[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 18, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3141-H3160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           PAPERWORK AND REGULATORY IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2004

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 645 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 2432.

                              {time}  1705


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 2432) to amend the Paperwork Reduction Act and titles 5 and 31, 
United States Code, to reform Federal paperwork and regulatory 
processes, with Mr. Aderholt in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having 
been read the first time.
  Under the rule, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis).
  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  There can be little question that sometime in the last decade, the 
United States entered a new and very different phase of its economic 
history. In this new phase of global competitiveness, this Nation is 
being challenged to step up once again and set new standards for 
innovation and efficiency. At the outset, it should be said that this 
country welcomes this challenge and we are confident that we have the 
tools necessary to succeed in this new economy that was largely created 
at our insistence.
  The Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004 is designed to 
give Congress the tools it needs to respond to the challenge of a 
global open economy. This bill was originally sponsored by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and is the result of 4 years of 
ongoing and consistent oversight by his Subcommittee on Energy Policy, 
Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs under the leadership of the 
gentleman from California. Oftentimes this work has been done with 
little fanfare, but his consistent hard work has borne great fruit. So 
before I say anything about the bill, I want to commend the gentleman 
from California for his commitment and dedication to great legislative 
oversight.
  There is no doubt that the Nation's regulatory regime can achieve a 
great deal of good in the areas of environmental protection and worker 
health and safety. Beyond that, government has a legitimate need to 
know a great deal about the corporate and, to a degree, even the 
personal financial activity of the Nation. Consequently, there will 
always be paperwork and regulatory demands.
  However, when we look at the vast system of paperwork and regulatory 
demands that exist today, we see that this system is biased in favor of 
the good we hope to achieve and against the cost of achieving that good 
to society. Every rule or reporting requirement has a cost, but 
Congress is severely hampered in its efforts to understand these costs.
  We in the Congress have grown comfortable throwing around huge 
statistics listing millions of hours to describe the paperwork burden 
government places on the Nation. But we seem to forget that these hours 
are spent one by one. It is as if we cannot see the forest for the 
regulatory trees. We may be numb to the burden we have created, but 
individuals and businesses are not.
  When an American businesswoman spends several hours filling out a tax 
form, that is time she is not spending on her family or her clients. 
When a business has to hire an environmental specialist to complete an 
overly complicated, required report, that revenue is not spent in 
research and development or expansion of the business and hiring more 
people. These millions of hours are not just hours taken out of the 
business day; they are hours taken out of people's lives, and the loss 
of these hours should be taken seriously.
  In the decades before the open global economy, Congress could lay 
these new burdens, one over the other, on the American worker with 
little concern about what the overall effect would be. But those days 
are gone. As the world has gradually opened its markets, this country 
has asked our workers to compete head to head on a global basis with 
highly skilled and motivated workers from all around the world.
  This is a good thing. This competition will require our corporate 
community to be as efficient and as competitive as ever. But global 
competition requires our government to be more efficient as well. If we 
are going to ask the workers of this Nation to compete globally, then 
we must free them to be as competitive as possible.
  Congress has an obligation to do the hard work to understand the 
costs of regulation as realistically as possible. This bill will give 
us some of the tools we need to make better decisions on the paperwork 
and regulatory burdens we place on our workers and businesses.
  The bill requires the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, to submit 
a report to Congress identifying specific actions that the Internal 
Revenue Service can take to reduce the tax paperwork burden on small 
businesses. It assists Congress in its review of agency rules by 
establishing a permanent analytical function in the General Accounting 
Office to review proposed and final rules for consistency with 
congressional intent and to ensure the accuracy and completeness of 
agency accompanying analyses.
  Lastly, the bill requires a study to determine the feasibility of 
regulatory budgeting as a better way to manage regulatory burdens on 
the public.
  The gentleman from California, the subcommittee chairman, has put in 
many years working on this important issue.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Ose) and ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to 
manage that time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and ask unanimous consent that he be 
permitted to control the time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I rise to address H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory 
Improvements Act of 2004. We are talking about this bill today because 
House Republicans are concerned that they are being criticized for the 
millions of jobs that have been lost under this administration.
  House Republicans have decided that instead of taking action to 
create jobs, they would make a plan to talk about taking action to 
create jobs. Each week they have a different theme. This week they are 
talking about cutting red tape. The bill we are considering, however, 
does nothing to cut red tape.
  As we will hear later from the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Waxman), this bill does nothing to reduce the hours that Americans 
spend filling out paperwork. In fact, the hours Americans must spend 
filling out paperwork has increased dramatically under the Bush 
administration.
  This bill will also do nothing to improve the regulations issued by 
the Bush administration. In fact, some provisions of the bill will 
actually make the regulatory process worse.
  I have a letter that I would like to enter into the Record to appear 
after my statement, Mr. Chairman, from the League of Conservation 
Voters opposing this bill. This letter states, ``At best, this bill 
would result in a waste of money at a time when Federal resources are 
shrinking; at worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections 
for millions of Americans.''
  The League of Conservation Voters also expresses in their letter 
support for an amendment the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and 
I are offering that would establish an independent commission of 
distinguished experts to investigate the politicization of science in 
the regulatory process. The League of Conservation Voters thinks this 
is such an

