[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 27 (Monday, March 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1644-H1645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY RELIEF ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today to talk 
about the Small Business Regulatory Relief Act that the House will be 
considering tomorrow.
  My subcommittee, the Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, 
Natural Resources, and Regulatory Relief, has been conducting numerous 
field hearings around this country where we have been hearing from 
average Americans about the problems that redtape causes in their 
lives, and let me tell you, a lot of times it boils down to the fact 
that this Government redtape costs us jobs in this country.
  I want to read one example of testimony that we received from a Mr. 
Bruce Gohman, president of W. Gohman Construction Co. in St. Cloud, MN.
  Now, Mr. Gohman came and told us that he purposefully keeps the 
number of employees in his small business fewer than 50 individuals 
because, if he goes over 50, a whole new set of redtape and regulations 
kicks in and, quite frankly, he cannot afford it at that point. That 
means that we are losing jobs in Minnesota because of all of this 
redtape right here in Washington.
  Now, tomorrow we have a proposal on the House floor that is a very 
modest proposal to address that problem. First, it says we are going to 
strengthen the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires agencies to 
consider the impact on small businesses of their rules and regulations. 
This proposal was part of the contract and is very important for us to 
say to small businessmen, if the agencies ignore this rule, that agency 
administrators have to make rules more flexible. Then you can bring 
them to court and require them to follow the guidelines.
  This second title is administrative review, and, quite frankly, I am 
perplexes at this because President Clinton, on February 21, 1995, said 
that it is time to revise the culture in this town and change the way 
we write regulations. He ordered his agencies to, ``go over every 
single regulation and cut those regulations that are obsolete.''
  Title II does exactly that. It tells the agencies they must go 
through their regulations, get rid of the ones that are obsolete, that 
do not make sense, that really no longer serve their purpose. Those 
that we need should continue to be on the books, and those that can be 
strengthened should be strengthened and improved--a very simple, very 
commonsense approach.

[[Page H1645]]

  I was surprised to find out today that President Clinton is opposing 
title II and does not think it is a good idea for us to pass this piece 
of legislation in Congress. I think it is a shame when the President 
says he want to cut back on regulations but then acts to prevent the 
agencies from doing that in opposing our title II provision.
  There is also title III that says these regulations must come back to 
Congress for review, and that each House must consider them. If they do 
not approve the rules, they can pass a law, send it to the President, 
and he can sign or veto it, and the regulation will be overridden by 
that law; I think this is a very helpful procedure to add additional 
emphasis in cutting back on regulations.
  But the most surprising thing to me is the demagoguery that is going 
along in the debate by opponents of this bill who claim that for some 
reason it may be gutting environmental laws, may be gutting health and 
safety laws, may be leaving poor and innocent Americans defenseless.
  This is a very good bill that can actually strengthen those rules 
that make sense, get rid of those rules that do not make sense, and 
once again tell small businessmen like Bruce Gohman in Minnesota we are 
not going to have so many regulations that you would not add new jobs, 
create more employment in this country, because that is the reason we 
have to have regulatory relief.
  I urge all my colleagues to keep a strong version of this bill 
tomorrow so we can tell the American people we have made a start in 
cutting back on unnecessary regulations and redtape.

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