[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 110 (Monday, July 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9601-S9602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              REGULATIONS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me turn to the question of 
regulations. We, on the floor of the Senate, are going to be discussing 
regulatory reform. It has been of great interest to me to see what has 
happened on the issue of regulations. It has become a cottage industry, 
and certainly a political industry, to decide that government is evil, 
and government regulations are inherently evil, and what we need to do 
is wage war against government safeguards and standards.
  Let me be the first to say that there are some people who propose and 
write regulations that make no sense at all and that make life 
difficult for people. That happens sometimes. I realize that. What we 
ought to do is combat bad regulation and get rid of it. Bad government 
regulations that do not make any sense and are impossible to comply 
with--we ought to get rid of them. I understand and accept that.
  But I am not one who believes we ought to bring to the floor of the 
Senate initiatives that say, ``Let's step back from the substantial 
regulations that made life better in this country for dozens of 
years.''
  We have had fights in many different venues to try to decide: When 
should we put an end to polluting America's air? How long should we 
allow America's kids to breathe dirty air because the captains of 
industry want to make more profit? When should we decide you cannot 
dump chemicals into our rivers and streams? When should we decide we 
want environmental safeguards so the Earth we live on is a better place 
to live?
  We made many of those decisions already. We made fundamental 
decisions about worker safety. We made decisions about the environment. 
We made decisions about auto safety. Many of those decisions were the 
right decisions and good decisions. If we bring to the floor of the 
Senate, under the guise of regulatory reform, proposals that we decide 
we ought to retreat on the question of whether we want clean air in 
this country, then we are not thinking very much.
  I do not know whether many Members of the U.S. Senate or many of the 
American people fully understand how far we have come. Do you know, in 
the past 20 years, we now use twice as much energy in this country as 
we did 20 years ago and we have less air pollution? We have cleaner air 
in America today than we did 20 years ago, yet we use twice as much 
energy.
  Why do we have cleaner air? Is it because someone sitting in a 
corporate board room said, ``You know, what I really need to do, as a 
matter of social conscience, is to stop polluting; what I need to do is 
build some scrubbers in the stacks so there are fewer pollutants coming 
out of the stacks and that way I will help children and help people and 
clean up the air''? Do you think that is why we cleaned up America's 
air? The job is not done, but do you think that is why America's air is 
cleaner now than 20 years ago, because the captains of industry in 
their paneled boardrooms decided to give up profits in exchange for 
cleaner air?
  Not on your life. Not a chance. The reason the air in this country is 
cleaner than it was 20 years ago is bodies like this made decisions. We 
said, ``Part of the cost of producing anything in this country is also 
the cost of not polluting. You are going to have to stop polluting. Is 
it going to cost you money to stop polluting? Yes, it is. And we are 
sorry about that. But you spend the money and pass it along in the cost 
of the product, because the fact is we insist that America's air be 
cleaner. We are tired of degrading America's air, and having men, 
women, and children breathe dirty air that causes health problems and 
fouls the Earth we are living on.''
  What about water? Do you know now there are fewer lakes and streams 
with acid rain; that we have fewer acid rain problems, we have cleaner 
streams, cleaner lakes in America now than 20 years ago?
  Why is that happening? Is it because somebody decided that they would 
no longer dump their pollutants into the stream? No. It is because the 
people in this country through their government said we want to stop 
fouling the streams. We had the Cuyahoga River catch on fire. The 
Cuyahoga River in Cleveland actually started burning one day. Why did 
that happen? Because the manufacturers and others in this country were 
dumping everything into these streams and thought it was fine. It was 
not fine. We decided as a matter of regulation that it was not fine.
  There are some people who say, ``Well, that is inconvenient for 
corporations. It costs too much to comply with all of these. Let us 
back away on some of these restrictions.''
  I want you to know that we are going back a ways. I have told this 
story before. I am going to tell it again because it is central to this 
debate. All government regulations are not bad. Some of them are 
essential to this country's health.
  Upton Sinclair wrote the book in the early 1900's in which he 
investigated the conditions of the meatpacking houses in Chicago. What 
he discovered in the meatpacking plants of Chicago was a rat problem. 