[[Page H3142]]

important issue that Members may find their votes in the League of 
Conservation Voters scorecard.
  Leading scientists, including 20 Nobel Laureates, have said the 
political and ideological distortion of science is a major block to 
effective government action on a wide range of health and environmental 
issues. This administration is injecting itself into the regulatory 
process to manipulate science and to manipulate agency regulations to 
suit industry.
  Over and over we hear about agency proposals that are rewritten by 
the Office of Management and Budget to fit the needs of industry 
without regard to the expertise of agency scientists and other experts. 
The administration's proposal on mercury pollution is one recent 
example. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) will describe these 
particular problems in more detail at a later time.
  We should not be here just talking about cutting red tape, Mr. 
Chairman. We should not be passing legislation that will weaken 
important regulatory protections that aim to ensure a safe and healthy 
environment for our children. What we should be doing is taking 
positive steps to make the regulatory process better for all Americans.


                                League of Conservation Voters,

                                                     May 18, 2004.
     Re: Oppose H.R. 2342, Support the Waxman (D-CA)/Tierney (D-
         MA) Amendment

     U.S. House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representatives: The League of Conservation Voters 
     (LCV) is the political voice of the national environmental 
     community. Each year, LCV publishes the National 
     Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of 
     Members of Congress on environmental legislation. The 
     Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters 
     nationwide, and the press.
       LCV urges you to oppose H.R. 2432, which would require the 
     Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to assess the 
     feasibility of imposing regulatory budgeting on major 
     agencies. Regulatory budgeting is a misguided concept that 
     elevates the interests of regulated industries over all other 
     considerations. At best, this bill would result in a waste of 
     money at a time when federal resources are shrinking; at 
     worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections for 
     millions of Americans.
       Regulatory budgeting caps the costs that government can 
     impose on the private sector each year, regardless of the 
     need for public protections. Under this system, once the 
     ``budgeted'' cap has been reached, agencies must cease 
     fulfilling their mandates--polluters get a free pass, 
     workplaces go unprotected, and hazardous foods move into 
     commerce.
       OMB should be directed to account for actions that have 
     taken place over the past three years as scores of critical 
     safeguards have been weakened, rescinded, or abandoned in 
     progress. LCV has noted with alarm the accumulating threat to 
     public health and the environment caused by the rollback of 
     regulations intended, to prevent destruction of the ozone 
     layer, reduce air pollution, prevent neurological harm to 
     children, reduce public exposure to toxins and contaminants, 
     preserve crucial habitat for endangered species, ensure clean 
     drinking water.
       LCV supports the Waxman-Tierney Amendment to create a 
     Commission on Politicization of Science in the Regulatory 
     Process. The Commission would evaluate regulatory activities 
     to determine the extent to which political considerations 
     have undermined the quality and use of the science, and 
     report within 18 months. This commission will address 
     concerns among scientists and government professionals that 
     political considerations are unduly influencing regulatory 
     decisions.
       Americans expect that the science used in development of 
     regulations is not colored by politics. Please oppose H.R. 
     2432 and support the Waxman Amendment. LCV's Political 
     Advisory Committee may consider including votes on this issue 
     in compiling LCV's 2003 Scorecard. If you need more 
     information, please call Betsy Loyless in my office at (202) 
     785-8683.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Deb Callahan,
                                                        President.

  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I want to start by expressing my thanks to Chairman Davis for his 
kind remarks and for his generosity in allowing us to proceed on this 
work. I want to add the compliments to my good friend and ranking 
member from Massachusetts, who has endured the past number of years 
through hearing after hearing after hearing and whose insights and 
suggestions have been most helpful. I am grateful to Chairman Davis for 
his becoming an original cosponsor of this bill.
  As I mentioned in my support for today's rule, last June, with 
bipartisan cosponsorship, I introduced this bill. It makes incremental 
improvements in the existing processes governing paperwork and 
regulations instead of fundamentally changing the role of Congress in 
its oversight of agency rules.
  As to the bill itself, it includes the following legislative changes. 
First, it seeks to ensure reduction in tax paperwork burdens on small 
business. It seeks to assist Congress in its review of agency 
regulatory proposals. And it seeks to improve public and congressional 
understanding of the true costs and benefits of regulations. My 
manager's amendment makes no changes to sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the 
reported bill.

