you think? Does it have a disproportionate impact to small
businesses, these kinds of regulatory burdens?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes, definitely. Often the regulations more
or less prohibit what the new guys are trying to create and
trying what the incumbent companies are making.
Mr. Fallon. Yes. And, you know, we are a country of the
underdog, and a lot of the time, you know, big businesses get
besmirched. But they were at one point a small business, and
they just did things well, but they wish to keep them on their
toes. We have also seen very large corporations fail eventually
due to competition and not keeping up with trends and market,
and what have you.
Last question, Mr. Mulligan. I understand that your
research has found that if the Biden Administration continued
the Obama Administration's regulatory pace for a full 8 years,
the cumulative cost on rulemaking could exceed, is that right,
$60,000 a household?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes, 60,000 per household.
Mr. Fallon. That is remarkable. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Thanks.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia from
California for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want
to just thank our witnesses for being here.
I just want to just go back to something because it is
truly crazy, some of the comments that have come out of this
hearing. And I want to go back to something that was said about
deregulating nursing homes, which was a completely shameful
comment in my opinion. It has been clearly recorded,
particularly during the pandemic, that the deregulation of
nursing homes is actually what caused likely thousands of
seniors in nursing homes to die during the pandemic.
And, Ms. Katzen, I just want you to address again, one more
time, because I was Mayor during the pandemic, the entire time,
back home in Long Beach, California. And the issue of
deregulation around nursing homes and our inability to actually
meet that challenge caused countless loss of life, and so can
you expand on that just a little bit? I know you mentioned that
just a minute ago.
Ms. Katzen. Thank you for your question. There had been a
lot of efforts from 2010 on to increase the regulations of
nursing homes, not only in terms of the training of personnel,
but also the number of people who were taking care of people
who could not take care of themselves, and they were fiercely
fought by the industry. And when there was an opportunity,
there were rollbacks on the requirements. Flash forward to the
pandemic, and I cannot get out of my mind the front-page
pictures of people talking to their loved ones through windows
and being unable to comfort those who were in nursing homes,
who then died as a result of a lack of care.
Mr. Garcia. That is a horrifying image that we all
remember. And I want to remind folks that we get elected to
Congress and are here in government because we actually believe
in doing the most good, and that we actually believe that
government is actually here to actually help people. And so, I
am one of those that believes that government is here to
actually help people. And I know that we spent in this Congress
last week fighting about, and infighting, and losing control of
the House, and losing control of votes, and we are carrying on
all of these hearings. I mean, this hearing seems to be about
fighting for big polluters and not actually people that need
our help.
And I want to talk about regulations really briefly as it
relates to pollution. It is a huge concern of mine back home in
my district, though. In 1977, Congress, of course, passed the
Clean Air Act and, which we know, delegating broad authority to
the EPA to regulate air pollutions. And I want to note that
this has worked incredibly well. This was a major regulatory
change, regulations passed and with a lot of opposition, of
course, in L.A. and Long Beach back where I am from. Back
before the Clean Air Act, we had over 200 days a year where air
was either unhealthy to hazardous, I mean, horrible. It was
much like the air in D.C. just last week. Now, just last year,
the 200 days was reduced. Now we had 27 unhealthy air days, and
only one was actually hazardous.
So, it is clear that smart regulation, climate regulation
can actually save lives, direct lives. Regulations around
protecting people in nursing homes can actually save lives. And
so, we know that government intervention, when necessary,
especially against large corporations that really oftentimes
have zero to little interests in helping people, actually
works. So, it is hard to understand why so many of my
Republican colleagues constantly are fighting against basic
laws that actually help and support people.
And the other thing I just want to note, which I think is
important before I yield back the remainder of my time, a lot
of the regulations that we are talking about today also are
helping communities that need the most help, and oftentimes,
these are communities of color. These are low-income
communities. They are depending on us to survive, to live, and
to provide them a better life experience.
And just to the Committee and to the Chairman, I know a few
weeks ago, we had one of my Republican colleagues mention how
important it was also to have diverse experiences and diverse
witnesses when we have Committees. And I just want to make a
note for the record, I appreciate always having a diverse set
of experiences as witnesses. And if it was important for these
hearings on D.C., it certainly is important when we have
discussions about regulations and how they impact people,
especially low-income people, communities of color, every
single day. And so that is something that I would appreciate
seeing forward in future hearings. And with that, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes, Mr. Palmer, from
Alabama for 5 minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Professor Mulligan,
you wrote a book called ``The Redistribution Recession,'' and I
think it was based on what the Obama Administration did with
their American Restoration Recovery Act. And in that, I think
you pointed out that all of the predictions, for all of the new
rules and regulations that the Obama Administration was
imposing through that, resulted really in a reduction in
employment. Is that correct, or am I off a little bit on that?
Mr. Mulligan. You are correct. Thank you for reading that.
Mr. Palmer. I try to look for factual information and try
not to make things political. My concern is, having grown up
dirt poor myself, is how people misunderstand regulations and
business taxes for that matter. And some people in this room, I
think, think that there is no real downside to regulatory
costs. But the fact of the matter is, and you correct me if I
am wrong on this, businesses do not pay taxes, and they do not
pay regulatory cost. Who pays that?
Mr. Mulligan. Consumers and workers when they earn the
money and when they go spend it.
Mr. Palmer. So, it is very inflationary, isn't it? And as I
understand it, the first year of the Biden Administration, they
added over $200 billion in new regulatory costs, three times
what the Obama Administration did in the first year they were
in office. Does that ring a bell with you?
Mr. Mulligan. In my testimony, I point out that they are
missing a lot of costs, so it is more like $600 billion.
Mr. Palmer. Yes, and they are on track to add even more
before the end of this first term, which will further increase
the burden on low-income families. I mean, we do not live in
$2.5 million houses. You know, I lived in a house my dad built
himself and shared a bedroom with my brother that had cardboard
join the two floors. So, when you start adding on those
repertory costs to get passed on to the consumer, whether it is
in the form of groceries or household utility cost, it is an
enormous burden on people.
One of the things that concerns me about some of the
regulations and policies of the Biden Administration is what
has happened in Europe just this past winter when just a few
weeks ago, a report came out that indicated 68,000 Europeans
died because they could not afford their household utility
bills. These people had cardiovascular problems, respiratory
problems. I am concerned about that happening here in the
United States as they continue this, the regulations that are
impacting our power grid. Do you have any concerns about that?
Mr. Mulligan. One of the things I did look at it and was in
Figure 3 in my testimony, was how low-income households are
affected by the cost of so many things. In particular, one of
the categories in that chart is energy, and energy is a big
part of the budget for low-income households. And it can be
very tough on them if regulations or other things raise energy
prices.
Mr. Palmer. How about how it impacts business? One of the
things that came out was a report from the Gallup research arm,
and it said that prior to 2008, there were about 100,000 more
business startups than there were closures, but by the end of
2014, there were 70,000 more business closures. When you get
right down to the core numbers, there are about 6 million or 7
million businesses, maybe somewhere in that range, that really
provide employment for the United States. Does that sound about
right?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes. In that order of magnitude, yes.
Mr. Palmer. Yes. So, when you overregulate business and you
start losing businesses, we start to lose our really
entrepreneurism here because, as I tried to point out to
people, when you over regulate the economy, you overtax the
economy, money is just like water. It will always seek the
paths of least resistance, and that is, you start losing
capital investment. Has that been your experience as an
economist?
Mr. Mulligan. I mean, one of the issues with central
planning and regulation is it is not very innovative. It is
much easier as a regulator if things were like they were
yesterday. And your small businesses, their entire intention is
to make things different than they were yesterday, have a new
idea, a new thing.
Mr. Palmer. But you also hear all the time about how low
the unemployment rate is, but you never hear anyone talk about,
at least on the other side of the aisle, about how low the
labor participation rate is. And is that a function of
regulations, or is that a function of policies that maybe pay
people not to work?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes, I think that some of the other tax and
spending policies. What we do see from the regulation is very
low real wages. Real wages has fallen, I think, a record 25 or
26 months in a row, very low productivity of workers. As we
predicted, regulation would lead to that.
Mr. Palmer. And that is death by thousand cuts. Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Lee from
Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On October 27, 2018, a
virulent anti-Semite used an AR-15 and three handguns to murder
11 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in my district of
Pittsburgh. The man accused of this heinous act, the deadliest
antisemitic attack in our Nation's history, is on trial in
Federal court as we speak. This is just one of hundreds of mass
shootings that have damaged our communities. So, the question
is, how did we get here? How do we end up where a loud and
proud bigot is able to buy an arsenal of weapons of war and use
them to murder people in cold blood?
It starts with Republican pro-gun obsession that seizes
every opportunity to prevent agencies, like the ATF and the
FBI, from enforcing regulations and prevents introducing new
commonsense regulations. They have even limited the authority
to expand background checks on gun purchases. They have
systematically blocked ATF's ability to create a searchable
online data base to trace weapons. They have done their best to
neuter Federal agencies, and now they want to expand their
plans across the government through the REINS Act.
Ms. Katzen, why is it that, historically, Congress has
granted agencies broad discretion in their rulemaking
authority?
Ms. Katzen. First, may I say that I was born and raised in
Pittsburgh, and I am Jewish, and the Tree of Life massacre
truly touches home. But you do not have to live there or come
from a place to mourn each mass shooting that occurs in this
country. It is unbelievable to me that it persists, and I am
sorry to abuse your time----
Ms. Lee. No, please.
Ms. Katzen [continuing]. To make those views expressed.
Congress delegates to the agencies because the agencies have
the expertise and the experience to be able to translate broad
objectives into specific requirements or responsibilities. They
have people who are schooled in the technology, or in the
science, or in the economics, or even in the law. And they are
able to do this kind of work, and that is why the delegation
occurs.
Ms. Lee. So would a bill like the REINS Act, in your
opinion, undermine the expertise of agencies and bring undue
political pressure into the rulemaking and approval process?
Ms. Katzen. I am sorry, yes, I believe strongly that the
REINS Act would be taking a step in the wrong direction.
Ms. Lee. So, does Congress already have the authority to
strike down final rules they disapprove of through the
congressional Review Act?
Ms. Katzen. Yes, they do.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. My Republican colleagues want to
pretend that thoughts and prayers are enough to stop bullets as
if they do not have the power to make our community safer.
