[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 159 (Thursday, November 11, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2382-E2383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE REGULATORY IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2000

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. GEORGE W. GEKAS

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 10, 1999

  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the Regulatory 
Improvement Act of 2000. This bill would bring a greater degree of 
rationality and sounder science to the regulatory process.
  We are all aware that regulations have a huge effect on society. They 
seek to protect the health and safety of the American people, and they 
seek to protect the natural environment. They deal with transportation, 
agriculture, communication, manufacturing--literally every walk of 
American life. They also directly and indirectly cost consumers 
billions and billions of dollars. There is a consensus, I believe, that 
the relationship between these benefits and these costs needs to be 
better known. This is the fundamental aim of the bill.
  Let me say, first, that our effort rides on the shoulders of enormous 
work that has been done by our colleagues in the Senate, particularly 
Senator Thompson, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental 
Affairs. He joined Senator Levin to introduce a bill that has the same 
goals as this one. While there are differences between the two bills, 
our effort follows from and builds on the work of our colleagues in the 
other body. I applaud them for their work.
  While significant details differ, the contours of this bill are quite 
similar to theirs. This bill would require federal agencies 
promulgating major rules to conduct essential analyses of the rules 
they propose. These analyses will not only cause the agencies to do 
better thinking about the problems they confront, but they will also 
allow fuller public discussion of the regulations that are proposed by 
executive branch agencies.
  In the past, we have been shocked at the sight of agencies moving 
forward precipitously, and in the face of conflicting scientific 
information, with regulations having massive effects on economic growth 
and progress. We were pleased to see the Court of Appeals for the D.C. 
Circuit put the brakes on the Environmental Protection Agency's massive 
effort to stall economic progress in Pennsylvania and numerous other 
parts of the country.
  That being said, however, I have never weighed in on the substance of 
these regulations because their true anticipated benefits were never 
known. As Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial 
and Administrative Law, I was not satisfied that the administrative 
processes were being followed as these regulations were written. I did 
not have confidence that the agency was acting rationally and in the 
best interest of the nation. Nor did many other Members of Congress on 
both sides of the aisle.
  Once the Regulatory Improvement Act of 2000 is passed, we will be 
able to have confidence in the decisions made by regulatory agencies. 
This bill will cause more information about the decisions of regulators 
to come to light allowing everyone--Congress, the press, and the 
public--to understand the benefits of major regulations. It will also 
direct agencies toward addressing common causes of injury and disease, 
rather than popular fears about injury and disease. These are different 
things, and the federal bureaucracy needs to use sound science to solve 
the real problems that face Americans, rather than problems that are 
merely exaggerated in the public mind. Too often, interest groups feed 
distorted statistics and selective anecdotes to a hungry media in order 
to advance some agenda. If the regulatory process was better anchored 
to scientific analysis, the practice of fomenting hysteria among the 
public would not work as well. Americans would not have to live with 
trumped up fears.
  The bill requires cost-benefit analysis of major regulations, along 
with risk assessment and substitution risk evaluation of major 
regulations that address health, safety, or environmental risks. In 
general, a major regulation is one that has an effect on the economy of 
$100 million or more.

[[Page E2383]]

  Cost-benefit analysis would allow Congress, the press, and the public 
to learn how cost-effective a given regulation is. We would be able to 
see how much value we are getting back when we give something up 
pursuant to regulation. Cost-benefit analyses of different regulations 
could be compared and we could see what regulations bring large 
improvements and what regulations bring small improvements to American 
life. We include in our bill a requirement that agencies analyze a wide 
variety of regulatory alternatives. Doing so will reveal what the 
incremental costs and benefits are along a range of options. This will 
help agencies choose the right place to draw the line--the place where 
we get the most benefits for the least cost.
  Risk assessment is a characterization of the nature of the harm 
addressed by a regulation, and our bill requires it for regulations 
addressing health, safety, and the environment. Rather than anecdotes 
and fear, we need sound scientific descriptions of what causes a given 
harm, how the harm is caused, and what the chances are that a harm will 
occur. We also need to reveal what assumptions these assessments rely 
on. Certain harms are extremely rare, and even speculative, yet 
sometimes we protect against them more carefully than the harms that 
befall hundreds of Americans every day. Quality risk assessment will 
reveal where this has been the case, so we can refocus our efforts on 
real improvements in quality of life for all Americans.
  A substitution risk assessment should study what risks might be 
created or threatened in the process of avoiding another risk. 
Substitution risk assessment is the reason most people do not jump into 
automobile traffic to avoid meeting a bicycle on the sidewalk. The risk 
this would create is greater than the risk avoided. I do not suggest 
that any current regulations actually create net risks, but there have 
been examples where a significant new harm was created by a regulation. 
We want to avoid this in the future, for the good of our people and for 
the credibility of the regulatory process.
  Let me make some key points about this bill, though I recognize that 
mine will not be the only view on these subjects. First, to do an 
effective cost-benefit analysis, all effects of a regulation must be 
quantified in comparable terms. We must be able to compare apples to 
apples and oranges to oranges. Otherwise, the true effects of a rule 
will be obscured. Note well, Mr. Speaker, that accurate cost-benefit 
analysis does not require tough choices to be made. It illustrates the 
choices that inevitably are being made in a proposed regulation.
  Second, anything that we refer to as a law, including administrative 
law, must be enforceable. That is, there must be someone to review the 
actions of the agency. The best source of this kind of review, the one 
that has always been recognized in this country, is the courts. In the 
104th Congress, I was the original author of legislation to make 
compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act judicially reviewable. 
Judicial review made it into the Regulatory Flexibility Act in the 
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. Today, we 
have seen the benefits of judicial review. A very small number of 
agencies have been reversed or remanded by the courts, while the clear 
majority of agencies are now assiduously following the law. If we 
intend this bill to be followed once it is law, there should be 
judicial review. This bill is silent as to review, which means that its 
provisions are subject to judicial review under the Administrative 
Procedure Act, which it amends.
  These are just two important points I want to lend to the debate on 
how to achieve rational regulation. I am pleased to introduce this 
bill, and again acknowledge the hard work of colleagues who have laid 
the foundation for it.
  We realize the window of opportunity for advancing this bill is 
small. It would represent true improvement of the regulatory process, 
which is a serious challenge to the status quo. We intend to conduct 
hearings and move this bill at the outset of the next session. We hope 
that our vision of regulatory improvement proves out and attracts the 
support of an administration that has so far only offered to reinvent 
the regulatory wheel.
  I am confident that we will succeed and that the vision we all 
share--of safe and healthy people, unburdened by irrational 
regulation--will be achieved through this legislation.

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