                              {time}  1715

  I will discuss the changes to sections 5 and 6, which I included 
based on specific requests from the General Accounting Office and the 
Office of Management and Budget.
  As to section 3, let me offer that the overall burden of Federal 
paperwork and regulatory requirements is staggering and it is a real 
drain on job growth, productivity, and American competitiveness. 
Incredibly, Federal paperwork and regulatory burdens have increased, 
not decreased, in each of the last 8 years. This occurs irrespective of 
who is in the White House and who is in control of Congress. Currently, 
the Internal Revenue Service accounts for 80 percent of the total 
government-wide paperwork burden on the public of over 8 billion hours; 
that is billion with a ``b.'' To reduce paperwork, section 3 requires 
that OMB, after consultation with the IRS and two other identified 
Federal offices, review and report to Congress on actions that the IRS 
can take to reduce the paperwork burden imposed on small business. For 
example, the IRS could introduce thresholds below which reporting is 
not required, they change existing threshold levels, or they could 
change the reporting frequency, the periodicity at which reports must 
be submitted.
  Section 5 provides for assistance to Congress in its review of agency 
regulatory proposals. It permanently establishes a regulatory analysis 
function in the General Accounting Office. In the Truth in Regulating 
Act of 2000, Congress authorized a 3-year pilot test for this 
regulatory analysis function, but unfortunately it was never funded. 
This was partly due to the fact that GAO intended to use contractors 
instead of in-house expert staff during the test period, which is 
understandable. They did not want to tool up and then have the pilot 
test not be funded in the future; so they chose, frankly, a more 
prudent manner in doing it. The problem is the work never got done 
because it never got funded. This bill would ensure that the GAO has 
the in-house expertise comparable to the expertise in the OMB's Office 
of Information and Regulatory Affairs and that such services can be 
provided to Congress as proposals come forward.
  On the eve of last Wednesday's full committee markup, GAO submitted a 
letter requesting various changes in the bill. I did not include these 
changes in my manager's amendment during the markup because GAO had not 
provided certain information that my subcommittee had previously 
requested and which was important to the bill.
  OMB's current line item budget for OIRA is $7 million. That is an 
annual budget. But OIRA has multiple functions besides review of agency 
paperwork and regulatory proposals and analyses. For example, OIRA is 
responsible for government-wide statistical policy, information policy, 
and information technology policy. Since GAO had not provided 
information about the share of OIRA's budget devoted to regulatory 
analysis activities, after the full committee markup I asked OMB what 
proportion of its budget is devoted to review of agency paperwork and 
regulatory proposals and the related regulatory analyses. The estimate 
came back at 65 to 70 percent.
  As a consequence, my manager's amendment authorizes $5 million in 
fiscal year 2005 and each year thereafter for GAO to perform its 
independent evaluations at the request of Congress of certain 
economically significant rules. GAO will be reviewing the various 
agency analyses such as its regulatory impact analysis and its 
regulatory flexibility analysis, the regulatory alternatives considered 
by the

[[Page H3143]]