Instead, this week, Republicans chose to advance a resolution
that would thrust more guns and gun accessories onto our
streets. Their resolution seeks to prevent ATF from closing a
loophole created by gun manufacturer selling pistol braces that
convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle. The same pistol
braces have been used in the Club Q shooting in Colorado last
year and at the Covenant School shooting in Nashville just a
few months ago.
This issue should be simple. We want our neighbors to be
able to worship without fearing for their lives. We want our
children to come back home from school every day. We want our
queer and trans friends to be able to celebrate pride, free
from the threat of violence. We owe the American people real
action toward better gun safety. And I with that will yield the
balance of my time. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Timmons from South
Carolina for 5 minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses for joining us today. It is quite clear that the
Biden Administration is attempting to strong-arm its Big
Government agenda on this country via regulatory action.
Whether it is the EPA, DOL, or ATF, executive rulemaking under
this Administration has ensured each and every part of the day-
to-day life of the American public will face a greater
compliance burden than they did just a few short years ago.
Today I would like to focus on the ATF's recent regulatory
actions, specifically their rule entitled, ``Factoring Criteria
for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Braces.'' This rule is
not only a direct reversal of a previous interpretation made by
the Agency, but it is also an irrefutable attack on the Second
Amendment. By categorizing pistols using stabilizing braces as
short-barreled rifles, the ATF has turned millions of Americans
into felons who are in direct violation of the National
Firearms Act and now face up to 10 years in prison if they do
not register, surrender, or destroy their firearm. This
represents a dark new precedent where executive agencies can
subvert congressional authority to become judge, jury,
executioner, and now legislator.
And I live in the upstate of South Carolina. I represent
Greenville and Spartanburg. I can assure you that I have
probably 5,000 to 10,000 constituents that are affected by
this. So, Mr. White, what precedent does the ATF's reversal of
the definition of a pistol brace set?
Mr. White. Excuse me, sir. What precedent does it set?
Mr. Timmons. What precedent does it set?
Mr. White. I am not quite sure how to answer that, sir. I
would say, first of all, the change of policy on that issue, it
will raise a number of questions under current administrative
law, the scope of the policy, the so-called major questions
doctrine. The Supreme Court has said that when agencies change
policies that affect people's settled reliance interests, that
is going to be a big consideration for judicial review. And so,
to the extent that this has retroactive effects on things that
people already own, on guns that people already own----
Mr. Timmons. Can you think of another instance where the
Federal Government has criminalized owning something that
previously was legal to purchase?
Mr. White. I am trying to think of a----
Mr. Timmons. Ms. Katzen, can you think of another example
where the Federal Government has criminalized the ownership of
something that previously was legal to purchase? And do you
think that is appropriate?
Ms. Katzen. I am not sure that the interpretation of the
regulation is criminalizing something which was previously
legal. There is a requirement now----
Mr. Timmons. My brother bought one less than 6 months ago,
and now he is a felon if he does not register it.
Ms. Katzen. Oh, but then he is not a felon if he does
register.
Mr. Timmons. So, but----
Ms. Katzen. I can buy a car, but before I drive it, I have
to learn how to drive it, and I have to take a test.
Mr. Timmons. But if you bought a car and none of that
existed, and then we said, OK, if you do not do all of these
things, it is now illegal and you will go to prison. Is there
another example you can think of where the Federal Government
retroactively changes a criminal code? Not even Congress. Not
even Congress. Just the executive branch.
Ms. Katzen. It is not retroactively changing if there is a
condition precedent that, if undertaken, would no longer leave
you in jeopardy----
Mr. Timmons. How many Americans do you think follow the
ATF's rulings? I mean, there are 40 million out there. Let us
just say it is, what, 2 million, 3 million people. Do you think
they are all required to go to the ATF's website and see that
this is now illegal, and that the FBI should be able to go and
arrest them and say you are going to prison for 10 years for
owning something that it was illegal when you purchased it? Do
you think that is appropriate?
Ms. Katzen. I do not think that will occur.
Mr. Timmons. Oh, really? Oh, really? But it can.
Mr. Raskin. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Timmons. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Raskin. Well, isn't that precisely what is happening in
a lot of red states with abortion? There was a constitutional
right to get one and now it is a crime?
Mr. Timmons. That is the judicial branch making a decision
about existing law----
Mr. Raskin. And then a legislature----
Mr. Timmons [continuing]. Not an executive branch.
Mr. Raskin. But I thought you were looking at it from the
standpoint of the citizen. Someone had a constitutional right
to get this healthcare and suddenly it is a crime.
Mr. Timmons. I do not think there is a single scenario
where somebody has been entitled to an abortion and then the
Supreme Court decision, and then state law has changed that has
resulted in them going to prison. So, I mean, this is real.
This affects millions of people, and it is different than that.
I appreciate your nuance, but it is not the same, and it is not
affecting millions of Americans' Second Amendment Rights.
Look, this is wrong. We are weaponizing the Federal
Government. The left continues to use the executive branch to
achieve objectives they cannot achieve in Congress, and we have
to stop that because as the pendulum swings so wildly, our
society is going to have a very difficult time adjusting to
this new status quo. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Moskowitz from Florida for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Breaking news.
Federal Government has too much red tape, right? Here we go
again. Not a serious hearing and actually looking at specific
government regulation and red tape. Look at the name of this
hearing. It does not say executive branch red tape or Federal
Government red tape. It is titled, ``The Biden Administration's
Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape.'' This is their hearing,
literally, just red tape with Joe Biden's name written on it.
Just make it real simple for people. That is the point of this
hearing. It is not about solving problems. It is about red
painter's tape with Joe Biden's name written on it. Look what
Joe Biden has done. Look, it is right there. Here is the proof.
Professor Katzen, serious question. Was red tape invented
by Joe Biden?
Ms. Katzen. No, sir.
Mr. Moskowitz. OK, good. You know, my colleagues across the
aisle used to be the party of smaller government, and I wish
they still had credibility in wanting to shrink the size of
government. They want more government now
--government in women's bodies, government in the bedroom,
government in the library, government in corporate investments,
government in Disney World--you know, and all we want to do is
go back to Trump. I mean, every hearing, it is like, oh, just
if we could just go back to what Trump did, you know, the loser
of the 2020 election, the loser of the Georgia Senate races,
the loser of the 2018 midterms.
By the way, just to jog your memory, the Trump
Administration finalized more Federal rules in the last year of
its Administration than any other final year of any presidency
in American history, more than Obama. I know it is inconvenient
timing, but perhaps we actually need more regulation with
Presidents taking nuclear codes, and cuddling with them, and
showering with them in their homes.
You know, I want to answer the Representative's question on
ATF and pistol braces. Has that ever happened before? Well, in
fact, yes. It happened under the Trump Administration. With
Trump's ATF, they banned bump stocks. Bump stocks were legal,
and then they were not. The Trump Administration's ATF did
that. By the way, good decision. People should not be able to
turn guns into automatic weapons. Let us not forget that some
of our colleagues, you know, went on camera when Sacha Baron
Cohen got into their office and said that they think
kindergartners should have guns. We heard that this is all
about big corporations, that big corporations now like
regulation. Well, by the way, just a little public service
announcement. If you are mad at big corporations, you do not
have to take their money anymore. That is not, like, a
mandatory thing.
By the way, Professor Mulligan, you brought up Operation
Warp Speed. I just want to give you an update on that. Some of
our colleagues across the aisle now do not believe that
deregulation was very good. They have soured on the
deregulation of Operation Warp Speed and actually believe that
that led to bad outcomes. I do not agree, but I just wanted you
to have that update if you have been following the rhetoric
coming from that side of the Chamber.
We heard about the marketplace. Let the marketplace decide
these decisions. Really? We had a whole hearing on ESG. That
was the marketplace talking. Nope, they did not like it.
Government regulation, we got to ban it. They want to ban it,
more regulation, because they did not like what the marketplace
had to say.
Listen, regulations are hurting small businesses. They are,
so let us actually work together and solve that problem.
Paperwork for a mortgage is too burdensome. Let us make that
easier. That should be the point of this hearing. How can we
help the American people? How can we reduce regulation? Let us
talk about specific ideas that we can do that together. No one
here believes that we do not have enough regulation. No, there
are things that we could reduce things to make it easier for
the American people.
By the way, we are going to have to remove red tape and
shrink bureaucracy if we want to compete with China. We are
going to have to do those things, but maybe Congress should
work again. You know, you are mad about all the rulemaking in
the executive branch. It is because this place stopped
lawmaking. We do not make laws here anymore because we are too
busy doing this. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Donalds, for 5 minutes. You have got big shoes to
fill from your colleague in Florida that you succeeded here.
Mr. Donalds. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, my
colleague from Florida, Mr. Moskowitz, this is actually old hat
for us back from our days in the Florida Legislature.
Look, a couple of things. These hearings, I do agree,
typically are fun, but the reality is, is that regulations at
the Federal level, and I think it is important to show us a
couple of things. Regulations at the Federal level, over-
regulation at the Federal level does have a massive undue
burden on small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and micro
businesses. It is your mom-and-pop businesses that are started
by a lot of people in our country, all across every
socioeconomic background. The big players, the Fortune 500
guys, they do not really care too much actually about
regulation. The area we are seeing that more, I believe, than
in any other part of our government happens to be in the
financial industry. In the financial industry, the big banks
really do not care.
I had a meeting actually with some of those larger banks,
their representatives, and I said, well, guys, you know, the
regulatory environment and banking is really restrictive. It is
going to cause us major issues. What if we just got rid of
Dodd-Frank? You know, it was passed on a partisan basis many
years ago. I believe it is probably the worst financial
regulatory framework we have ever created. It actually has done
the thing that we were told it would never do. It actually made
the big banks bigger, and we were told that it would stop too
big to fail. Well, we all see now that is not true. What do you
think about getting rid of it, and you know what they say? They
say, well, we have kind of already built out our programming
and compliance system, so it is kind of hard to get out of
that. Meanwhile, small banks are being eviscerated.
Let us talk about where we are today. In March 2022, the
Department of Labor began to scrutinize and recommended against
all 401(k) plans that include the opportunity to invest in
cryptocurrencies, i.e., that is telling small businesses and
businesses that in 401(k) plans that they actually sponsor for
their employees, that cryptocurrency options should not be
allowed for the employees to invest in. Mr. White, do you view
this as an overregulation from the Biden Administration?
Mr. White. Thank you for your question, and, yes, I do.
