[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 113 (Thursday, July 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9830-S9832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the subject on the floor of the Senate is 
regulatory reform. It is an important issue. Nearly all of us in this 
Chamber know that there are many Americans confronted these days with 
regulations that they think do not represent common sense, regulations 
that are too burdensome, regulations that do not seem appropriate or 
right. I understand that. I think some of that does exist. And when and 
where it exists, we ought to put an end to it. Americans have enough 
trouble without having to deal with regulations that do not make sense.
  But the story of regulations is a story with more than one chapter. 
Another part of the regulations story is the regulations that we have 
put in place that improve life in this country; regulations that 
require inspection of food so that we have safe food to eat; 
regulations that require an approval by the Food and Drug 
Administration of drugs that are being proposed to be marketed in this 
country so that consumers have some confidence that these drugs are 
safe; regulations that prohibit big corporations from dumping their 
chemicals into our streams and into our lakes and rivers; regulations 
that prohibit big corporations from pouring pollution into our air. 
Many of those regulations are critically important, and we ought to 
keep them.
  It is interesting, most of what we see in the Congress is a debate 
about failure, it is never much a debate about success. Let me just for 
a moment describe for my colleagues a success.
  Today, we use twice as much energy in this country than we did 20 
years ago, but we have in this country today, by all standards of 
measurement, cleaner air. Why would we have cleaner air, less 
pollution, less smog in this country today than we did 20 years ago if 
we use twice as much energy? Because this country and this Congress 
said we are going to change the way we behave in this country; we are 
not going to allow polluters to any longer pollute the air; we are 
going to require them to clean up their emissions. And the result is a 
success story. It has been the Clean Air Act, with all of its 
imperfections, that has stopped the degradation of America's air. That 
is a success.
  Should we retreat on that? Should we decide that regulations that 
require corporations to stop polluting are burdensome so, therefore, 
they should not have to stop polluting? Should we go back to the good 
old days where we dump all this pollution into the air and let our kids 
breathe it and say it does not matter, that we can deal with the 
consequences later? I do not think so. I do not think the American 
people would believe that we want to go back to those days.
  How about water? There is a book by Gregg Easterbrook recently 
published that talks about these success stories. We have less acid 
rain and cleaner water these days than we had 20, 25 years ago. You all 
remember the story about the Hudson River starting on fire.
  Now why would a river start to burn? Because of this enormous amount 
of pollution that was going on in this 