agency, and the legislative history to ensure that the proposed and 
final agency rules are consistent with congressional intent.
  In addition, GAO asked me to include a delayed effective date of 90 
days after enactment, and this provision is included in a new section 
5(b).
  Section 6 requires certain changes to improve regulatory accounting. 
In 1996 Congress required OMB to submit its first regulatory accounting 
report. In 1998 and 2000, Congress enacted additional legislation to 
make OMB's regulatory accounting reports more useful. Currently, OMB is 
required to estimate the total annual costs and benefits for all 
Federal rules and paperwork in the aggregate, by agency, by agency 
program, and by major rule, and to prepare an associated report on the 
impacts of Federal rules and paperwork on certain groups such as small 
business.
  To date, OMB has issued six final and a seventh draft regulatory 
accounting report. Each of the seven did not meet one or more of the 
content requirements under current statute. Part of the reason for this 
incompleteness is that OMB has not requested agency estimates, as it 
does annually for its Information Collection Budget for paperwork and 
for the President's budget, the fiscal budget of the United States. 
Section 6(a) requires Federal agencies to annually submit estimates of 
the costs and benefits associated with the Federal rules and paperwork 
for each of their agency programs. The caveat for agency input to be 
provided ``to the extent feasible'' was added to ensure that no further 
burden on or cost to the agencies occurred.
  Currently, the economic impacts of Federal regulation receive much 
less scrutiny than programs in the fiscal budget. Both the introduced 
and reported bill versions of H.R. 2432 required OMB to integrate its 
annual regulatory accounting statement into the fiscal budget so that 
Congress can review simultaneously both the on-budget and off-budget 
costs associated with each Federal agency imposing regulatory or 
paperwork burdens on the public.
  Current law requires OMB to submit its regulatory accounting report 
``with'' the budget instead of ``as part of'' the budget. However, OMB 
has never submitted its final accounting statement with the budget. In 
fact, only once has OMB even published its draft in the Federal 
Register on the same day as the budget was submitted to Congress. Not 
submitting the regulatory accounting statement at the same time as the 
budget or publishing it separately from the budget in the Federal 
Register has precluded a timely side-by-side comparison for analytic 
purposes of the on-budget and off-budget costs associated with each 
major regulatory agency and each of its regulatory programs.
  Last July, OMB's OIRA administrator testified that ``OMB believes it 
could be feasible to issue a separate volume with the budget that 
contains the final regulatory accounting report and perhaps some 
related budget information for comparison purposes.''
  Nonetheless, at the insistence of OMB, in a letter submitted 
yesterday to the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis), my 
manager's amendment reluctantly removes the integration requirement, 
taking from it the ``as part of'' language and leaving it as the 
``with'' language. Congress still expects OMB to comply with the law, 
that is, to issue its final regulatory accounting statement and 
associated report at the same time as and in a document that 
accompanies the fiscal budget documents. The House report accompanying 
H.R. 2432, which is this legislation, provides ample justification for 
integration, including witness testimony in support of integration and 
my 9-page April 22, 2004, comment letter to OMB on its draft seventh 
regulatory accounting report.
  Section 6(b) requires OMB to designate not less than three agencies, 
or perhaps offices within an agency, to participate in a study of 
regulatory accounting for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 and then report to 
Congress on this study. These test will determine if agencies can 
better manage regulatory burdens on the public. My manager's amendment 
ensures that OMB will consult with key congressional committees, the 
Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Government Reform in the 
House and the Committees on the Budget and Governmental Affairs in the 
Senate.
  H.R. 2432 focuses on process and should result in needed paperwork 
and regulatory relief especially for small business, and it will help 
Congress fulfill its constitutional role as a co-equal branch of 
government.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the full committee.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, today we are debating a bill that claims to 
improve Federal regulations, reduce red tape and paperwork. 
Unfortunately, the substance and the timing of this bill make it clear 
that we are engaged not in public policy but in public relations.
  This bill is part of the congressional Republicans' Hire Our Workers 
plan, also called the HOW plan. This is a public relations strategy 
designed to make the public think that Republicans in Congress have a 
plan to increase jobs and revive the economy, but in reality the plan 
is all show and no substance.
  My Republican colleagues are going to spend a lot of time today 
talking about their opposition to paperwork, but here is what they will 
not tell us. The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have 
presided over record increases in paperwork. President Bush 
consistently rails against paperwork. He urged paperwork reductions as 
a Presidential candidate, as President-elect, in every year of his 
administration, and on at least seven separate occasions thus far this 
year. Just 2 months ago, President Bush said: ``We need to stop 
harassing small business owners and entrepreneurs with endless amounts 
of regulation and paperwork.''
  So how do his policies match up? Last year Americans spent 700 
million more hours filling out government forms than they did during 
the last year of the Clinton administration. This was not an accident, 
and it was not the product of an out-of-control bureaucracy. Most of 
the increase came from legislation supported by the administration and 
passed by the Republican majority in the Congress. In fact, the major 
culprits are the tax bills that President Bush promoted and Congress 
passed.
  The administration and the Republican leadership are putting this 
bill before the Congress so they proclaim they are doing something 
about governmental red tape.
  They are doing something. They are increasing record levels of the 
amount of paperwork that we have to deal with.
  The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I released a 
reported today that documents how paperwork has increased under the 
Bush administration, and I am going to insert this report with my 
comments today. What is happening on paperwork is just like what has 
happened on so many other issues. The President says he is a fiscal 
conservative, but he has driven our Nation deep into debt. The 
President says he is behind education, he is the Education President, 
but he will not fund the No Child Left Behind Act.
  And with this bill we see that when the President says he will cut 
paperwork, what actually happens is that he increases paperwork.
  This public relations campaign on paperwork is especially distressing 
because there are real regulatory problems this Congress is ignoring. 
These include the increased politicization of science and the undue 
influence of special interests. But unless we adopt the amendment that 
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I will be offering, 
this bill will do nothing to address these fundamental problems. This 
legislation will not improve the economy, reduce paperwork, or enhance 
the well-being of this country. It will only make it harder for 
agencies to carry out their mandates to protect public health, the 
environment, and other values. This Congress should be taking real 
action to address real problems.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for our amendment when we offer it later 
in the debate.