Mr. Donalds. No. 2, the EPA, under the Biden
Administration, has actually set a very ambitious and
unrealistic emissions-regulated goal for electric vehicle
deployment throughout the United States. I just had a meeting
with a bunch of car dealers, and you know what they are telling
me? They are saying that nobody comes into a car dealership
looking for an electric vehicle, but the Biden Administration's
own emissions policy is force feeding electric vehicles onto
the auto markets here in the United States. Professor Mulligan,
do you believe this is an excessive over regulation of the auto
industry?
Mr. Mulligan. Yes. We looked at the even more gentle
regulations through the compliance market was costing hundreds
of dollars per ton of CO2 when President Obama said it was only
worth $50, so it has Americans way overpaying for a
comparatively minor environmental benefit. Added on top of they
are cutting back the supply of electricity that we are supposed
to charge these things with. So economically, it is really
amazing thing for me to watch, but it is going to be hard for
consumers to deal with.
Mr. Donalds. Now, listen. Director Chopra is actually in
Financial Services right now. I will be seeing him soon. But
the CFPB is trying to enact Rule 1071, something from Dodd-
Frank that has taken them about 12 years to try to figure out,
and they finally want to get around to that, too. And the
desire is to increase reporting requirements of financial
institutions when they give loans to small businesses, et
cetera, and all these kind of business levels. Ms. Katzen, do
you think that the CFPB extends itself into overregulating
companies within our entire economic system? Do you think that?
Ms. Katzen. No, sir. I think they have been acutely aware
of the statutory authorities that they have been granted, and
that they have done remarkably well in helping individuals who
are often confronted with financial documents they cannot
understand, they cannot deal with.
Mr. Donalds. Let me ask you this question because last time
I checked, Ms. Katzen, the CFPB does not help people read their
financial documents. What the CFPB does is they walk around
fining companies for activities that the CFPB thinks that are
not helpful to the consumer. But what we also understand and
what I definitely understand is that the CFPB is unaccountable.
They do not have to report to Congress, and, frankly, that is
in front of the Supreme Court now. And they try to defend
having their own director not being answerable to the President
of the United States.
So, do you think it is constitutional to have an agency
with policing powers and finding powers under the auspices of
the U.S. Government to be wholly unaccountable to Congress? Do
you think that is constitutional?
Ms. Katzen. That case is before the Supreme Court----
Mr. Donalds. No, I am not asking the Supreme Court. I am
asking you.
Ms. Katzen. Well, they had previously decided the Seila Law
case in which they held that the director could be fired by the
President. He did not have an at-cause will. And the reason
that the CFPB is able to select certain documents that they
want to question is because of complaints that come in and from
information that they receive. They do not just----
Mr. Donalds. All right, Ms. Katzen. I am over time. I am
over time, and that is an interesting point you were making.
Mr. White, I am going to let you answer because I see you are
chomping at the bit, and I think that is going to close us out.
Go ahead.
Mr. White. I will be brief, Mr. Chairman. I will just say I
have been working on this issue for more than a decade since
Dodd-Frank was created. I helped C. Boyden Gray and others file
the original constitutional lawsuits. And while it is true that
with respect to the CFPB, the Supreme Court has corrected the
problem of a lack of executive branch accountability, from the
start, the greatest flaw in the CFPB's construction was making
it independent of Congress' power of the purse and allowing the
CFPB to treat the Federal Reserve as its own independent slush
fund. I am very glad that the Supreme Court is reviewing that
issue this fall, and I hope the Supreme Court follows through
similarly as to in the Seila Law case.
Mr. Donalds. All right. I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Very good. The Chair recognizes Mr. Frost
from Florida for 5 minutes.
Mr. Frost. So, this week, House Republicans have us voting
on the REINS Act, a proposal they say will reform the
rulemaking process and cut red tape, when the reality is that
this is a plot to take power away from experts and put it in
their own hands. And for those who do not know, this bill would
mean that many agency rules could not advance without the
approval from Congress and that they are automatically vetoed
after 10 weeks of inaction. That means Members of the Majority
can kill regulation without even ever having voted on them,
forever. This is a power grab by Republican Members of Congress
with no experience in the specialized agency matters and
allegiances to big and often unknown lobbyists. This would be a
nightmare.
And so, let us look at what rules and regulations House
Republicans have tried and thankfully failed in trying to
reverse under the current process. Mr. White, are you familiar
with the EPA's rule on heavy truck emissions?
Mr. White. In general, yes.
Mr. Frost. Republicans tried to shut down the EPA's change
in heavy truck emission standards enacted to keep our air
clean. By 2045, it would have prevented kids from missing over
a million days of school, up to 2,900 fewer premature deaths
and a net $29 billion in benefits annually. Mr. White, is
knowledge and experience of clean air and fair industry
standards a prerequisite for becoming a Member of Congress?
Mr. White. No. We trust the people to vote on merit.
Mr. Frost. No, it is not a prerequisite. Unlike those
involved in the rulemaking process at the EPA, Mr. White, are
you familiar with the Department of Labor's prudence and
loyalty in selecting plan investments and exercising
shareholders rights rule?
Mr. White. No, not specifically.
Mr. Frost. Mr. White, are the Republicans who held a vote
to overturn this rule experts in securities investments and
financial risk, or are they some of the same Republicans that
voted to overturn rules that would have prevented our recent
bank collapse?
Mr. White. Well, I do not know which Republicans
specifically voted for it. I know there is expertise in the
Agency. I also know there is expertise in the private sector
and among state regulators and others, but beyond the
specifics, I do not know much about that vote.
Mr. Frost. Are you familiar with the ATF's rule to
reclassify stabilizing braces?
Mr. White. Generally, yes.
Mr. Frost. Yesterday, House Republicans held a vote to try
and overturn this rule, which would require background checks
for rifles to be converted into assault weapons. Mr. White, is
the ATF a body of elected Republican officials who in 2017
received $5.9 million from the gun lobby?
Mr. White. I am sorry, I do not know the answer to that
question.
Mr. Frost. I will ask it again. Is the ATF a body of
Republican elected officials who received over $5 million from
the NRA?
Mr. White. No, the----
Mr. Frost. They are not. The ATF has not. In fact, they are
not beholden to the NRA, which is exactly why I trust them to
make decisions that are not biased toward the gun manufacturers
and the gun lobby.
Mr. White. May I just add one more sentence?
Mr. Frost. Yes.
Mr. White. Let me just say very briefly, I am very
concerned about gun violence in our cities and in our schools,
and I know that the Supreme Court's rulings under the Second
Amendment leaves space for some reasonable regulation on this.
I want to say also it is important for a lot of these decisions
to be made in the communities and the states where they are
most familiar with both the context, the community, and the
problems. And my concern with all that being decided by one
particular agency is that we lose a lot of expertise about the
community itself.
Mr. Frost. OK. Thank you, Mr. White. Are you aware that
over 90 percent of Americans are for universal background
checks?
Mr. White. I did not know that, and I myself----
Mr. Frost. Yes, most Americans, most Republicans, most
Democrats, and most NRA members are for it, yet it has not
happened here. Pistol braces were used to make modified assault
weapons in mass shootings in Boulder, Nashville, Colorado
Springs, and Daytona. They need to be regulated as assault
weapons.
I also want to say we heard a lot about the theme of the
Founders. I reject the attempt to use the Founders to justify
this power grab. In history, we take the best with us, and we
learn from the worst. There are many themes that the founders
had that we reject now: women being able to vote, me being a
slave. We take the best, and we learn from the worst. As Mr.
White has established, House Republicans' version of
deregulation is simply a power grab. It is great for gun
manufacturers. It is great for the oil and gas lobby, and it is
bad for everyone else.
And one other thing. My colleague was asking the question
of times, examples where government has taken away rights that
people had before et cetera. My colleague brought up the right
to bodily autonomy. I also want to bring up the fact that in
Florida, we passed Amendment 4, the people passed an amendment
to give voting rights to people with previous felonies. Twelve
of those people went to vote and were given a card that said
you are registered to vote, and Ron DeSantis and the Republican
legislature sent a police force to their door, arrested them,
brought them to jail for a right they were told they had by the
government. This has happened before, but just in ways that
impact poor and working people. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Fry from South
Carolina for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since taking office, the
Biden Administration has usurped an incredible amount of
authority to push what they cannot do in Congress, but push
their liberal agenda, ultimately trying to fundamentally change
the makeup of this country. I mean, think about it. Since day
one, they have gone after the constitutional rights of law-
abiding gun owners. They have pushed a ridiculous amount of
regulations on our businesses, small businesses. They are
prioritizing ESG standards over Americans' retirement funds.
They have put green energy over practical energy production.
They have decided Americans should not own gas stoves, as
absurd as that sounds, and they even feel the need to regulate
puddles.
Under the leadership of this administration, agencies like
the ETF, ATF, EPA, SEC, and FTC feel emboldened to extend their
scopes of power beyond what Congress has intended and instead
of pursuing a responsible and effective regulatory agenda.
Government agencies were never meant to act like this. This is
Congress' role, yet this Administration continues to push it
and costing families and businesses all across this country an
insane amount of money. They have been stifled in court cases,
West Virginia v. EPA most recently, but it is not enough. They
continue to push this.
So, Mr. White, Biden's administrative state approach varies
greatly from the approach of President Trump and allows for
much less gatekeeping by the current OMB. What lessons can be
learned from both approaches?
Mr. White. Well, thank you for your question. I think the
first lesson learned is that transparency is important. Some of
the Trump Administration agencies' and OIRAs' most significant
modernizations were promoting transparency around the
rulemaking process. Sunshine is always the best disinfectant.
That is a timeless lesson. But I think it is also a lesson we
are relearning now in the aftermath of the Administration and
the agencies pulling down a lot of the curtains that have been
raised up by the previous administration.
Mr. Fry. Thank you. Professor Mulligan, the House has
passed eight CRA resolutions rebuking the Administration's
regulatory overreach. Has the Administration made any effort to
halt that overreach?
Mr. Mulligan. I have not followed up on those CRA motions
and actions.
Mr. Fry. Mr. White, do you care to comment on that?
Mr. White. I am sorry to plead ignorance, but I have not
followed them as closely either.
Mr. Fry. Have you seen any attempt by the Administration to
curtail their regulatory authority in light of Congress and a
lot of the courts?
Mr. White. No, sir. In fact, I am concerned about the
brazenness with which a number of agencies, including the SEC,
seem insistent upon thwarting the Supreme Court's recent
decisions regarding how to read the statutes that govern
administrative agencies.
