[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCING THE REGULATORY FAIR WARNING ACT

  (Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, too often we hear stories about the small 
businessman who hires and employs three or four people, and then gets 
slapped with a legal action by a Federal agency on a matter on which 
the small businessman knows very little about its background or its 
effect. So what does a small businessman have as an option? One, he can 
hire a lawyer to try to defend against a wrong about which he did not 
know; or, in the second place, just pay the fine or other sanction that 
the agency requires because that is the easiest way to go.
  I am today introducing the Regulatory Fair Warning Act, which would 
require the agencies to provide reasonable notice ahead of time of the 
change of a regulation or how it is to be enforced so that the small 
businessman, the employer, can try to comply with that without having 
been hit with a legal action, not knowing what he was supposed to do. 
This is a fair warning whose time has come.

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