[[Page H3144]]

  House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform--Minority 
        Staff, Special Investigations Division, Revised May 2004

  Government Paperwork Burdens Have Increased Substantially Under the 
                          Bush Administration

 (Prepared for Representative John F. Tierney, Representative Henry A. 
                                Waxman)


                           Executive Summary

       President Bush has made reducing the burdens of completing 
     government paperwork a key item in his economic agenda. In 
     speech after speech, he emphasizes that ``we must reduce 
     unnecessary government regulation and red tape so businesses 
     can focus on consumers and customers, not paperwork.''
       Contrary to the President's rhetoric, however, total 
     government paperwork has increased substantially under the 
     Bush Administration to an estimated 8.1 billion hours in 
     fiscal year 2003. Last year, Americans spent over 700 million 
     more hours filing out government paperwork than in the last 
     year of the Clinton Administration. The largest annual 
     increase in paperwork burden ever measured occurred under the 
     Bush Administration in fiscal year 2002.
       Government paperwork increased again in fiscal year 2003. 
     In its most recent data on paperwork burdens, the Bush 
     Administration relies on ``adjustments'' to show a nominal 
     reduction in the federal paperwork burden in fiscal year 
     2003. However, adjustments in agency paperwork estimates do 
     not necessarily reflect any actual reduction in the number of 
     hours that Americans spend filling out paperwork. Focusing on 
     the real impacts on Americans, GAO reports that ``[d]uring 
     fiscal year 2003, the total paperwork burden, exclusive of 
     adjustments, increased again by about 72 million burden 
     hours.''
       Statutory changes promoted by President Bush and enacted by 
     Congress, particularly to the tax code, are among the largest 
     sources of the increased paperwork burden. The Administration 
     is also pursuing new regulatory changes that will impose 
     additional paperwork burdens on Americans, including 
     increased paperwork requirements for low-income families.


            I. President Bush's Promises To Reduce Paperwork

       President George W. Bush has frequently criticized the 
     amount of ``paperwork'' required by the federal government. 
     From the very outset of his campaign for the presidency, 
     President Bush emphasized his commitment to reduce government 
     paperwork. In an address in Los Angeles in September 1999, 
     for example, President Bush said:
       ``The only thing we know for sure is that federal money 
     comes with a lot of regulations and paperwork. By one 
     estimate, this consumes about 50 million hours each year--the 
     equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees just to process the 
     forms. . . . New layers of federal mandates and procedures 
     have been added to the old until their original purpose is 
     long forgotten. It is a sad story of high hopes, how 
     achievement, grand plans, and unmet goals. My administration 
     will do things differently.''
       Since being elected, President Bush has continued to 
     promise to reduce government paperwork burdens. He argues 
     that paperwork ``stifle[s] innovation and the entrepreneurial 
     spirit,'' and he has said that ``we must reduce unnecessary 
     government regulation and red tape so businesses can focus on 
     consumers and customers, not paperwork.''
       In a speech last December, President Bush stated:
       ``And a lot of times government has a tendency to over-
     regulate, which is a non-productive cost to these small 
     business owners who would rather be employing people and 
     making it easier for somebody to find work, than filling out 
     reams of paperwork that probably doesn't get read anyway.''
       President Bush has repeatedly stated his commitment to 
     reducing federal paperwork requirements and he made doing so 
     a key element of his ``Six-Point Plan for the Economy.'' In 
     September 2003, President Bush stated: ``We need to 
     continue to work for regulatory relief on small and large 
     businesses, so that instead of filing needless paperwork, 
     you're working to make your work force more productive and 
     to meet the needs of your customers.'' In November 2003, 
     he stated: ``We've got to cut useless government 
     regulations. We need to do it at the federal level. . . . 
     We need to make sure our entrepreneurs are focused on job 
     creation, not filling out needless paperwork.'' In March 
     2004, President Bush reiterated these points:
       I bet you spend a lot of time filling out paperwork. I bet 
     not much of your paperwork is ever read. The government needs 
     to let you focus on your business, on developing goods and 
     services. It needs to let you focus on hiring people, rather 
     than spending hours filling out paperwork. In order for us to 
     keep jobs here at home and expand the job base, we need 
     better regulatory policy at the federal, state, and local 
     level.
       Just over a month ago, President Bush said: ``We need to 
     stop harassing small business owners and entrepreneurs with 
     endless amounts of regulation and paperwork.''
       President Bush has also touted actions he has taken to 
     reduce paperwork. In May 2003, he highlighted the 
     establishment of a task force on reducing paperwork:
       To enhance economic security for working people throughout 
     the economy we must reduce the burden of regulation and 
     litigation on small businesses as well. Employers don't want 
     to spend their time and resources filling out forms or 
     fighting junk lawsuits. They want to be out on the shop floor 
     or behind the cash register creating profits and jobs. And 
     that is why this administration has launched a task force to 
     find ways to reduce paperwork and small-business owners in 
     America. We must enact regulatory and lawsuit reforms so that 
     our business owners can do what they do best: create jobs.
       In June 2003, President Bush took credit for an executive 
     order that purported to reduce paperwork burdens, stating: 
     ``I'm concerned and mindful about what paperwork and 
     regulations do to small businesses. So I put down an 
     executive order that requires all federal regulatory agencies 
     to minimize the burden on our small businesses.''