Mr. Fry. In what ways would you say they are doing that?
Mr. White. Well, for example, let me take one example out
of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is pursuing
a truly transformative agenda to make financial regulators into
the new climate regulators and perhaps the new everything
regulators. It flies in the face of not just the history of the
SEC, the statutes that created the SEC and govern the SEC, but
also the Supreme Court's decisions, not just the most recent
Roberts Court's decisions, but Supreme Court decisions going
back decades.
Mr. Fry. Thank you. Mr. Campau, did I pronounce that
correctly? The Biden Administration has issued regulations
creating 218 million hours of regulatory paperwork for
businesses. What impact these regulatory burdens will be felt
on small businesses?
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Congressman. As has been discussed
here, before 2017, every year, an NFIB study of small
businesses said that cumulative regulatory burdens was their
No. 1 concern. So, we know going back a long ways that that is
an issue.
As addressed earlier, one of the questions you asked was
about sort of the difference. One difference that, you know,
just stood out to me and sort of process that I could not
understand is we had a requirement to post, for example, all
Agency guidance on a centralized website. Pretty simple. It is
not requiring them to do. It is not changing policy at all. It
is just saying post it where people can find it, and that
requirement is now gone. Why? I do not understand what could
possibly be a justification for that. Also, just the end of
last week, we had worked to expand the role of cost-benefit
analysis to the tax rules, and that was just taken away on
Friday. They have gotten rid of that, so there is no more
review. There is no more economic analysis and tax rules.
Mr. Fry. You know, under the U.S. SBA Office of Advocacy,
they have released 75 comments, reports on rules by the
Administration. Can you fill us in on any of the substance of
those comments?
Mr. Campau. No, I am not familiar with those specific
comments, but they weigh in generally. Advocacy plays a very
important role in the review process and working with OIRA to
make sure that small business interests, concerns are accounted
for. I think it is really important that that continue to be
protected.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lynch for 5
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
witnesses for their willingness to appear before the Committee
and help us with our work.
Ms. Katzen, according to the reviews conducted by various
nonpartisan government watchdog organizations, the Trump
Administration engaged in a sweeping effort to reverse or
rollback critical Federal agency regulations at the behest of
private industry and to the great detriment of the health and
safety of the American people.
As reported by ProPublica, an independent investigative
organization, President Trump began his Administration in 2017
by ordering Federal agencies to establish so-called
deregulation teams. He then promptly stacked those teams out of
public view with political appointees with deep industry ties
and significant conflicts of interests. As a matter of fact, in
2019, Public Citizen, a nonpartisan consumer advocacy group,
issued a report entitled, ``Your Wish is My Command: Corporate
Capture of the Regulatory Process Evident in Trump's First Two
Years.'' I would like to get unanimous consent to enter this
into the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Lynch. So one day, people were protected and had
environmental protections, and the next day, they did not.
Professor Katzen, would you agree that industry representatives
should not have a disproportionate or controlling influence
when it comes to the process of agency rulemaking?
Ms. Katzen. I would. Relying on the adverbs and adjectives
that you used, disproportionate influence, they do have a lot
to contribute. And the whole OIRA process that we have been
referring to here encourages those who are either burdened or
benefit to come forward and contribute to the process of
rulemakings. Because they are on the ground, they are in the
factories on the plants. They know the implications, and they
should be heard, but so should the beneficiaries.
Mr. Lynch. Well, therein lies the rub. These were
deregulation teams, and they were industry representative. That
was my question.
Ms. Katzen. Exactly.
Mr. Lynch. So, what happens to the representation for
vulnerable communities if that is the arrangement that is made
for deregulation?
Ms. Katzen. There is none, regrettably.
Mr. Lynch. This corporate-driven regulatory agenda proved
particularly harmful in rolling back critical environmental
protections that were in place solely to protect the health and
safety of American people. According to The New York Times
analysis, the Trump Administration officially reversed,
revoked, or otherwise rolled back more than 100 environmental
rules in 4 years. These included landmark protections against
carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and cars, and
trucks, and limits on water pollution, prohibitions on toxic
chemicals, reducing standards on methane emissions for oil and
gas facilities, and regulations to ensure clean water.
Professor Katzen, can you please discuss how agency regulatory
actions would benefit from greater transparency and more
equitable and meaningful public participation?
Ms. Katzen. Thank you for the question. President Biden on
day one made it clear that he wanted everyone at the table, not
just some select few who had dollars in their pockets, and that
it was important to be able to open the process to what I call
the regulatory beneficiaries, those who are expected to benefit
from the regulations. We have had a fabulous system of notice
and comment for rulemaking, but it has been disproportionately
those who are going to be burdened by the regulation, the
proposed regulation, rather than those who might benefit. They
have not been at the table, and, therefore, it is sometimes
conceivable and, in fact, has occurred, that a regulation may
be issued to meet a particular problem which does not really
solve the problem that the people want solved because they have
not been heard. They have not been welcomed in the process.
And the most recent modernization of the most recent
Executive Order 14094--or missing a number--specifies that
agencies are to do their best to bring the marginalized
communities, the regulatory beneficiaries to the table, and
that OIRA is to do its best to make sure that their voices are
heard in the process.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
courtesy, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins from
Louisiana for 5 minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the pleasant
aspects of this Committee is that I frequently have the
opportunity to speak after my friend, Mr. Lynch, and he is my
friend. America may be surprised to hear that. He referred to
Republicans. It was interesting. He stated the Republicans
support a corporate-driven regulatory agenda. May I say to my
good friend across the aisle that Republicans support an
American-family driven reduction of Federal regulatory
oppression agenda. Republicans support the reduction of massive
accumulation of Federal debt agenda. Republicans support the
logical conclusion that the reduction of the size and scope of
the Federal Government will reduce the oppressive power and
expense of the Federal Government. Republicans support states'
rights.
If I was in charge, I would bring regulatory powers of the
Federal Government back 50 years. I will be 62 in a month, and
I recall I am old enough to recall as a young man when the
Federal Government was not in everyone's way, and it is an
American family issue.
If a farmer owns a one--square-mile farm, it is very common
the way plots were laid out long ago. DOL police showed up last
year to enforce a bathroom facility regulation. He had 15
employees, all men on a farm. He had two bathrooms, one in the
mechanic shop, the farm building, the farm maintenance
building, and the other in a trailer where some of the
employees, laborers, lived during harvest season. The DOL
police showed up, told them according to the law they had to
have a bathroom facility within 1 quarter mile distance for
everybody. The farmer said I would have to have 12 toilets out
here. It is insane. The DOL agent gave him a citation, a fine.
American families are quiet about things like this. You
know why? You know why they do not want to complain? Because
they do not want the IRS coming after them. They do not want
the EPA coming after them. They recognize that the Federal
Government's regulatory authority has most certainly been
weaponized.
I had 10 farmers who suffered this in a wave of regulatory
oppression. EPA fuel police showed up with yellow strips to
check the saddlebag tanks of diesel trucks to see if there was
any trace of red dye farm fuel in those tanks. If you know
anything about farm operations, you know that fuel is carried
in five-gallon cans where it is needed, whether it is farm fuel
or standard diesel fuel. They cannot get mixed, minute amounts.
Nobody wants red dyed farm fuel in their diesel trucks, but it
can end up in small amounts in a tank, and the strips are
sensitive enough to test that. Those farmers were fined $10
grand a piece and would not allow me to fight on their behalf
because they did not want the IRS after them. The list goes on
and on and on.
In the first 2 years of the Biden Administration,
regulations issued, of course, the economy a staggering $309
billion. That is $309,000 million that is primarily absorbed by
American families and small businesses because they do not have
the attorneys and the staff power to deal with the regulatory
expense. That number I just cited is a 50-percent increase
compared to the first 2 years under the Obama Administration
and eight times more expensive than the rules released in all 4
years under President Trump.
Mr. Campau, President Trump issued Executive Order 13771
known for its, ``one-in/two-out'' approach to regulations. Was
this approach successful in encouraging the economic prosperity
in America?
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Congressman. I believe it was. We
built on the experience that we had seen in U.S. states and
around the world. They have a regulatory budget in place in
Canada for a long time and United Kingdom. Other places around
the world have used them, thought they make a lot of sense. It
does not mean you do not have any regulation. It means that you
just approach regulations in a more thoughtful manner, and that
is what we endeavor to do, and I think it worked.
Mr. Higgins. I do not think I could follow up that answer
with a more logical statement. Mr. Chairman, my time has
expired, and I yield.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair now recognize Ms.
Norton from the District of Columbia for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This hearing is
obviously intended to paint regulations as bad and attack
Federal rulemaking, but we should remember that the purpose of
the regulatory process is to ensure that the Federal Government
is accessible and accountable to the public. Every rule in the
Federal Register is finalized after a thorough and intensive
public comment period, and public comments are crucial because
who better understands the impact of proposed regulations than
the people who will be affected by them? Many of these
regulations are extremely technical. The public comment period
also allows subject matter experts to weigh in and help the
Federal Government create the most effective and least
burdensome regulations possible.
Ms. Katzen, how do OIRA and Federal agencies take public
comments into account before a proposed rule is finalized?
Ms. Katzen. Thank you, Ms. Norton, for the question. The
APA requires notice and comment, and the courts have been
diligent in requiring that the agencies address those comments
and the reason and basis for the rule that is finally
promulgated. And so, when the agencies receive the comments,
they have to read them. They have to respond to significant
comments. There is a whole casebook that I teach on the
obligations of the agency to be responsive. And when OIRA is
reviewing a final rule, they will often inquire as to how the
agency has evaluated the comments that have come in because
that public participation is critical.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Katzen, that is interesting. I wonder if
you can give us an example of when an agency significantly
changed its final rule because public comments revealed
unexpected impacts or burdens on people?
Ms. Katzen. There have been many, many occasions when that
has occurred. It is a proposed rule, and it means that the
agency is trying to figure out how best to handle this subject.
And when it receives the information, it can twist or tweak
certain parts of its proposal to make it stronger or make it
weaker as the case may be.
There is a limit to how much it can change without giving
additional notice. If it wants to change dramatically the rule,
then the logical outgrowth rule of administrative law requires
that they go back for additional comments. But I have seen any
number of cases where the agency will say, oh, we were unaware
of that, or that is useful information, and will change various
aspects of their proposed rule.
