[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 117 (Wednesday, July 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10303-S10304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           REGULATORY REFORM

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to address the issue of regulatory 
reform, which this Senate has debated at length.
  I think many Americans, as they listen to the debate, must wonder 
what the argument is all about. There have been charges that sponsors 
of S. 343 will eliminate regulations protecting food, clean air, clean 
water, and that we will eliminate regulation of meat inspection, and so 
on. All those charges are completely inaccurate. No statutes in those 
areas are repealed. No regulations are repealed. What this bill 
basically does is simply require that the Government examine the merits 
and the cost of new or current regulations.
  I think many Americans may wonder, why the filibuster? What is really 
involved is the question of costs and benefits of regulations. Why does 
that deserve a filibuster? This regulatory reform bill has been 
filibustered in a way I have never before seen in a legislative body. 
Certainly we have had filibusters on the floor before, but seldom have 
we had filibusters in the committee, which is what occurred in the 
Judiciary Committee.
  What I think is at stake--and why I think you see such vigorous 
debate of this issue--is the question of unbridled, uncontrolled 
regulation of an economy goes to the core of people's philosophy about 
America and American Government.
  Last year this country added more than 60,000 pages of new 
regulations to the Federal Register. I think most Americans, when they 
hear that, would be shocked. It is true--the Government promulgated 
more than 64,000 pages of new regulations. If you wanted to read those 
regulations--and, of course, all Americans are subject to them, and if 
they violate them, they could be fined, or even on occasion thrown into 
prison--if you wanted to read the regulations that you are subject to, 
and if you read it 300 words a minute, which is a very good reading 
speed for a legal document, it would take you more than a year. In 
fact, you would be roughly halfway through it. If you read 8 hours a 
day with no coffee breaks, 5 days a week with no holidays or days off, 
if you read 52 weeks a year with no vacations, you still would not have 
even read the new regulations. Add to that the tens of thousands of 
pages of regulations that already exist.
  What is at stake in this debate is not whether you should have a 
cost-benefit analysis or not. What is at stake is the question of 
whether or not the Federal Government has any restrictions on its 
ability to micromanage the economy. What Americans have found is that 
the 

[[Page S 10304]]
details of how you drive the truck, how you dig a ditch, how you 
operate daily activities in many, many areas, are now controlled by 
regulations.
  What is at stake is, who will make the decisions in this country? 
Will Government make those decisions about how we run our daily lives 
in minute detail, or will individuals preserve a right to make 
decisions about how they function and how their activities are lived? 
That is an important decision.
  I think those who look at the votes in the Senate on this issue will 
note one thing. In most cases, those Members that have worked for a 
living in the private sector, who have used their hands and their minds 
to produce products, goods, or services, are the ones who voted to 
reform the regulatory process--not all, but most of them. And largely 
those people who did not have an opportunity, or have not for many 
decades had an opportunity, to work in the private sector, who have 
spent their productive lives in government, tended to vote to oppose 
regulatory reform. It is not surprising that people would reflect their 
background.
  What is sad, though, is that there are not more Members who have 
walked in those moccasins, so to speak, who have had a chance to be 
subject to regulation, who understand what it is like to have OSHA 
inspect their business, understand what it is like to have the EPA come 
along, or who have run a municipal operation.
  We heard in the Constitution Subcommittee the other day from the 
Governor of Nebraska, who is a Democrat, that they are required by 
Federal regulations to test for pineapple sprays in Nebraska. It is 
ludicrous. And, yet, the people of Nebraska are subject to this 
regulation and are forced to spend their money and their treasury on 
it, when it has absolutely no relevance to the quality of water in the 
State of Nebraska.
  There are thousands of examples like that. But this is not just about 
what Nebraskans have to test for in their water, whether there are 
sprays for pineapples or not; it is about a concept. It is about the 
concept of who will make the decisions in America. Will working men and 
women have a chance to decide how they live their daily lives, or is 
this all to be relegated to minute regulations that come down from the 
Federal Government?
  That is an important principle. I believe if we in America stand for 
anything, it is for individual opportunity and individual freedom; yes, 
even at times an opportunity to make a mistake. But Americans believe 
we have an opportunity and a right to help run our own lives, not 
simply take dictates from those who govern, no matter how wise or how 
well meaning.
  Do we need regulations? Of course. But 60,000 pages of new ones every 
year? No society can sustain it. What is at stake is an effort to make 
regulations responsible and reasonable. What is at stake is individual 
opportunity to decide how to live their own lives.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the 
quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 21, 
Senator Dole's bill to lift the United States arms embargo against the 
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As the so-called U.N. safe zones 
fall one by one to Serbian rebel assaults, and their civilian 
inhabitants face the horrors of ethnic cleansing, we must stand up for 
the sovereign right of Bosnia to defend itself against this armed 
aggression.
  The U.N. protected areas were initially created to actually protect 
their inhabitants from ethnic cleansing. The plan was that the U.N. 
Protection Force, backed by NATO air power, would actually use force to 
stop the population of these areas from coming to harm. The implicit 
deal was that the United Nations, through UNPROFOR and NATO, would 
assume Bosnia's sovereign responsibility to defend its people and its 
territory, in return for Bosnian cooperation in pursuit of a diplomatic 
solution to the conflict.
  Mr. President, Bosnia has cooperated. Bosnia accepted the contact 
group's plan that would have left the Bosnian Serb rebels in control of 
half of their country. Bosnia, in return, had every right to expect the 
United Nations and NATO to uphold their end of the bargain, and use 
armed force to defend the Bosnian people in the protected areas from 
Serbian assault.
  We have now seen that neither the United Nations nor NATO is willing 
to meet its obligations under this arrangement. After the disastrously 
misguided air attacks on unmanned Serb ammunition bunkers near Pale, 
the Serbs did again what they have done before--they seized UNPROFOR 
members as hostages and, in a new violation of the laws of war, chained 
them to potential targets. Some charge that our allies in UNPROFOR 
deliberately deployed their forces in militarily untenable positions so 
that they would serve as de facto hostages, effectively barring the use 
of force in response to Serb outrages. Whether or not this unsound 
deployment was deliberate and the actual taking of hostages was 
foreseen, neither the United Nations nor NATO is now free to use force 
against the Serbs even if they had the political will to do so.
  In fact, the West lacks the political will to use force to protect 
the safe zones and the people living in them. Srebrenica has fallen and 
Zepa is about to fall. In my opinion, any of the publicly discussed 
plans to protect Gorazde are doomed to failure.
  The United States Senate should vote today to return to the Bosnian 
Government the capability to exercise its sovereign right of self 
defense. The recent attacks to lift the siege of Sarajevo show that the 
Bosnian Government is not afraid to use force in its own self defense, 
and that its people are ready to make tremendous sacrifices for their 
country. We need to allow them to obtain the tools they need to convert 
their political resolve and courage into military success.
  While I believe that the French plan to insert additional troops in 
the besieged Gorazde zone is the height of folly--someone wrote that 
the French have forgotten Dien Bien Phu--I agree with President 
Chirac's assessment of the performance of the West in this crisis as 
being the worst since the late 1930's, when we faltered and compromised 
in the face of Nazi aggression. It is time and past time for us to get 
out of the Bosnians' way and allow them to obtain the means to defend 
themselves.
  Accordingly, I will vote for this measure and I strongly urge my 
colleagues to give it their wholehearted support.


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