          II. Paperwork increase under the Bush Administration

       There is a large gap between President Bush's rhetoric 
     about the need for paperwork reduction and the performance of 
     his Administration. According to data from the General 
     Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget, 
     the burden of government paperwork on American citizens has 
     actually increased substantially under the Bush 
     Administration. At the same time as President Bush has been 
     promising to reduce paperwork burdens, Americans are actually 
     spending more time doing paperwork than ever before.

           A. The Requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act

       The primary tool for measuring and controlling paperwork 
     requirements imposed by federal law and regulations is the 
     Paperwork Reduction Act. Collecting information is essential 
     for the government to collect taxes, administer programs, and 
     enforce laws. The Paperwork Reduction Act aims to make these 
     information collections as efficient as possible. It requires 
     agencies to estimate the time it will take to fill out a form 
     or otherwise provide information to the government, obtain 
     approvals of larger information collection requests from the 
     Office of Management and Budget, and reduce the overall hours 
     of paperwork by a given percent each year.
       Each agency is required to submit a report each year 
     providing the number of paperwork burden hours that the 
     agency imposed during the previous year. The annual PRA 
     reports from each federal agency provide a picture of the 
     total hours of paperwork required by the federal government. 
     For the past several years, GAO has analyzed these reports 
     annually at Congress' request. This report relies on the 
     analyses provided by GAO, as well as data provided to 
     Congress from the Office of Management and Budget.

                       B. Total Paperwork Burdens

       The annual paperwork burden today is over 700 million 
     burden hours higher than it was when President Bush took 
     office. In fiscal year 2000, the annual paperwork burden 
     imposed by the federal government was measured at about 7.4 
     billion hours. By the end of fiscal year 2003, the annual 
     paperwork burden stood at 8.1 billion burden hours. This is 
     an increase of nearly 10%.
       The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accounts for more 
     paperwork than any other federal agency, with 81% of the 
     total paperwork hours. In contrast, EPA currently accounts 
     for only 1.8% of federal paperwork burden, and the Department 
     of Labor, including OSHA, accounts for only 2.0% of federal 
     paperwork burden.

     C. A Record Increase in Paperwork Burdens in Fiscal Year 2002

       The first two years of the Bush Administration saw large 
     increases in the number of hours of paperwork burden. In 
     fiscal year 2001, the federal government required 7.6 billion 
     hours of paperwork, an increase of 290 million hours from the 
     year before.
       In fiscal year 2002, the increase in the paperwork burden 
     was approximately 570 million hours. Almost 300 million hours 
     of this increase was due to program changes that added or 
     reinstated paperwork obligations. This was the largest 
     increase in paperwork since the Paperwork Reduction Act was 
     amended in 1995. The total paperwork burden for fiscal year 
     2002 was 8.2 billion hours.

         D. Increases in Paperwork Burdens in Fiscal Year 2003

       This year, the Administration is reporting a small decline 
     in the overall number of reported paperwork burden hours from 
     last year's record high of 8.2 billion hours to 8.1 billion 
     hours.
       According to the General Accounting Office, however, 
     ``[t]his year, the story, while on the surface may appear 
     encouraging, is not.'' GAO's analysis reveals that the 
     purported drop in government paperwork is entirely due to 
     ``adjustments'' that ``are not the result of direct federal 
     government action but rather are caused by factors such as . 
     . . agency reestimates of the burden associated with a 
     collection of information.'' GAO concludes that ``[d]uring 
     fiscal year 2003 the total paperwork burden, exclusive of 
     adjustments, increased again by about 72 million burden 
     hours.''