Ms. Norton. For years, Republicans in Congress have tried
to pass legislation to take the regulatory review process away
from the executive branch and put it squarely in the hands of
Congress. The Republicans REINS Act, which would do just that
is slated for debate on the floor this week. Ms. Katzen, the
public commentary process has long been a pillar of Federal
rulemaking. How would the REINS Act or similar legislation
effect that process?
Ms. Katzen. The REINS Act leaves the matter solely in
Congress' hands. Either House of Congress can refuse to act,
and then all the work that has been done, all of the
information that has come in, all the analysis that has been
undertaken is gone. It is just what the Members of Congress
decide they want to pursue. And so, the public participation is
eliminated, in reality, and replaced by an up or down, or what
may be a non-vote.
Ms. Norton. Well, Ms. Katzen, you have written that the
REINS Act originates from the faulty assumption that agencies
are not given sufficient scrutiny. Do you think Federal
agencies need additional constraints or checks? Why or why not?
Ms. Katzen. Well, I think, Congresswoman Norton, that there
are many tools available to Congress for oversight, for
hearings, for inquiries, and that there is not an additional
need for additional legislation. And one always has to be
concerned about the unintended consequences of actions that may
be taken. And in this area, in particular, I think Congress has
the power of the purse, the Senate has a voice in the
appointment of officials at the agency, and there is always a
vast oversight and opportunities for hearings by which the
Congress can make its voice known formally. And then there are
informal channels as well, so that I think the REINS Act would
be wholly unnecessary and very disruptive.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The lady's time has expired. I
will recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions, but I must
add Ms. Katzen's description of the REINS Act, what a noble
concept, putting the power of regulation in the hands of
Congress.
Mr. Campau, you wrote a report last September titled,
``Regulatory Budgeting in the U.S. Federal Government,'' where
you describe how President Trump's Executive Order 13771
achieved a net regulatory cost savings of over $198 billion
over 4 years. Can you explain how this was possible?
Mr. Campau. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I think it was
certainly a very collaborative effort across the entire
government, across the professional career civil service ranks
and the political ranks, to work together to find opportunities
for improvements. I think one sort of misconception about
deregulation is that sometimes there is an idea that, oh, you
are just, you know, slashing and burning. But really, I noted
it a little bit earlier, but a lot of the regulatory reforms
were just that, reforms. We call them regulatory reform task
forces. They were reforms that made improvements to programs
that generated savings while still protecting health and safety
and other important concerns.
So the architecture was that, basically, when a new dollar
of regulatory cost was going to proceed, we wanted to find a
way to offset it if we could. Part of the way we did that was
to direct agencies to build on the retrospective analysis
program that the Obama Administration put in place. We said,
let us take that and let us implement it even further.
Chairman Comer. Very good.
Mr. Campau. Yes.
Chairman Comer. Very good. Mr. Mulligan, my understanding
is that President Trump reduced regulatory costs almost as fast
as President Obama and Biden added them. Can you elaborate how
that was accomplished?
Mr. Mulligan. You know, I was there for part of the time,
and I wonder because we had these different things going on at
the same time. You had the regulatory budget. You also had Mr.
Pai at the FCC. He was not part of the regulatory budget, but
he still deregulated, so. And then you had other leaders, like
Scott Gottlieb, who somehow had just a personal touch where he
was able to expedite the work at FDA and make it go faster. So,
I think it is worth understanding how it was done, and we can
see the results.
Chairman Comer. Absolutely. My Democrat colleagues are
complaining about efforts by Republicans to change the
regulatory environment with respect to airline pilot shortages,
or with respect to heavy truck emissions when we have a supply
chain crisis, or Dodd-Frank bank regulations reform because we
have fewer banks, higher fees, and we have created a situation
because of Dodd-Frank of banks that are too big to fail. So,
Mr. White, I am concerned that some of the biggest new Biden
regulations fly in the face of the Supreme Court's decision
last year in West Virginia v. EPA. This is an important issue
in my district, a big coal district. Do you share that concern?
Mr. White. I do, Congressman. The recent decisions out of
the Supreme Court, including the ones regarding the major
questions doctrine, they are not silver bullets. They are not
panaceas. They are not going to stop every agency in its tracks
on every rulemaking, but these decisions are important for the
most significant transformative agency actions. And we live in
a time, in a moment where agencies have a lot of significant
transformative actions they want to undertake.
Chairman Comer. So, if the Biden Administration continues
to resist compliance with the court's ruling, what could the
consequences be?
Mr. White. Well, that is a hard question to answer because
there is outright defiance of court orders, which I do not
expect. But what I do think you could see is a lot of soft
resistance to Supreme Court decisions and lower court
decisions, which is much harder for courts to monitor on a
case-by-case basis. It makes congressional oversight,
congressional Congress' legislative and appropriations powers,
though, more important.
Chairman Comer. You know, I have to clarify something for
the record. Many of my Democratic colleagues have made
statements that say Republicans do not support regulations. We
support commonsense regulations. We always need to examine, and
evaluate, and seek input on burdensome and costly regulations,
and I think that is what we have with this Biden
Administration. There is no input from the private sector. You
have unelected bureaucrats that continue to make enormous
regulatory decisions that have a huge impact not just on
private industry, but on consumers. And we have a huge
inflation crisis in America right now, and we believe that many
of the burdens and regulations by the Biden Administration,
particularly in the energy industry, have led to an
inflationary environment that is having a devastating impact on
consumers.
Before I yield to the next questioner, I ask unanimous
consent to submit these documents and statements into the
record: ``The Burden is Back,'' by Casey Mulligan; ``Regulatory
Budgeting in the U.S. Federal Government,'' by Anthony Campau.
I cannot pronounce that word.
Mr. Campau. It is ``Campau,'' sir.
Chairman Comer. Campau. All right, Campau. I mispronounce
everything. I apologize for that. These Members are used to
that.
Statement for the record by the National Association of
Manufacturers, statement for the record by the American
Chemistry Council.
Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Casar for 5
minutes.
Mr. Casar. Here we are again, another hearing that seems to
primarily be about how great Donald Trump was as he campaigns
for President, but Donald Trump was great because he hated
regulations. He wanted to get the CFPB's consumer protections.
He did not like the EPA's clean water guarantees. Why not hack
up the ATF and their gun safety rules?
Well, another example I would like to bring up is his
scoring for national security regulations. The most recent that
I want to talk about is an executive order from 2009, a
regulation that states, ``An official or employee leaving
agency service may not remove classified information from the
agency's control,'' and as we saw yesterday, our own DOJ
believes that Trump did just that. And for the first time in
history, a former President of the United States was indicted
on Federal criminal charges, 37 of them.
This is a serious and sobering moment, but it is important
for us to remember and recognize that after pressuring local
elected officials to change election results and overthrow
democracy in the White House for the first time in American
history. And then after that did not work, and summoning his
supporters to overthrow the government on January 6, Trump left
the White House with some of our most sensitive national
security secrets, including information, according to the
indictment, on things like nuclear weapons. The indictment says
that Trump kept these documents in ballrooms and in bathrooms
that tens of thousands of guests could have accessed. Any one
of these people could have stolen this information that was
classified for the United States. He even allegedly showed
those classified documents to his visitors, actively putting
our national security secrets at risk. The indictment says that
when the FBI subpoenaed these documents to get them back to
safety, Trump hid 64 boxes of them and then lied to law
enforcement, saying it had all been returned.
Such actions violate both Federal laws and Federal
regulations, and these rules, like so many of them my
Democratic colleagues have discussed today, are to protect the
national interest, to protect consumers, to protect workers, to
protect kids in our schools, to protect our clean water and our
clean air. We need to advocate and continue to advocate for the
Federal Government to be able to advance commonsense
regulations, and we should stop having such open scorn toward
regulations as a whole and instead talk about what the right
sets of rules should be.
Ms. Katzen, do you agree that it is important to have
Federal regulations to protect things like our national
security secrets, our clean air, and safety for workers and
consumers?
Ms. Katzen. Yes, I do believe that regulations are
beneficial. I think one of your colleagues across the aisle
suggested that I was in favor of all regulations, all places
all times, unlimited. That is not the case. I too, am
interested in sensible regulations in regulations where the
benefits justify the costs, and where good, common sense plays
a role.
Mr. Casar. Well, thank you for that, and I look forward to
more good common sense in the conversations that we have here
today. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Burlison.
[Presiding.] Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mrs.
Boebert from Colorado for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Katzen, should
bureaucrats implement rules and regulations that are not
delegated by Congress?
Ms. Katzen. It is not the bureaucrats that do it. It would
be an agency.
Mrs. Boebert. The bureaucrats working in the agency, should
they be in charge of enforcing rules and regulations not
delegated to them by Congress?
Ms. Katzen. No, and that does not occur.
Mrs. Boebert. No? Well, Ms. Katzen, you stated while some
elected officials accuse the agencies of running amok, no
agency is a free agent, and they can only do which Congress has
delegated them.
Ms. Katzen. Correct.
Mrs. Boebert. I agree with that. However, we see in
agencies all the time rules and regulations that are enforced
on the American people that were not delegated to them by
Congress. For instance, just in the last 5 years, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has changed its longstanding
positions on firearm products three times through
administrative fiat. Would you agree with that process in the
ATF?
Ms. Katzen. I have no quarrel with what the ATF has done
because in each instance, it has----
Mrs. Boebert. But you said here that they can only do which
Congress has delegated to them. So now these changes have
resulted in products that were previously classified as lawful
by the ATF, and now they are being considered illegal or
regulated under the National Firearms Act. And more recently,
we have seen with the ATF's rule to categorize pistol braces on
these stabilizing braces as heavily regulated, short-barreled
rifles, essentially making gun owners nearly obtaining maybe 40
million firearms with stabilizing braces, criminals overnight,
felons even. And so, Ms. Katzen, would you say that this is an
abuse of that separation of power because that rule is not
something that Congress has delegated, but the ATF has taken it
upon itself to regulate this rule that they created to make
millions of Americans fight felons.
Ms. Katzen. With respect, I was trying to answer your
question before you interrupted me to say that the ATF had, in
each of these instances, sufficient statutory authority from
Congress, and that any challenges to them----
Mrs. Boebert. Ms. Katzen, it is my time. So, Congress never
authorized the ATF to ban pistol braces. Congress never
authorized ATF to do that to make millions of Americans felons
overnight. And so, I would go back to your statement that you
said in your testimony, that these agencies are not free
agencies, and they can only do which Congress has delegated to
them to do.