And how did they solve the rat problem in a meatpacking plant in 
Chicago? They put out slices of bread laced with arsenic so the rats 
could eat the arsenic and die. Then the bread and the arsenic and the 
rats would all be thrown down the same hole as the meat, and you get 
your mystery meat at the grocery store. The American people started to 
understand what was going on in those meatpacking plants, and said, 
``Wait a second. That is not what we want for ourselves and our kids. 
It is not healthy.''
  The result, of course, was the Federal Government decided to pass 
legislation saying, We are going to regulate. What would you rather see 
stamped on the side of a carcass of beef--``U.S. inspected?'' Does that 
give you more confidence? It does for me. It means that carcass of beef 
had to pass some inspection by somebody who looked at it not with an 
economic interest, but who looked at it, and said, ``Yes. This passes 
inspection, and it is safe to eat.''
  Or do you want the meatpacking plants--the captains of industry in 
the meatpacking business who in the year 1900 would have been running a 
plant in which they were trying to poison rats in the same plant and 
mixing it with their meat? Well, I know who I would choose. I would 
choose to have a food system in this country that is inspected so the 
American consumer understands that we are eating safe food.
  Let me talk about one other regulation that I am sure is 
inconvenient. In fact, I was involved with some of these 

[[Page S 9602]]
when I was in the House of Representatives. People may recall that it 
was not too long ago when you went to a grocery store and picked up a 
can of peas or a package of spaghetti or an ice cream bar from the 
shelves or the cooler and looked at the side. What did you see? You saw 
that this is an ice cream bar, this is a can of peas, and this is a box 
of spaghetti. That is the only information you got about that food--
nothing more; nothing about sodium; nothing about fat; nothing more. 
Because they did not feel like telling you.
  So we decided that it would be in the consumers' best interest if 
they had some notion what was in this product. You go shopping at the 
grocery store and watch. People clog the aisles these days picking up 
one of these cans. They turn to the back. They want to find out what is 
in it. How much fat is in this one? How much saturated fat is in that 
product?
  You give people information and they will use it. It is good 
information. It improves their health. It makes them better consumers. 
Is that a bad regulation that we require people to tell the American 
people what is in food? No. I think it is a good regulation. But I will 
guarantee you this. Those who are required to do it fought every step 
of the way. The last thing they wanted to do was to have to comply with 
another regulation. I think these regulations make sense.
  We are talking about regulations for safety, health, and the 
environment. Not all of them, not every one of them, but the bulk of 
the directions of what we were doing with regulation makes a lot of 
sense.
  I do not want the debate this week here in the Senate to be a debate 
that is thoughtless. I would like it to be a debate that is thoughtful. 
Let us find out which regulations are troublesome, not which 
regulations are inconvenient or costly. I do not want to say to this 
industry or to that industry, ``Yes. It is costly for you to comply 
with the clean air requirements. So that is fine. We will understand. 
We will give you a little break.'' I am sorry. I do not intend to give 
them a break. I do not intend that they have dirty air so they can have 
more profits.
  I would like us to do this in a reasonable way. As I said when I 
started, there are some regulations that make no sense. I have seem 
some of them. I have participated in trying to get agencies to change 
some of them. I would be the first to admit that there are plenty of 
people working in the Federal Government who know all about theories 
and know all about the details but do not have the foggiest notion 
about what the compliance burdens are. These things need to make some 
rational sense. They need to be dealing with a goal that makes sense. 
They need to be constructed in a way so that compliance is enhanced. 
But I hope that the debate we have this week will really center on the 
questions about government regulation. What are we doing this for? In 
most cases, we are doing this for the public good.
  So, Mr. President, I think this is going to be a fascinating and 
interesting debate. We have some people in this Chamber who would like 
the wholesale repeal of a whole lot of important environmental and 
safety regulations. I do not happen to support that. Some would. Others 
who say every regulation is terrific. I do not support that either. I 
think what we ought to do is try to figure out what works and what does 
not, to get rid of what does not, and keep what works and keep what is 
good for this country.
  I hope that is the kind of discussion we will have as the week goes 
on on the issue of regulatory reform.
  Mr. President, at this point I would like to yield the remainder of 
my 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  

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