                  E. Causes of the Paperwork Increases

       Much of the increases in paperwork burden since fiscal year 
     2000 has been driven by statutory changes proposed by the 
     Administration and passed by Congress.
       The largest sources of statutory increases in paperwork 
     have been the recent tax law changes, which have introduced 
     substantial additional complexity and burden for individuals 
     and small businesses in filling out

[[Page H3145]]

     their tax forms. For example, Americans spent an additional 
     330 million hours filling out tax paperwork in fiscal year 
     2002, with the implementation of the Economic Growth and Tax 
     Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and other IRS regulations.
       Similarly, the IRS reports that its implementation of the 
     Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 
     ``generated an estimated 113.9 million additional hours of 
     burden.''
       One example of the increased paperwork is the changes to 
     the taxation of capital gains in the Jobs and Growth Tax 
     Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. To implement these 
     provisions, the IRS made numerous changes to Form 1040, Form 
     1040A, and associated schedules. Among other changes, the IRS 
     added 13 extra lines to Schedule D, which taxpayers must file 
     to report their capital gains and losses. Overall, just this 
     portion of the paperwork changes driven by the Jobs and 
     Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 increased the 
     paperwork burden for individual taxpayers by over 16 million 
     hours in fiscal year 2003. For families with modest incomes 
     and few capital gains, the increased paperwork burdens 
     significantly offset any benefit from the capital gains tax 
     reductions.
       The paperwork increases have also hit small businesses. 
     Together the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 
     2003 and the 2000 Community Renewal Act added complexity to 
     Form 1120S and its associated schedules. These forms are used 
     by S corporations, which are often small businesses or the 
     self-employed. Due to these added complexities, S corporation 
     filers spent almost 12 million additional hours filling out 
     tax forms in fiscal year 2003.

                F. Increases in Future Paperwork Burdens

       Additional paperwork increases are likely in fiscal year 
     2004 and future years under policies being pursued by the 
     Bush Administration. For example, the Bush Administration 
     will require labor unions to report extensive new financial 
     information starting in fiscal year 2004. Under the new rule, 
     all unions with annual receipts of at least $250,000 will be 
     required to report almost all of their receipts and 
     disbursements. It is estimated that roughly 4,500 labor 
     organizations will have to comply with this requirement, only 
     65 of which are large international unions. One union, the 
     Airline Pilots Association, estimates that the required 
     reports will produce 15,863 pages, or about five-and-a-half 
     feet of paper, each year.
       Based on a survey of unions, the new reporting requirements 
     were estimated to cost unions somewhere in the range of $700 
     million to $1.1 billion per year. The same report estimated 
     that fullfilling the new reporting requirements would require 
     on average, roughly 353 hours per union employee, per year.
       The Bush Administration is also currently testing new 
     paperwork requirements for low- and moderate-income families 
     to demonstrate their eligibility for the Child Tax Credit 
     portion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. This is an important 
     tax credit for workers in low wage jobs and the recently 
     unemployed who have children to support.
       Under the pilot program that applies to 50,000 individuals, 
     persons seeking the credit must supply proof from a third 
     party that the child they are claiming under the Earned 
     Income Tax Credit lived with them for more than six months in 
     that year. The individual must produce official records 
     meeting the proof requirements, an affidavit from a third 
     party, signed under penalty of perjury, or a letter on 
     official letterhead from a third party, such as a landlord or 
     social service agency employee. The IRS estimates that this 
     new requirement imposes an additional 40 minutes of paperwork 
     burden for each person filling out these forms.


                            III. Conclusion

       As a candidate, George Bush railed against government 
     paperwork burdens and promised that ``[m]y administration 
     will do things differently.'' As President, Mr. Bush 
     continues to urge reductions in government paperwork burdens. 
     But in practice, the Bush Administration has actually 
     increased paperwork burdens. Today, Americans are filling out 
     far more paperwork under the Bush Administration than ever 
     before.

  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time and for bringing this bill to the floor.
  As we look at our efforts to be more competitive as a society, we 
clearly have to look at the regulations imposed by government and be 
sure that any of those regulations, any of that paperwork, is 
justified.
  The cost of paperwork and regulatory constraints have been steadily 
increasing in America. America's small business owners are feeling the 
pinch; and they believe, along with those who support this bill, it is 
time to do something about it.
  Tax relief is not the problem; but we do need a simpler, fairer tax 
system because all of these things we put into law do require different 
levels of compliance.
  What this bill attempts to do is find out what those compliant costs 
are. Paperwork and regulatory burdens cost small business of fewer than 
20 employees $6,975 per employee just to fill out the paperwork and 
comply with federally imposed regulatory burdens. That is nearly 60 
percent more per employee than if they have more than 500 employees in 
their business. So the burden is disproportionate on small business 
though it is not insignificant on all of our businesses as we create 
jobs and make an effort to compete in a world economy.
  Mr. Chairman, we can loosen the chokehold of paperwork and 
regulation. To do so, we need to be fully informed on the true cost of 
these regulations.