[[Page S 9831]]
country. Now our rivers and lakes and streams are cleaner and we have 
less acid rain. Why is that the case? Is it because someone decided in 
a corporate boardroom someplace we really have to stop doing this, we 
have to spend money to stop doing it to clean up our water? No, it is 
not because of that. It is because Congress decided this ought to stop 
and that reasonable regulations and rules ought to require the big 
polluters to stop polluting. The result is, we have cleaner air and 
cleaner water.
  Are all these regulations perfect? No, not at all. Should some be 
changed? Yes. But should we retreat in this country on the requirement 
with reasonable regulations to say to those who would pollute our air 
and water you have to stop polluting? Of course not. We should not 
retreat on that. What we have done there is a success story for our 
country.
  Should we retreat on food safety? Of course not. That is not what the 
American people expect us to be doing.
  Now, I have been interested in the way this debate has gone here in 
the Senate. It has gone like every other bill we have seen this year. A 
bill is brought to the floor of the Senate and, within hours, the 
majority party starts complaining about the minority party stalling. 
Well, this bill was brought to the floor of the Senate much as 
regulatory reform bills were brought to the committee on which I serve, 
the Governmental Affairs Committee. The first such bill we saw in 
committee was a moratorium, a regulatory moratorium; and the majority 
party thought, gee, this really sounds great, we will just stop 
everything, no more rules will be issued. No more regulations will be 
issued. We will stop them in their tracks until a time certain later.
  Some of us said that does not make sense. We said the bill does not 
discriminate between good and bad rules, good regulations and bad 
regulations. We decided to offer some amendments. And so we offered 
amendments on E. coli, on clean water, on cryptosporidium, on 
mammography standards, on commuter airline safety standards, which we 
were sure the majority party did not want to interrupt. Did they really 
want to interrupt a regulation that establishes the reasonable 
standards for mammography screenings for breast cancer? No; it turns 
out that is not really what they intended to do. What about E. coli? 
Did they intend to allow for degradation of food safety standards? No; 
it turns out they did not intend to do that either. We went through a 
whole series of amendments, and it turns out that is not what they 
really intended to do.
  Well, they come to the floor with a regulatory reform proposal, and 
we have a number of amendments that we are prepared to offer. The fact 
is that you cannot get amendments up on the floor. Oh, we got one up 
yesterday and it took all day. The folks that offered the amendment 
were ready to vote at noon. We did not vote until the end of the day. 
Why? Well, because the other side is stalling, and they accuse us of 
delaying. That is a curious, interesting approach to legislative 
strategy. You stall and accuse the other side of delay. So far, there 
have been 16 amendments offered on this bill; 14 of the 16 have been 
offered by the other side, and only two by those who want to change the 
bill or would support a substitute to the bill.
  If we want to finish this bill--and I do--and if we want to move 
ahead--and I think we should--we ought to decide to allow all these 
amendments to be offered, the amendments that address the specific 
issues. Do you intend really to degrade seafood safety standards? I do 
not think so. Let us offer an amendment to guarantee that is not the 
case. Do you intend to undercut and degrade clean air standards? I do 
not think so. Let us decide we want to vote on that.
  Let us offer those amendments. I expect most people would be willing 
to offer them expeditiously, with time agreements, and we will vote on 
them. And no one, in my judgment, could genuinely suggest anyone here 
is stalling. The stall comes from those who bring the bill to the floor 
but do not want amendments offered that they do not want to vote on. 
That is the stall. I understand that. But it is not the way we ought to 
do bills. There are good regulations and bad regulations. We ought to 
get rid of the bad and keep the good.
  I heard somebody this morning talk about the burden. We place an 
unfair burden on America's corporations with respect to regulations. 
Well, I will tell you, some corporations have relieved themselves of 
that burden. Two or three applications a day are being approved for new 
plants on the maquiladora border, south of the Mexican-United States 
border--two or three a day. These are new American plants that move to 
Mexico. Why do they move down there? Because Mexico is a place where 
they can produce things differently than in our country. First of all, 
it is much cheaper; they can pay lower wages, and often they can hire 
kids.
  Second, they do not have the enforcement on environmental controls. 
You can move your plant to Mexico and pollute. You do not have to be 
burdened by all of those unreasonable standards in the United States; 
if you are going to produce something, you should not pollute water and 
air. So it costs less to produce there.
  Is it right? Is that the future? Is that what we want to have happen? 
I do not think so. Is the answer to it to decide we should not burden 
them, that they should pollute while in this country? I do not think 
that is the case either.
  I think we have provided some good leadership with respect to our set 
of regulations on requiring polluters to stop polluting, in requiring 
those who are involved in processing the meat in this country to 
process it in conditions that we feel are safe for the American 
consumer. I do not understand those who believe that these are burdens 
on America's corporations that must be relieved with a bill that cannot 
be amended because they do not want to vote on these specific issues.
  We have been treated in recent months to a lot of very substantial 
reforms, some of which I have thought made a lot of sense, some of 
which should have been passed when the Democrats controlled the 
Congress and were not. It is our fault. I voted for some of these 
reforms. I voted for unfunded mandates. I thought it made a lot of 
sense. I voted for the line-item veto. Some of these reforms make 
sense.
  Some of these reforms brought to the floor of the Senate are 
inherently radical reforms, responding to the big money interests of 
this country. Regulatory reform, for anybody who is interested, has 
been largely written by the special interests, by the large corporate 
interests, largely written by the large corporate interests who want to 
get out from the burden of costly regulations. I understand that. I 
understand why they want to do that. But the public interest has been 
established here from our perspective that we want that burden imposed 
to require clean air and water and safe food and the rest.
  We had a fight in North Dakota in the 1970's when they were going to 
process coal to produce electricity. I and the then Governor decided 
the only way we were going to give water permits was to fight for the 
latest available technology to be put on those plants, which included 
then wet scrubbers, very expensive environmental control technology, in 
order to protect North Dakota's air. Well, obviously, the coal industry 
and others who were processing that coal, the electric generating 
industry, did not want any part of that. They did not want that. Why? 
Because it costs money. I understand why. I understand why they fought 
it. But we were right and we insisted on it, and we now have those 
coal-fired generating plants in North Dakota. But the fact is the 
latest available technology was included on those plants, which 
included wet scrubbers to reduce the effluent that goes into the air. I 
cannot be more pleased about the fight I was involved in in the 1970's 
requiring that that happen. We were considered fairly radical at the 
time. We were environmentalists. We were trying to impose costs on 
industry. Yes, we were. We wanted those who purchased the electricity 
from those plants to help pay the costs of keeping the air clean. Is 
that radical? Well, it was called radical, but I do not happen to think 
it is. I think it is right.
  I am a little tired of special interests beating the drum and calling 
the tune in this town, to suggest that somehow they now need their 
burdens relieved--especially when they tell us of those burdens of 
having to comply with the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, food safety 
standards, and the like. 

[[Page S 9832]]

  Yes, let us have regulatory reform, and let us do it in the right 
way. Let us be aggressive in making sure that regulations make good 
common sense. Let us get rid of silly, useless regulations, and let us 
get rid of the people that write those kinds of regulations. But, at 
the same time, let us make sure that we protect this country with 
reasonable regulations that protect our air, water, food safety, and 
more. That ought to be the job for all of us on the floor of this 
Senate. There ought not be any disagreement about it. Nor should there 
be disagreement about whether anybody is stalling. If the majority 
party will simply allow those who believe that amendments are necessary 
to this bill to be offered and debated, this bill will move, and move 
quickly--with proper amendments.
  But it is disingenuous, in my judgment, to be delaying because you do 
not want to vote on amendments, and then accuse the other side of 
stalling. That is not much of a legislative strategy and will not 
produce much of a result for this country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). Under the previous order, the 
Senator from Wyoming is recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  (The remarks of Mr. Simpson and Mr. Bingaman pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 1029 are located in today's Record under 
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')


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