[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 30 (Thursday, March 7, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1639-S1642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY FAIRNESS ACT

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I rise on the floor this evening because 
I want to compliment Senator Bond from Missouri, the chairman of the 
Small Business Committee, and also Senator Bumpers from Arkansas for 
the legislation they reported out which is now pending, or we wish to 
have pending before the Senate.
  Also, I wish to express my displeasure at those on the Democrat 
side--Senator Daschle, or whoever he is--for objecting to consider this 
bill. This is a bill that was reported out unanimously by the Small 
Business Committee. It has overwhelming support, as Senator Bumpers 
mentioned and as Senator Bond alluded to as well. This is a bill that 
is going to pass overwhelmingly in the Senate. To object to even 
considering it --and I looked at the unanimous-consent request. It even 
said let us consider it next week. To object to consider this bill 
today, or next week, I think flies in the face of common sense. It is 
well-known. Yes, part of the unanimous-consent request is that the bill 
would have an amendment offered by myself and Senator Reid from Nevada, 
a bill almost identical to the one we passed through the Senate last 
year unanimously. It had a 100-to-nothing vote, a bill that would say 
Congress should review regulations. We would have an expedited 
procedure to do so. If Congress did not like it, we could kill it. If 
we passed a joint list of disapproval, the President would have an 
option to veto that resolution.
  So we would restore checks and balances and restore congressional 
accountability--because many times Congress will pass laws and tell the 
agencies or the regulatory agency to implement it, and then we turn the 
agencies loose. And then we find out the regulations are far too 
expensive, maybe do not make sense, and have unintended consequences.

  Congress should be in play. Congress should still have exercising 
oversight. This is going to make Congress responsible. It is going to 
make Congress look at the rules that come out of legislation as a 
result of executive action.
  So, again, this is legislation that is supported by the President. So 
why in the world will our colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle 
not let us bring up legislation such as this that is supported very 
strongly by the small business community all across the United States?
  I used to be in small business prior to coming to the Senate. Small 
businesses are strangling with the mountains and mountains of 
paperwork. So we are trying to give small business at least some 
regulatory relief. We have a chance to do it.
  My colleague from Missouri passed a good bill out of committee, and 
it was a bipartisan bill. We do not have many bipartisan bills. We need 
more. We need more bipartisan work. Senator Bond and Senator Bumpers 
have done it in this bill. Senator Reid and I did it in the 
congressional review. We need more examples of that.
  So then when we try to take it up and pass it either this week or 
next week, by a time certain, unfortunately it is objected to. Those 
objections will not stand. Those objections will not last. They will 
not prevail.
  I have heard other colleagues say that maybe we want to do a more 
comprehensive bill. I want to do a comprehensive bill. I want a 
significant comprehensive regulatory bill. It does not have to be on 
this. We can pass two bills this year.
  It is part of the frustration of being in the Senate and Congress 
with people thinking, ``Well, there is only one bill. Therefore, we had 
to put everything in

[[Page S1640]]

the world that remotely is related to it on that one piece of 
legislation.'' It does not have to happen. It should not happen. If we 
can put together a bipartisan coalition and pass comprehensive 
regulatory reform, let us do it. I will be happy to help in any way I 
can.
  I worked with Senator Dole to put together a good piece of 
legislation. Senator Johnston worked with us. But we only had four 
Democrat votes. We had four cloture votes on that major comprehensive 
piece of legislation. That goes all the way back to last summer. We 
spent hours and hours trying to negotiate a comprehensive package.
  I hope we can. I hear Members say maybe we can do it. I hope we can. 
I am willing to spend more hours to make that happen. But while we are 
here, while we are looking for legislative action, let us pass some 
good legislation. Let us pass legislation that makes Congress more 
responsible. Let us give small business regulatory relief now. If we 
can pass more comprehensive legislation that says the benefits must 
justify the cost of the regulation or the regulation does not happen, 
that makes sense. Let us do that, too. But it does not have to be on 
this piece of legislation.

