[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E20-E21]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1995

                                 ______


                           HON. J.D. HAYWORTH

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 4, 1996

  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support H.R. 2727, the Congressional Responsibility Act of 1955.
  The Congressional Responsibility Act corrects a serious violation of 
the Constitution: Article I, section 1 states that ``All legislative 
powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.'' The section, 
moreover, makes clear that this legislative power includes the power to 
regulate. Congress, however, routinely delegates this authority to 
unelected bureaucrats. The Congressional Responsibility Act will stop 
delegation by requiring Congress to approve Federal regulations.
  Americans are disillusioned with Government. They believe, in 
particular, that Congress, designed to be the most accountable branch 
of Government, has grown increasingly unresponsive and unaccountable.
  As usual, the American people are correct. Government is less 
accountable than it was the first 150 years of the Republic. Beginning 
in the late 1930's, the Federal Government retreated from the 
fundamental constitutional principle that vests lawmaking power solely 
with the people's elected representatives.
  An elemental principle of representative government is political 
accountability: The public's right to hold elected officials 
responsible for the laws imposed upon them. This is especially 
important today, as government has assumed an increasingly larger role 
in the lives of Americans. But good government suffers, liberty 
diminishes, and bad laws proliferate when the link between voter and 
elected official is severed.
  The Framers of our Constitution understood this danger and wisely 
followed John Locke's admonition that ``the legislative cannot transfer 
the power of making law to any other hands.''
  In practice, however, Congress routinely delegates its lawmaking 
duties to politically unaccountable bureaucrats who craft regulations 
with the full force of law. From clean air to savings and loans, past 
Congresses have ceded responsibility for lawmaking to bureaucratic 
fiat. Delegation gives life to bad laws. Such laws would not stand a 
chance in bright, open sunshine, but they can slip by in the dark, 
without widespread support or deliberation.
  For example, in 1972, the Clean Water Act granted the Corps of 
Engineers authority to 

[[Page E21]]
regulate areas adjacent to, or connected to, navigable waters. Over 
time, however, Federal regulations have been extended to include even 
isolated wetlands with no connection to navigable waterways. This is 
clearly a case of regulations going far beyond the scope of statutory 
language; in fact, the word ``wetlands'' does not appear in the 1972 
Clean Water Act.
  This law, which was originally created to prohibit the discharge of 
pollutants into water. It was used, however, used to prosecute John 
Pozsgai of Morrisville, PA. Pozsgai cleaned up a 14-acre dump site he 
purchased to expand his truck repair business. Although Federal 
regulators may have been happy to see the junk hauled away, when 
Pozsgai leveled about 5 acres with clean fill dirt, the EPA took him to 
court because it said the dump he cleaned up was really a valuable 
wetland. He was fined $5,000 and sentenced to 3 years in jail. 
Pozsgai's only crime: dumping dirt without permission.
  Delegation also permits Congress to grant favors without imposing 
costs and to exercise selective power without taking responsibility for 
its consequences. Like budget deficits, Congress is able to reap the 
benefits of its largess, but avoid blame for its costs. Moreover, 
delegation allows powerful special interests to expand substantial 
resources in private to benefit the few at the expense of the many. 
With delegation, Congress can be everything to all people, but, 
ultimately, it is the people who lose.
  The Congressional Responsibility Act corrects these abuses by 
requiring agency regulations to be presented to Congress for a vote, 
either under expedited procedures or through the normal legislative 
process. The bill provides that Federal regulations will not take 
effect unless passed by a majority of Representatives and Senators and 
signed by the President--or a veto is overridden. This concept was 
offered by Justice Stephen Breyer--before his appointment to the 
Supreme Court--as a method to satisfy ``* * * the literal wording of 
the Constitution's bicameral and presentation clauses * * *''
  This reform is ideologically neutral and nonpartisan. Concerns about 
delegation have been voiced by people from across the political 
spectrum, including Judge Robert Bork and ACLU president, Nadine 
Strossen. I hope that my colleagues who are committed to restoring the 
public's right to hold its elected officials responsible for their 
actions will support this important legislation.