Ms. Katzen. Congress is not----
Mrs. Boebert. Ms. Katzen----
Ms. Katzen. Excuse me. You----
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. My time. No, ma'am, it is my time.
Thank you.
Ms. Katzen. Oh, I am sorry. So, you are not interested in
my views.
Mrs. Boebert. Ms. Katzen, it is my time. Thank you. In your
testimony, you stated----
Ms. Katzen. I am sorry. You are not interested in my views.
Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. Congress delegates, but then
some officials are quick to condemn the agencies for doing what
they are told to do, carrying out the law. Well, last year, the
Biden Administration's EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers
attempted to regulate wetlands and ditches under the Clean
Water Act. That is clearly not the intent of the Clean Water
Act. The intent of the Clean Water Act was to manage major
Federal navigable waters, so now this rule was recently upended
by the Supreme Court's recent decision. Now, would you agree
that the Biden Administration has a pattern of purposefully
misinterpreting the law in order to carry out their political
agenda?
Ms. Katzen. No, ma'am. I think, in fact, that the law keeps
changing, and the Supreme Court had a very hard time trying to
figure out----
Mrs. Boebert. Well, I have not seen that law change during
Congress. So, this was the intent of the Clean Water Act, and I
have not seen that change. So, I would say that this is another
example of the Biden Administration and the EPA misinterpreting
the law to carry out their own political agenda.
Now, Ms. Katzen, when discussing regulations made by the
Biden Administration, in your testimony, you also state are
these regulations detrimental to our well-being. Hardly. Are
they tying us up in red tape? Certainly not. Well, going back
to WOTUS and the Sackett family who this Clean Water Act
decision impacted, the family was threatened with fines of
$10,000 per day, had their property misclassified as a wetland,
and were prevented from building their family home. It may not
be a $2.5 million home like yours, but that sounds like a lot
of red tape to me. Do you disagree?
Ms. Katzen. Excuse me. I really take that as a personal
assault. My home----
Mrs. Boebert. Do you disagree that this was an overreach?
Ms. Katzen. I disagree. You are casting aspersions on me or
my----
Mrs. Boebert. Ms. Katzen, my time has expired. Mr.
Chairman, I yield. Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, could we just ask all of our good
members to respect the civility and decorum and the integrity
of the witnesses who have come forward at their own expense to
testify before us today? An insult is not a substitute for an
argument. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair would advise the members to adhere
to the House standard of decorum and proceed in order.
Ms. Crockett of Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Crockett. This Committee runs my pressure up, and I do
come prepared to Committee, and then there is always somebody
from this side that does something ridiculous that throws me
all the way off, so, oh Jesus. OK. So, this is where we are
going to start, Ms. Katzen.
First of all, let me apologize because that was uncalled
for. So let me do what she would never do, which is to be an
adult in this room or in this Chamber, so let me start there. I
am also going to start with some nonsense that she was trying
to spew. And unlike Mrs. Boebert, I am legally trained, and I
have passed a few bar exams, and I also legislated before I got
here. So, I do want to start with correcting the record a
little bit, and if you want to add to that, please do.
There was conversation about ATF because my colleagues love
to talk about their guns, baby. And I am from Texas, so let me
be clear. I also own firearms. Democrats own guns, too. Let me
make it clear, I own guns and I am licensed to carry. That is a
regulation. Regulations are not necessarily bad. It did not
stop me from being able to get a gun.
So, we were talking about, or you all were talking about
the ATF, which I was not going there. I did not plan to go
there, but you know what? I honestly wish the ATF would run
amok because we know that, seemingly, the people that run this
Chamber do not have the courage to come up with one of the
things we have heard is commonsense regulations when it comes
to guns, and to be clear, our Constitution, the Second
Amendment anticipates people having common sense.
Unfortunately, we have not done that, and unfortunately, it has
cost us lives.
So, when you were testifying a little bit earlier, you
talked about unintended consequences, and the fact that we are
supposed to be able to anticipate that as lawmakers when we are
writing laws. Unfortunately, not only have we ignored the
unintended consequences, but we have got foreseeable
consequences that are continually ignored, and that is why we
are talking about regulation, at least on this side of the
aisle. And our definition of ``common sense'' is one that does
not keep us in the pockets of corporations but keeps us in the
pockets of the people because what I am trying to do is save
lives.
My job here is not to make sure that I am pushing the
bottom line for some corporation, but it is to make sure that
the people that put me into the seat, which were actual people,
individuals, to make sure that I can save lives.
So, let us talk about my state because we always got good
stuff coming out of Texas. Unfortunately, my state decided that
it did not want to be a part of the overall national grid.
Because my state did not want to deal with all of the ``red
tape,'' the cost of that was lives. So, we had this winter
storm, and here it was, I was freshly being sworn into the
Texas House. And I do not know what I am supposed to do because
I started getting calls because there is this thing called
climate change. Hello? Nobody is in the Chamber on the other
side. The climate change is this real thing.
And so, in Texas, we had this terrible storm that took
place, and even though we are an energy capital, not just in
this country, but in the world, for clean and dirty energy,
unfortunately, we could not keep our own lights on, and it was
all because they wanted to avoid red tape. You know what the
cost of that was? It was human lives, and I think that that is
what is being lost. You know what happened in Palestine or East
Palestine? The cost was human lives. Unfortunately, seemingly,
some people do not want to consider human lives as an actual
cost. The only cost that they ever talk about is dollars. Well,
let me be clear: I am not here because of corporate dollars. I
am here because of people.
And so, I am curious to know, and I usually run out of
time. I am going to be clear. I always run out of time because
they always give me too much to do, but because of the way that
you were treated, I am going to allow you the courtesy of
expounding upon what it was that you were talking about with
these agencies, which is pretty much what I understood, which
is they only did what they were delegated to do because if ATF
could do more, I am sure that we would actually get rid of the
assault rifles that are constantly killing our babies every
single day in this country. But go ahead, Ms. Katzen, with the
last 20 seconds.
Ms. Katzen. Well, I appreciate your comments, and I thank
you for them. And I do not disagree with anything that you said
about the situation in Texas where they declined to be part of
the national pool and then suffered the consequences, which
were real.
And what I was trying to say earlier was that what the ATF
has been doing is consistent with the authority that they had
been granted by Congress. And to the extent they exceeded that
authority in any way--this is the most litigious country in the
world--someone will take into court. And if they really did the
wrong thing, if they did not stay within the constraints, the
courts will so determine. I have complete confidence in that,
but thank you again for your comments, ma'am.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. And with that, I yield.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
It was said earlier today, Mr. Campau, that the board of this
group of witnesses are not diverse enough. I wanted to know if
you would like to make a comment to that?
Mr. Campau. Oh, well, thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I just
note that the question was about whether we are from different
backgrounds and different experiences. I was born into very
humble circumstances and lived in government housing as a
child, and grew up stirring my powdered milk into water and
eating. You know, those early times were challenging, but my
mother worked two shifts on the road crew building roads for
us, and my father was helping to build a small business to get
us out of those circumstances, out to a little home in the
country.
And so, you know, my childhood was wonderful. But, you
know, we certainly started off in very humble circumstances,
and I watched my parents, who did not have college degrees,
work very hard to get us out. So, that was my background if the
comment is about background and experience, and my grandmother
is from Mexico, and I guess maybe does not look like it if I am
sitting here in a suit in front of you today. But I am honored
to be here. Thank you for having me, and it is a pleasure to be
a part of this conversation.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. It is an honor that you are here.
Thank you. It was said earlier in a question that the
Republicans or Transportation is trying to change the 1,500-
hour rule. Ironically, the Transportation Committee was
actually passing the FAA authorization bill across the hall
that had no references whatsoever to the 1,500-hour rule.
However, it did have a reference to the age that we force
pilots to retire in commercial airlines from 65 to 67, and so I
think that may be where the confusion is. But to touch on that
subject, Professor Mulligan, what is the implication, or how
does it impact the economics of the airline industry or the
cost to the consumers and really to the individual when this
body arbitrarily picks a date, like, but you know, the forced
age of 65 for retirement?
Mr. Mulligan. One of the problems with regulation is it
does not adapt well to changes, and, you know, companies have
to adapt to change. Otherwise, another company, you know, beats
them out. They lose customers, et cetera. And adapting, we have
had a lot of changes in the last couple of years in personnel
areas, and it has been tough on airlines in many industries.
Mr. Burlison. And so, the costs are then borne upon the
consumer, right? And the individual who potentially could have
saved more money, waited to retire at a later age, build more
wealth, that those options are not available.
Mr. Mulligan. That is right.
Mr. Burlison. And I think this may be a question for Mr.
White. Are you familiar with the anti-delegation doctrine?
Mr. White. Yes, I am.
Mr. Burlison. OK. Maybe this is an opportunity to nerd out
about this topic, but you know, the Constitution is very clear
in Article I, Section 1. It says, ``All legislative powers
herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United
States, which shall consist of the Senate and House of
Representatives.'' What is the authority that Congress has to
actually violate the constitution and give up that authority to
the executive branch?
Mr. White. I spent a semester on this. So, I will just say
very briefly, from the very beginning of our Federal
Government, the Supreme Court and the rest of government
recognized that Congress would sometimes need to give some
discretion to the departments. But giving away too much
discretion to the executive risks the effect of basically
transferring the legislative power itself out to agencies.
So, from the early 1800's onwards, the Supreme Court and
others have grappled with this. Sometimes it has informed the
way that Congress read statutes. Sometimes it has spurred the
Supreme Court to declare statutes unconstitutional because they
were so open-ended that they in effect gave Congress's
legislative responsibility to another branch of government.
Mr. Burlison. Are there any court cases going through today
that would touch on this topic?
Mr. White. Well, yes, there are coming up to the lower
courts. The case I alluded to earlier in the Supreme Court
regarding the CFPB's funding structure is, in many ways, a
delegation case. Congress, in effect, delegated its power of
the purse out to the CFPB, but cases like West Virginia v. EPA
and others involving how we interpret statutes, they are very
much infused with these similar non-delegation principles.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. My time has expired. The Chair now
recognizes Ms. Stansbury from New Mexico for 5 minutes.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by
saying in the words of Taylor Swift, this is going to be a
cruel summer if this is going to be our song, having hearings
like this on a ``Death by a Thousand Cuts,'' talking about
deregulating the very programs that protect our families and
communities. But seriously, do not blame me. I have to say that
I knew this was trouble when I walked in, but we know this game
all too well.