  So I urge my colleagues that are now obstructing this piece of 
legislation--not even allowing us to consider the legislation--to 
reconsider. I think they are making a mistake. I think small business 
people across the country, if they found out the Democrats are 
obstructing and blocking this piece of legislation, would be upset.
  So I hope that they will reconsider. I hope they will allow us to 
pass this legislation in a bipartisan fashion as soon as possible. It 
will be, in my opinion, a real, positive, good piece of legislation for 
business all across the country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I rise to express a certain amount of 
indignation over the charade being played out in the U.S. Senate this 
afternoon.
  Yesterday, I was, as a member of the Small Business Committee of the 
Senate, in attendance when the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 
Fairness Act of 1996 was unanimously passed to the floor. I listened to 
the ranking member, the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from 
Minnesota, the Senator from Connecticut, and the Senator from 
Massachusetts all heap praise on the committee chairman, Senator Bond, 
from Missouri for his bipartisan efforts to produce a bill that could 
receive unanimous consent and come to the floor and be rapidly attended 
to.
  It is stunning, in light of those comments, that the leadership, the 
minority leadership, the President's leadership, would come to this 
floor and throw obstacle after obstacle in front of the consideration 
of this bipartisan piece of legislation. What it says to me is that 
they are bringing the President's campaign onto the floor of the 
Senate, and the 1996 campaign for President of the United States is at 
work here today on the Senate floor. The administration, the President, 
responding to the hue and cry across the land--which is that we have to 
be more attentive to small business in America. Small business produces 
over half the jobs, and all the new jobs--virtually 90 percent of the 
new jobs--are coming to small business.
  Everybody admits all across the land to the regulatory burden on 
small business, and I wish to point out that small business means like 
4 employees; 60 percent of the American businesses today have 4 
employees or less; 90 percent have 25 or less. They cannot keep up with 
the burdens that this Government has heaped on small business, many of 
them family businesses. They cannot keep up with the pages and pages of 
regulation. They have been intimidated by regulatory bullies. 
Everybody--governments across the land, State governments, the Federal 
Government, both parties--has said we have to do something about it, 
including the President of the United States, who says he supports this 
legislation, whose members on the small business committee voted for 
this legislation, who said this is a true bipartisan effort, who 
acknowledged the chairman's work. And here we come to the floor and we 
run into this political wall.
  This objection can only be a part of a partisan strategy. That is all 
it can be. And it leaves the President in a very unattractive light. 
This is the light. It leaves him in the position of saying, ``I support 
the bill; I am for this,'' and then backhandedly going to his 
leadership and saying, ``Do what you can to stop it.''
  That is a pattern, I would suggest, Mr. President, that we are seeing 
all too often. Remember the ``I am going to lower your taxes,'' but 
then they got raised, or remember ``I'm for welfare reform,'' but he 
vetoed it at midnight. And now we have ``I'm for relief for the small 
businessman.''
  I am for this piece of legislation that gets at some of the 
fundamental changes that need to occur to help small business prosper, 
to help them grow, to help them hire somebody, to help create a shorter 
unemployment line, and here they all are, here they all are doing 
everything they know to do to block the consideration of that which 
they say they are for.
  If the strategy is to say, well, the Congress is not doing anything, 
I can only assure them that this is going to backfire. The American 
people are alert. They will know who is standing in front of this. They 
will know who the obstacle was and is.
  Mr. President, I have a letter from the National Association of Towns 
and Townships dated March 7, 1996 to Senator Bond thanking him for his 
``leadership in developing legislation to strengthen the Regulatory 
Flexibility Act of 1980,'' which this piece of legislation does. And 
they endorse it and strongly recommend its passage. I ask unanimous 
consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                           National Association of


                                          Towns and Townships,

                                    Washington, DC, March 7, 1996.
     Hon. Kit Bond,
     Chairman, Small Business Committee,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Bond: The National Association of Towns and 
     Townships (NATaT) would like to thank you for your leadership 
     in developing legislation to strengthen the Regulatory 
     Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA). NATaT strongly supports S. 
     942, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act 
     of 1996. NATaT has long supported judicial review of the 
     Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), which is a major component 
     of S. 942.
       NATaT represents approximately 13,000 of the nation's 
     39,000 general purpose units of local governments. Most of 
     our member local governments are small and rural and have 
     fewer than 10,000 residents. These small communities simply 
     do not have the resources to comply with many mandates and 
     regulations in the same fashion that larger localities are 
     able. The impact of federal regulations on small localities 
     was understood by the authors of the RFA and small localities 
     were therefore included under the definition of small 
     entities in that act.
       NATaT has long recognized the failings of the RFA and has 
     fought to strengthen it over the years. We have concluded 
     that the only way to get federal agencies to take notice of 
     their responsibilities under the RFA is to allow small 
     entities to take an agency to court for failure to follow the 
     provisions of the RFA. Strong judicial review language would 
     do just that. NATaT strongly supports the judicial review 
     language and would oppose any efforts to weaken it.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Tom Halicki,
                                               Executive Director.

