[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 105 (Monday, June 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S9026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            ADMINISTRATION VETO THREAT ON REGULATORY REFORM

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, as I stated on the floor last Thursday, I 
and other Senators, particularly Senators Johnston and Heflin, have 
been working to craft a bipartisan regulatory reform bill that we can 
take up tomorrow. Senator Johnston and I placed a discussion draft in 
the Record that incorporated many of the ideas included in various 
bills. We then worked through last weekend, and are still working, on 
final text that takes into acccount comments and suggestions by 
Democrat and Republican Senators to improve the bill. I understand that 
at 6 o'clock today a group of us will meet with Senator Daschle, the 
Democratic leader, to see if we can make further improvements.
  So I must say I was surprised and dismayed, in the middle of these 
negoatiations, to receive a letter last Friday night from the OMB 
Administrator for Regulatory Affairs threatening a veto of any bill 
that closely followed the discussion draft. Let me point out this was 
just a discussion draft.
  The timing of this veto threat is not helpful, nor I suspect was it 
intended to be. For one thing, the letter relied on generalizations so 
bland as to be meaningless. But it also continued a pattern of 
distortions of the regulatory reform bill which call for a response.
  Among the list of complaints in this letter was a description of the 
bill as containing a ``supermandate,'' that is, a requirement to 
consider costs that would override other statutory goals such as 
promoting health and safety and protecting the environment. One can 
debate the merits of a supermandate, but it is irrelevant to this bill. 
The text of the bill makes clear that it is intended to ``supplement, 
and not supersede'' other laws. This type of staff work does not serve 
the President well.
  But it is not the first time that President Clinton's rhetorical 
embrace of regulatory reform has been undermined by his own handpicked 
officials publicly attacking any meaningful attempt to enact such 
reforms. One example stands out because it is an example both of the 
distortions at play in this debate and, ironically, of the value of the 
reforms we propose.

  At various times, the present Administrator of EPA has stated that 
cost-benefit analysis requirements would have prevented a rule getting 
lead out of gasoline and consigning a generation to lead poisoning. 
This is false.
  In fact, EPA refused to do a cost-benefit analysis initially in 1982 
when a rule on lead phaseout was being considered. However, after a 
cost-benefit analysis was performed that showed the social benefits 
outweighed the costs of a quick phaseout of lead, EPA issued a new rule 
in 1984 providing for a quick phaseout of lead. That rule also 
introduced a new concept--market-based mechanisms--that allowed trading 
in lead permits that sped up the phaseout of lead and reduced the 
economic costs of the regulation.
  So, not only has the Administrator gotten her facts wrong, she chose 
the wrong example. Getting lead out of gasoline occurred precisely 
because a cost-benefit analysis supported doing so. And that analysis 
helped produce a regulation to achieve that goal through market-based 
mechanisms that reduced the economic impact.
  Both cost-benefit analysis and market-based mechanisms are at the 
heart of the reforms we propose. We should have a debate on these 
important issues, but that debate will not be furthered if President 
Clinton continues to duck the issue and allow his officials to muddy 
the debate with arguments that have nothing to do with the bill the 
Senate will actually consider.
  I want to point out again, we are working, I think, in good faith, 
Members of both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, to see 
if we can put together a good regulatory reform bill; and hopefully one 
that will be signed by the President.

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