Our friends across the aisle call for deregulation of
companies and deregulation of fundamental public health,
safety, environmental rules, but yet they want to regulate our
bodies, they want to regulate who we love, they want to
regulate the kind of books we can read, and they want to
regulate the identities of our children and their lives.
Obviously, this is nothing new.
But let us talk about the dangers of deregulation if we
want to talk about deregulation today. Let us talk about the
Trump decision to deregulate banks, which helped to contribute
to the recent failure of multiple banks. Let us talk about the
deregulation of the transportation sector that led to the
disaster and train derailment in East Palestine. Let us talk
about the deregulation being pushed right here in this body
this week over gun stabilizing braces on the very anniversary
of the deadly shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Florida. And
let us talk about the failure of this body to regulate the safe
use of firearms that has led to countless, countless shootings,
and our communities and kids fearing for their lives. And let
us talk about the deregulation of the oil and gas sector that
happened during the Bush Administration that led to the largest
oil spill ever in the history of the world in the Deepwater
Horizon spill in the Gulf. Long story short, this kind of
deregulation is not only dangerous, it is treacherous, and it
costs, as my colleague said, human lives, threatening the
health and safety of our communities.
Ms. Katzen, we have been here a long time this morning and
you have shared a lot about your views, but I feel like much of
this conversation has been muddied by the comments that we have
heard from our colleagues. So, I want to give you--we are end
of this hearing--really the final word to help explain to the
American people why do we have regulations, why are they
essential to protect the health and safety of our communities,
as well as our democracy and the functioning of our
institutions. And can you please explain the rigor with which,
as a former OMB-er, that these regulations are drafted,
reviewed, and put into place?
Ms. Katzen. Thank you very much for that question. First,
there is the misnomer. Regulations is not one thing. There are
lots and lots of different kinds. We just passed Tax Day. If
Tax Day is on April 15th, falls on a Saturday, you are not
going to file your taxes until the following Monday. That is
done by extending the time. That is done by regulation. Who can
complain about that, or if there is an America's Cup race on
the West Coast and you want to protect the little boats that
are racing from the big ships that are coming in, you set a
course. You do that by regulations. No one can complain about
that. Those are kinds of things in our lives that are
straightforward, that are honest, that lead us to lead an
orderly life.
Now, there are some big-ticket items, and these are the
things that people get very agitated about, but on the big-
ticket items what happens is a very long process. It can take a
year, but more likely 2, 3, or 4 years for the staff to develop
the science, the technology, to put out a notice of proposed
rulemaking that invites comments from those who will benefit by
the rule and those who will be burdened by it. Those comments
are reviewed carefully, thoughtfully, and they are reportedly
determined to see whether this makes sense. And then the rule
will be going through OIRA review, which also looks at the
economics. Is this going to have more benefits than costs?
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Ms. Katzen. We are running short
on time, but I think it is essential to punctuate this final
point. And as somebody who worked at OMB, perhaps one of the
only members sitting up here on the dais who has actually
worked on regulations and understands the process, they go
through extensive review. They include public review. They
include a process that looks at the economic impacts. And those
who are regulated are not untouchable, and, in fact, if we do
not have commonsense regulations, this is why we cannot have
nice things. And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. Your time has expired. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Burchett from Tennessee for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would note for the
record you are wearing something from the Jim Jordan collection
today.
Mr. White, do you think Congress has ceded too much of its
decision-making power to executive agencies?
Mr. White. Yes, I do. And if I may add, Presidents love to
say, if Congress will not act, therefore, I will. I think the
reverse is also true. It is because Presidents act so much that
the Congress does not.
Mr. Burchett. OK. You mentioned in your testimony that the
administrative agencies are imposing regulations through
increasingly unaccountable and unsteady methods. Could you
provide examples of that trend?
Mr. White. Well, a couple of examples that I offer in my
written testimony center around the Federal Trade Commission,
where for the last couple of years, it has systematically
pulled down guidance documents and other materials that gave a
measure of legal certainty to the processes around mergers and
acquisitions and consumer protection, and they have replaced it
with legal uncertainty.
Mr. Burchett. Do you think those methods have eroded public
trust in our government?
Mr. White. Oh, I absolutely do. I think that people now
have come to understand that the administrative process is both
everything and nothing. It is everything in that it seems to
touch on every subject under the sun, and it is all or nothing.
But it is also nothing in that people just assume, well, the
next Administration will change everything anyway.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you. Professor Mulligan, I was going to
say I will take a mulligan, but I am sure you have heard that
your whole dadgum life, so I will not even say that.
The regulatory burdens imposed by the Biden Administration
forced businesses to spend apparently more than 218 million
hours on paperwork, or 24,000 years. I am not sure who did the
math, but I will stand by that. How might this affect a
business' productivity?
Mr. Mulligan. Well, there are two types of regulations that
you mentioned. Basically, they take more resources to do what
they used to do, and that is definitely a hit to productivity.
Other regulations are more redistributive, that they take money
from the smaller businesses and kind of give it to the bigger
businesses, and that more affects capital investment and things
like that rather than productivity per se.
Mr. Burchett. Do you think that consumers are affected
negatively by overregulation?
Mr. Mulligan. Definitely. And in my testimony, particularly
in Figure 2, was a dramatic one that a lot of us noticed. FCC
regulation was really preventing more economical internet plans
from coming in the market and people were overpaying.
Mr. Burchett. OK. This Administration apparently has
increased the number of regulations since 2021, and it has cost
the taxpayers, according to my notes, $318 billion with a
``B.'' How do these regulations, how do they get down to the
American household? Maybe some specifics if you had. Sorry to
put you on the spot, but----
Mr. Mulligan. Well, there are rising prices as with the
internet, also making it difficult for new companies to come in
in the medical area. In my testimony, I mentioned the Economic
Report of the President, 2020. We had more analysis of how FDA
made it difficult for even generic drugs to come in. That made
drugs too expensive. Prescription drug prices people notice a
lot. As soon as President Trump got that situation under
control, we saw drug prices fall for the first time in 46
years. So those are examples.
It also works on wages. People who have less can even spend
on these more expensive things because they are not as
productive, as in the example you gave, because wages and
productivity are closely linked together. A company cannot
really pay a worker more than that worker can produce.
Mr. Burchett. And what was the cost to each household? Do
you have an average on that?
Mr. Mulligan. Of the Biden regulations?
Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mulligan. Through the end of 2022--I have not gotten
into this year's, which are also quite interesting--I think it
was $9,600 on average per household.
Mr. Burchett. OK. And that is not included in inflation as
well. Is that----
Mr. Mulligan. Some of it is reflected in inflation, much of
it is not.
Mr. Burchett. Much of it is not?
Mr. Mulligan. Is not.
Mr. Burchett. All right. I believe that is about it, I
believe. Mr. Chairman, I will relinquish my 30 seconds.
Mr. Raskin. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Burchett. Sure. Why not? I will regret it, but go
ahead, Mr. Raskin, because you know I love you, brother.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I was just going to ask did you have
nothing funny left to say.
Mr. Burchett. No, I am just tired. I have been running back
and forth. Dadgum, I went to the Hill to give one of my
incredible speeches that I understood Steven Spielberg was
probably waiting in the wings to talk to me because Matthew
McConaughey wanted to play me in the Tim Burchett story, but I
am not going to. He cannot even walk the streets of Texas now.
They said that he walks down Texas, and in Texas they go, are
you Tim Burchett, and he says, no, I am Matthew McConaughey,
and then he just lowers his head and walks away.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burlison. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize Mr. Goldman of New York for 5 minutes.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate that the Majority is holding this hearing today,
although I certainly wonder if they will ever learn the lessons
from the devastating impact on the economy that Republican
deregulation has had, including the 2008 financial crisis, the
ensuing Great Recession, and the recent Silicon Valley Bank
failure.
But it is a little surprising that this is the hearing we
are having when the only thing that I hear my Republican
friends talk about outside of this room is this so-called Biden
bribery investigation. But then again, perhaps I should not be
surprised because a hearing would require them to present
credible evidence to support these debunked allegations against
the President and when all they have is specious
disinformation.
So let me take a minute to correct that disinformation. We
have heard so much about this FBI 1023 Form and how it includes
sensational allegations about a massive, alleged bribery scheme
by President Biden, so I was really eager to read that document
this week. Did the Majority actually find some actual evidence
of wrongdoing by the President? Of course not, but it is even
worse than that. This document that they will not stop talking
about is shockingly just a 3-year-old secondhand, hearsay,
uncorroborated, rehashing of Rudy Giuliani's bogus allegations
that he got from corrupt Ukrainian officials.
Now, we all know that Former President Donald Trump was
impeached because he tried to extort President Zelensky to
announce an investigation into this Ukrainian company, Burisma,
that would benefit Trump's political campaign. The theory goes
that the then Vice President urged Ukraine to fire its
prosecutor general because he was investigating Burisma, and
the President wanted to help his son who was on the Burisma
board. You know where Rudy Giuliani got this information from?
That fired prosecutor general himself, the corrupt prosecutor
general, and we know with absolute certainty now that the truth
is exactly the opposite.
And to be very clear, then Vice President Biden executed
official United States foreign policy, shared by the EU and the
IMF, to urge Ukraine to fire the prosecutor general because he
was not prosecuting corruption in Ukraine, and there was no
Ukrainian investigation into Burisma. That was a British
investigation, which collapsed because the corrupt Ukrainian
prosecutor general refused to help with it.
But do not take my word for it since what I say is not
evidence because I, like my Republican colleagues, obviously
have no firsthand knowledge of what happened in Ukraine in
2016. Instead, we know this from people who do have that
knowledge: numerous State Department officials and members of
the intelligence community who are the country's foremost
experts on Russia and Ukraine, like Masha Yovanovitch, a
decorated Foreign Service official, who was the Ambassador to
Ukraine from 2016 until she was unceremoniously and
undeservedly fired by President Trump in the spring of 2019;
and Bill Taylor, another former Ambassador to Ukraine who took
over from Ambassador Yovanovitch; Fiona Hill, one of the
country's foremost Russia experts; and George Kent, perhaps the
State Department's foremost Ukraine expert who served as Deputy
Chief of Mission to Ukraine from 2015 to 2018. He said there
was a broad-based consensus that the prosecutor general never
prosecuted anyone known for having committed a crime and
covered up crimes that were known to have been committed.