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor. I just 
want to reiterate that the President's own men looked right at this 
Senator in front of me and said, ``Thank you. You have done an 
outstanding job. You have demonstrated true bipartisanship.'' And 
everyone voted to bring this to the floor for judicious handling and 
management. The President has said publicly he supports it, and their 
leadership on that side of the aisle is blocking it. The truth will be 
known as to who is for it and who is against it. This is one for which 
the 1996 Presidential campaign ought to have waited in the name of the 
Americans who are waiting for this relief.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. The White House Conference on Small Business which was 
concluded about a month ago took a look at a number of issues that are 
faced every day in small business, or maybe just the business world 
faces every day in doing business--the number and scope of Federal 
regulations and the cost of compliance. They took a look at penalties, 
the lack of cooperation, and as far as the Government entities are 
concerned that are

[[Page S1641]]

charged with compliance or enforcement.
  We got that report from the President's conference on small business. 
I know my friend from Missouri spent hour after hour combing through 
the report after that conference was over. It was pretty comprehensive 
on what areas we could deal with and what areas maybe that we could not 
deal with. But it was pretty obvious that we had a lot of work to do in 
this piece of legislation. It is truly bipartisan. We marked it up the 
other day, after Senator Bond's work, and then the years that the 
ranking member, Senator Bumpers of Arkansas, spent in trying to find 
middle ground or to craft a piece of legislation that could pass this 
Congress. He has a vital interest in this and he has been a vital part 
of this, to bring this piece of legislation to the floor.
  I believe the measure does strike the right balance. It strikes a 
balance between business and the burdensome regulatory and enforcement 
nature of the Federal Government. Business owners who deal with these 
regulations every day are telling us ``give us some flexibility, give 
us some relief,'' not maybe to change a law but get the regulatory 
agencies in a position that they can be an advocate for business, put 
them in a support role, not just to go out and levy fines or find 
something wrong.
  There is probably not a business in the world where you cannot go out 
and find something wrong or some violation of some rule or regulation. 
The regulatory agencies should be an advocate of that business and help 
them to put their house in order. Just give us a little help. Tell us 
what we are doing wrong and then turn around and help us fix it.

  I think we can find that relationship between the regulators and, of 
course, people who are trying to make a living in this country.
  This measure incorporates several provisions that will greatly help 
entities which are defined as small business, small nonprofits and, of 
course, that is what we find in our small towns. When you are a 98 
percent small business State, as Montana is, this happens to be a very 
important issue. After all, all the new jobs are being created by the 
young entrepreneurs who are starting out in business and they are 
hiring one, two, three, four, five people to get started in hopes of 
growing to something larger. It even encompasses our people who work on 
our farms and ranches.
  I am very concerned about the changing attitude that has been 
occurring in probably one of the most helpful, the most knowledgeable 
agencies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that is the Soil 
Conservation Service. They have taken a support group of actually great 
people and know what they are talking about when it comes to soil 
science, soil conservation, water management, water conservation, what 
to do about erosion--the farmers and ranchers across this land really 
placed a lot of confidence in the know-how of the Soil Conservation 
Service--and turned them into a regulatory unit which maybe a farmer or 
rancher does not want to come back on their farm or their ranch 
anymore. That is a relationship that has been destroyed because of the 
nature of the bureaucracy in this day and age.
  I think this law creates a cooperative relationship between 
regulators and small business entities, one that is less punitive and 
much more solution oriented.
  It adds a trigger to the Regulatory Flexibility Act when a rule is 
likely to have a significant economic impact on the substantial number 
of small entities, and the agency would then have to show they have 
taken steps to minimize the impact of the rule on small businesses 
available within the agency's discretion.
  The RFA would also be applicable to the IRS rules and substantive 
interpretive rulemaking, for the first time. I just went down through 
some of the things that it does. It struck me in the compliance guides, 
it means, write the rules and regulations in plain English so all of us 
can understand it, and gets away from these legalees or gets away from 
the language that, no matter which way you go, you are going to be out 
of compliance as far as a businessman is concerned. Just keep it 
simple. That is not asking too much.
  It asks for more input from the small businesses during the 
rulemaking process. We had a hearing in my State of Montana on the new 
rules and regulations on safety in the workplace in the woods, logging, 
requiring that an employer enforce a rule to make loggers wear a 
specific kind of logging boot. It is a caulk boot. You know what? The 
boot is not even out on the market yet. They cannot even buy it at any 
price. They cannot get it. The logging operation is shut down because 
the rule called for the boot, and it is not available.
  There, again, you are asking for some flexibility. Not a bad idea. 
Weigh first-time penalties for small infractions. Quit going out there 
and beating up on people.
  It makes Government more cooperative, and it even makes the 
businesses more cooperative, also. Those are just some things that 
happened in this act. I find that if you come forward with a piece of 
legislation which has strong bipartisan support--and I mean everybody 
on that Small Business Committee had an opportunity for input in 
crafting this legislation--and then we bring it to the floor in hopes 
of giving small business some relief, and it is filibustered by the 
other side of the aisle--make no doubt about it, they will not let this 
piece of legislation come up for a vote. They always told me, the price 
of a filibuster is a few political chips. Somebody better be paying it, 
and somebody better be kicking some into the pot, because along with 
everything else, we do not want to get into a situation, especially in 
a year like 1996, where the only thing we do is get into the business 
of name-calling and not really looking at this piece of legislation and 
what it does for us.
  Small business is where it is at. We do not even pick up the business 
section in the paper that we do not see large corporations downsizing, 
spinning off small parts of their own industry. You know what? That is 
not all bad because some of those little spinoffs, they go out, they 
hire smaller, they become lean and mean, and you know what? Pretty soon 
they become very profitable.

