[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 110 (Monday, July 10, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6725-H6726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               REPUBLICAN BELIEFS AND GOVERNMENT RUN AMOK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, a friend of mine, State Representative 
Garland Penhalser recently asked me why I was a Republican, and what we 
were doing up here, and what this think was all about. Garland is a 
State representative who has been doing a tremendous job in Atlanta in 
the State capitol down there making changes. He just wanted to hear it 
from me what he already knew, I guess.
  What I replied is that generally what the Republican Party believes 
up here is believing in people versus believing in Georgia. We support 
private sector solutions to problems, not Government solutions to 
problems. We stand for less regulation. We stand for less taxes, less 
bureaucracy, less micromanagement out of Washington, and 
certainly, more personal freedom.
  With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, there are so many great examples of 
micromanagement out of Washington and Government run amok, if you will. 
A book has been written recently entitled ``The Death of Common 
Sense,'' and many people have read the book. Recently, the mayor of 
Kingsland, GA, Keith Dixon, gave a copy of it to me. Just thumbing 
through there, there were a lot of great examples of crazy things that 
our Government does.
  One of the examples took place in Yorktown, NC, with the Amoco Oil 
Co. The EPA came in there, and because there was a pollutant in the air 
called benzene, and benzene is an extremely dangerous pollutant, EPA 
ordered Amoco to install a new type of filtering system to their 
smokestacks. It cost Amoco $31 million. As we know, Americans all over 
the country paid for that in higher gas prices at the pump. Let us not 
fool ourselves that Amoco paid more dividends to their stockholders 
because of that. They did what any business would do and they passed 
the cost on to consumers.
  The irony of it was that the smokestacks were not emitting benzene. 
The benzene was coming from the loading dock area. That problem could 
have been easily remedied by changing the loading procedure. The only 
problem, Mr. Speaker, was that the EPA did not have jurisdiction over 
the loading dock, so the benzene is still in the air, and yet Amoco oil 
had to
 pay $31 million for it.

  Mr. Speaker, there are other examples of that. I see the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is here and wants to join us. I yield to my 
friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the point is well made by him, and I appreciate 
him being a champion here for small business and for the importance of 
the individual. I had a situation in my district in Montgomery County, 
PA, where we had a gentleman who was trying to work with the Federal 
Government, a $25,000 contract. The problem he had was 187 pages of 
Federal documents to be filled out. The problem with 187 pages was not 
just the number of pages, but also it would require him to hire an 
accountant, an attorney, and an engineer. What little profit there is 
in a $25,000 contract, there was not really much for him.
  The fact is, he told me, and he was right, the Government, the 
Federal Government, is not user-friendly. It does not make sense for 
him to try to give the best product at the best price to the Federal 
Government when he can sell it elsewhere without all the needless 
regulation and the burdensome paperwork that made it actually a 
disincentive to deal with our Federal Government.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is ridiculous, because I think the bureaucracy in 
many, many cases, and even probably in most cases, wants to do the 
right thing. The problem is these very laws, and we are going from 
manuals now that have a 4,000, 5,000, 10,000 pages to do anything, and 
these laws that are well-intended 

[[Page H 6726]]
and regulations have become stumbling blocks, and because of that, we 
do not have common sense anymore in our process.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. 
Speaker, I believe the 104th Congress, especially with many of the 
freshman Republicans, and you have joined as an honorary Member of the 
freshman Republicans, although you are a more senior Member, we have 
tried to have what we could call the new approach to Government, in 
which we call for Government to downsize, privatize, consolidate, and 
where possible, eliminate.
  We do not believe, as you do not, that we need to have the Federal 
Government do things that are best left to the private sector. We 
believe that the private sector has the best chance to create jobs. If 
we can have an environment with less regulation and less taxation, we 
can have businesses provide for our local people the kinds of jobs that 
are lasting, meaningful, and important jobs that mean a lot to folks 
back home.
  I think we are on the right track to reduce needless regulations that 
do not really improve the quality of life, and to make sure we do what 
we can to sunset Federal agencies that are not doing their job, like we 
did in Pennsylvania, and eliminate the wasteful bureaucratic system 
that exists here in Washington as a culture.


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