But you know who else also debunked these allegations?
Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of Burisma himself, who supposedly
has all these recordings. He stated in a political article in
October 2020 that he had no business dealings or meetings with
world leaders, and that no one from Burisma ever had any
contact with Vice President Biden or people working for him
during Hunter Biden's engagement. And you know how we also
know? Because the Trump DOJ knew about these allegations,
examined them, and declined to prosecute them because if they
did prosecute them, Bill Barr would have had to appoint a
Special Counsel to investigate then candidate for President,
Joe Biden.
Chairman Comer has asked why is this Committee the only
committee that is investigating him, and that is the right
question. Why? Because everybody else who has looked at it has
found these allegations to be completely bogus, so let us move
on and do what the American people sent us here to do. I yield
back.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr.
Sessions for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, Chairman. I have come
back. I was not in line to ask any questions, and I have
listened to our Committee. By and large, we are giving our own
diatribes about the things that we want instead of asking you
questions. I am going to see if I can do this in 1 minute and
then give you time.
The CFPB has issued new regulations that directly impact
minority-owned businesses and women. The Program 1073 or 1070,
when it was originally done in 2010, the plan had 16 different
pages of the bill and about nine key characteristics that they
wanted people to look at. That has now turned into 900 pages
and 90 different things that must be considered before giving a
loan to women and minority-owned businesses. And that means
this is going to be so expensive and time consuming when you
got to go through instead of a few of these questions, you got
to go through a list of 90.
That is what Republicans are talking about in this hearing,
regulation that has gone above not just unintended consequence,
but will harm what they thoughtfully were trying to impact or
make better. That is what we should be asking you. Where do
rules' over regulation cause unintended or bad consequences
that we really should be aiming our time at? Three minutes.
Mr. Campau. Congressman, I think I am not familiar with
that particular rule. But one of the things that we have heard
around the world and our experience here in the Federal
Government and in our states is that you mentioned paperwork.
Paperwork is often one of the areas where the most sort of
regulatory reform dollars, if you will, can be found. And so
again, it is often not necessarily changing dramatically the
underlying standard, but it is making the paperwork to comply a
little bit more manageable.
And that is something that Administrations for a long time
have sort of said they have cared about and have worked on, but
it is something where, you know, I think there have been a lot
of improvements, but I think there could be an awful lot more.
But around the world we found that paperwork reduction is a key
way----
Mr. Sessions. So earlier, we got involved in this, people
accusing us of being against regulations. That is wrong. You
are reading that wrong. Overregulation, is that what you are in
reference to, people can get so detailed in something that they
miss the advantages of having a good regulatory system?
Mr. Campau. Yes, that is right. And so instead of, for
example, filling out the compliance form once a week, maybe you
fill it out once every 2 weeks, or once a month, or once a
quarter. And just something like that does not change the
standard, but it reduces the number of hours, the number of
dollars that you spend to fill it all out, all of that.
Mr. Session. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Katzen. Yes. Thank you for that question because there
is a very delicate balance between asking too many questions
and not enough. At the same time that we are worried about
whether or not a student qualifies for student loans, or
someone qualifies for welfare payments, or someone qualifies
for veterans benefits, you have to get certain information, or
there is a legitimate concern that we are squandering taxpayer
money.
On the other hand, as you point out, if you make it too
onerous to apply or too lengthy to review the materials that
are submitted, then it defeats the purpose, so it is a question
of judgment. And it is something on which I think there should
be an ability to discuss and compromise on individual paperwork
requirements rather than painting a broad brush and saying let
us get rid of them all.
Mr. Sessions. And I agree, and I wish we had got more of
this. One last point. And the problem is also when you go from
16 to 90 questions, what you are doing is putting the person,
who is the customer who wants a loan, at risk in case they
answer something wrong also. So, it goes deeper than just
overregulation. It goes deeper to harm people.
I want to thank you for taking time to be here. This is a
beating on your part, but I think that you do understand we
could use some coaching on this as you write things and give us
advice. So, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my
time.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Ranking
Member Raskin for closing remarks.
Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as usual, I
have found if you hang around long enough in these meetings,
something good happens. And I think both sides have now
professed our support for regulation today, and I think Mr.
Sessions just reiterated that we all want good regulation, and
both sides have registered our opposition to bad regulation.
The primary threat to American freedom today, I would
argue, comes from those who want to control women's access to
healthcare. So, I wish that we would deregulate women's access
to healthcare and deregulate women's bodily movement across
state lines as people try to impose a straitjacket on women's
access to healthcare that was constitutionally protected not
long ago. I did notice that after the Dobbs decision was handed
down, many of our colleagues who used to talk a lot about
abortion have gone completely mum about it. They used to say
abortion was murder. They used to say abortion was a Holocaust.
They used to say we need a Federal ban, criminalizing abortion
and people who participated in it all across the country.
Now, like the dog who caught the car, their Supreme Court,
which is well packed at this point, has adopted their extremist
view, and it leaves them speechless because the people of
America completely reject it. And we saw that in Kansas where
the people of Kansas rejected by more than 30 points an attempt
to criminalize abortion in their state. We saw it in Wisconsin
in a recent Supreme Court election, where the people
overwhelmingly rejected their absolutist anti-choice agenda.
And so now, the cat has got their tongue. And they want us
to believe that real safety rules, and auto safety rules, and
air safety rules, and food and drug safety rules are a threat
to freedom, but let us not look at what is really taking place
across the country, which is this outrageous assault on the
rights of women to obtain the healthcare they need. I believe
that Virginia is the last state in the South where women can
obtain access to complete reproductive services, including
abortion, on the same terms that they had access to it under
Roe v. Wade, so we should be having a hearing about that.
Another major threat to American freedom today comes from
the imposition of random gun violence on the population all
across America. We have rates of gun violence that are 20 times
higher than that affecting the nations in the European Union.
Here is a case where regulation would clearly advance not just
public health and safety, but public freedom, too, because
there is no freedom when people are afraid to go outside or to
send their kids to school or to go to public events and
concerts because of random gun violence running amok at rates
not seen anywhere else in the advanced industrialized world.
Ninety percent of the American people favor a universal
violent criminal background check on sales of firearms in the
country. All we need to do is close the internet loophole, we
just need to close the private gun show loophole, we just need
to close the private sale loophole, and we will be able to save
a lot of lives. We are still going to have a much higher rate
of gun violence and gun death than the other countries I
mentioned, but at least we will be able to save some lives that
way.
I mean, we know that because a lot of the mass murderers
cannot get an AR-15 until they turn 18, and then they turn 18,
they go out and get it, and then they participate in a
massacre. Well, it saved lives while those people were 17 or
those people were 16. That was a regulation which clearly saved
people's lives.
So, I agree with those colleagues on both sides of the
aisle who say that regulation should not be used for anti-
competitive purposes by big businesses against small businesses
or others. I agree with that. Right now, there is a trend in
the states where certain businesses want to control the use of
the word ``meat'' or the use of the word ``milk.'' They want to
make it illegal for businesses to say that they have plant-
based meat, or that they have oat milk or soy milk, or wheat
milk. Well, what about leaving that to the free market and to
the judgment of consumers? And yet, there is this major assault
on the freedom of businesses to define their own product and to
form contractual relationships with their own consumers.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I know that the House of
Representatives and the Majority in the House is having a
problem managing some internal conflict, and I feel if you live
by insurrection and extortion, you suffer by insurrection and
extortion. And now, the insurrectionists and legislative
extortionists have their own internal insurrectionists and
extortionists, and it is making it very difficult for the
Majority to operate.
Well, even with all of these political problems in the
House, they are trying to pass the REINS Act to
unconstitutionally seize control of the entire regulatory
process. And they want, basically, the Congress of the United
States to pass upon every single regulation and rule in the
country, on airline safety, rail safety, traffic safety, food
and drug. In other words, they want to bring the entire process
of protecting our people to a grinding halt, which we know
exactly what would happen, as Ms. Katzen said. We are having a
problem even passing a budget, and now we want to take over the
entire rules-making process that has been developed over
decades in order to enforce the legislative will.
This is a big country. We got 300 million people here. We
have a lot going on in a modern industrialized economy and
society, and nations all over the world depend on regulatory
and administrative agencies to implement the will of the people
as ratified by their legislature. So, this is how modern
democratic society works, and to try to overthrow all of it
with the REINS Act would basically make the rest of the
government and the rest of the country operate the way the
House of Representatives has been operating, where tiny
legislative factions have been able to throw a monkey wrench
into everything we are doing. And I do not think that is going
to be a good future for America.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I yield back
to you.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. I will now give closing remarks.
It has been nearly 2-and-a-half years since President Biden
took office, and already we have experienced a massive
regulatory blowout, rarely, if ever, seen in our Nation's
history. From proposed rules to eliminate gas stoves to
regulating internal combustion engines of cars, eliminating
them off the market entirely, every day seems like a new
opportunity for the Biden Administration to change the way that
you and I live our lives.
This was not always the case, and we know that from the
economic success and regulatory freedom seen under the Trump
Administration. Executive Order 1371 reined in Federal
regulations and resulted in at least $198 billion in net
savings during President Trump's term in office. This is
amazing when you think about how the Obama Administration
imposed nearly $900 billion of regulatory costs over just 8
years. The patterns we are seeing now are startling, and the
Biden Administration appears to be going all-in on its
regulatory agenda with no regard for the consequences to our
economy or consumers. This House Majority, and more
specifically this Committee, is committed to holding the Biden
Administration accountable for their actions and overreach.
In closing, I want to say thank you to our panelists once
again for your important and insightful testimony today. And
with that----
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, there is one final request, a
unanimous consent request to submit an article for the record.
And so, I would ask unanimous consent for this article from
Politico, entitled, ``Former Giuliani Associate Raises
Questions About Hunter Biden's Hard Drive from Hell.''
Mr. Burlison. Without objection.
Mr. Burlison. OK. I also have two documents--our memorandum
from date May 10th and March 16th--that I will be entering into
the record without objection.
So, moved.
Mr. Burlison. And I would also like to urge Mr. Goldman and
his colleagues to read our two bank records and these
memorandums on the Biden family influence peddling and business
schemes. These bank records do not lie.
And with that, without objection, all Members will have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and submit
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
Mr. Burlison. If there is no further business, without
objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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