  So when you look at S. 942, it is something that I think the Small 
Business Committee can be very, very proud of. It has new compliance 
guidelines, informal small-entity guidance services to small business 
development centers, even enforcement on ombudsman and regional boards 
that creates some kind of a relationship between those people who do 
business with the Small Business Administration in trying to get their 
businesses off the ground. It levels the playing field. It allows small 
business to do business on the same level as big business.
  So I congratulate Senator Bond and Senator Bumpers for working on 
this, working it out the way it should be done. I mean, we have been 
part of the criticism, too, that we are too partisan. But this one 
really was not. This was a bill that was worked on and was worked on, 
and it was fine-tuned before it was ever allowed to come to a vote in 
the committee. Everybody had an opportunity to be a part of this Small 
Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996.
  We cannot talk one way and act another, because I think the 
information and the availability of how we act and what we say is too 
open to the world to then go home and tell the folks that we have done 
something else. I do not think we are in that kind of a position.
  So I hope and I suggest that the other side of the aisle--let us get 
this on the floor. If you have some complaints about it, let us bring 
them out and let us try to work them out. That is the way legislation 
moves. I do not think there is anybody on this committee that is not 
amenable to suggestions as far as this piece of legislation is 
concerned, because as far as small business is concerned, this could be 
the biggest piece of legislation that we move this year. So I thank my 
chairman and the ranking member, and I hope that we can pass this 
posthaste. I yield the floor.
  Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I want to express my sincere thanks both to 
Senator Burns and to Senator Coverdell, two members of the Small 
Business Committee who have been very active participants. They have 
held hearings

[[Page S1642]]

in their own States. They have brought us good ideas from their States 
that we have incorporated in S. 942.

  I share the sentiments expressed by Senator Burns. We have had great 
cooperation, as mentioned before, from Senator Bumpers, all of the 
Democratic members of the Small Business Committee, and their staffs. I 
think we have a good piece of legislation. Senator Coverdell, at my 
request, introduced a letter of endorsement from the National 
Association of Towns and Townships. They, too, are going to be affected 
and benefited. This is not for small profitmaking corporations only or 
individuals; this affects small entities like not for profits and small 
local units of government.
  So we have made an offer for a very tight unanimous consent request 
to move forward on this bill. We asked to do it today. That was 
objected to. We asked to do it Tuesday. That was objected to.
  My plea is, small business, small entities want some relief. They 
have given us good ideas. We worked on it in the committee. Let us go 
forward. I ask the Members on the other side who are objecting, let us 
go forward and get on with this, because small business deserves to 
have an answer. So do the other small entities affected. I hope that we 
will be able to move forward early next week. But right now it still 
depends upon whether the objections will be raised on the other side.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I thank the Chair.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

                          ____________________