                              {time}  1730

  H.R. 2432 would require the Office of Management and Budget to seek 
agency input on the cost and benefits of agency regulatory programs 
when creating the annual regulatory accounting report.
  The bill offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) 
authorizes that the Office of Management and Budget designate not less 
than three agencies or offices within an agency to participate in a 2-
year regulatory budgeting study and report the results to Congress. We 
can then use that information to determine if regulatory budgeting is a 
useful tool for managing regulatory burdens on the public.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge all my colleagues to support the Ose bill, the 
Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act. It is an excellent and 
important first step in reducing the hidden job tax, levied on small 
businesses particularly, and consumers across the country.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Brown).
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the bill, but more specifically 
I want to speak in support of the Waxman-Tierney amendment. The 
amendment should garner the support of every Member of this body, 
because this body authorizes and funds the activities of CDC, of EPA, 
of FDA and every other Federal agency.
  We have an oversight role, and under our watch, science is being 
subverted to promote political and ideological goals. Advisory goals 
are being stripped of scientific experts and seeded with industry 
representatives and ideologues. Reports are being censored and data is 
being manipulated to promote the administration's political and 
ideological objectives.
  This is a dangerous, dangerous precedent. This did not happen with 
President Bush, Sr., it did not happen with President Clinton, it did 
not happen with President Reagan, it did not happen with Republican or 
Democratic Presidents the way that it is happening today under this 
very politicized, very partisan, very ideologically driven White House.
  The Federal Government has no business hiding from the facts, much 
less suppressing them. That means the Federal Government should not 
turn over science, real science, to ideology, to industry 
representatives, to corporate interests.
  In February of this year, 20 Nobel Laureates and dozens of other 
leading U.S. scientists issued an unprecedented statement of concern 
about the misuse of science by the Bush administration. This is not a 
Democrat on the House floor saying this, this is 20 Nobel Prize-winning 
scientists and dozens of other leading scientists.
  ``When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with the 
political goals, the Bush administration has manipulated the process 
through which science enters into its decisions.''
  These are Nobel Laureates and other scientists talking.
  ``This has been done in the Bush administration by placing people who 
are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest 
in official posts and on scientific advisory committees, by disbanding 
existing advisory committees, by censoring and suppressing reports by 
the government's own scientists, and by simply not seeking independent 
scientific advice.'' That is from 20 Nobel Laureates, not from a bunch 
of Democrats complaining about it.
  To prove the point that these are not our words, the Director of the 
National

[[Page H3146]]

Bureau of Standards in the Nixon administration, another Republican who 
played it straight, did not have this ideologically driven agenda, Dr. 
Lewis Branscomb of the Nixon administration, said, ``I am not aware 
that President Nixon ever hand-picked ideologues to serve on advisory 
committees or dismissed from advisory committees well-qualified people 
if he didn't like their views. I don't think we have had this kind of 
cynicism that we see today with respect to objective scientific advice 
since I have been watching government, which is quite a long time.''
  The Bush administration is manufacturing reality to fit its beliefs, 
and then they have the nerve, they have the gall, to call it sound 
science. That is not science, it is censorship. This Nation cannot 
afford it, this body should not abide it. I urge my colleagues to pass 
this amendment. Regardless of our political affiliation, we should not 
be afraid of the truth, nor should we permit its subversion.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
  Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I 
congratulate him for bringing this important legislation to the floor 
today.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my strong support for H.R. 2432, the 
Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act. Today, Federal paperwork and 
regulations are stifling American business. The Small Business 
Administration estimates that Americans spend over 8 billion hours a 
year on Federal paperwork, costing our economy an estimated $843 
billion, an amount far exceeding Canada's GDP and even the pretax 
profits of all U.S. corporations.
  Small businesses are especially hard hit. Those businesses employing 
20 people or less face regulatory costs of almost $7,000 per employee, 
compared to $4,500 for larger companies, SBA data shows.
  In 2002, the Federal Register topped 80,000 pages, one of the highest 
totals ever, leading the Cato Institute to affectionately refer to 
these regulations as the 10,000 commandments.
  Instead of making it easier for our economy to create and sustain 
good paying jobs, burdensome Federal regulations are an incentive for 
U.S. companies, large and small, to find other ways to do business, 
including relocating to places with less burdensome regulations. This 
wasted time and money is hurting America's ability to compete in the 
global marketplace.
  Mr. Chairman, let us make sure Federal agencies are not placing an 
unnecessary burden on workers and businesses. Let us make sure Congress 
has the tools and information it needs to hold regulatory agencies 
accountable.
  This Congress has a responsibility to get the Federal Government out 
of the way of private enterprise and let it do what it does best, 
create jobs. Let us pass the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Maine (Mr. Allen).
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Chairman, today our Republican colleagues are talking about 
reforming government regulation. There is a big problem with government 
regulation, and especially environmental regulation under the Bush 
administration.
  This administration has turned regulatory decision-making over to big 
campaign donors with polluting industries. We all know what happens to 
public health and the environment when industry writes rules.
  I want to mention three areas: the utility industry, the livestock 
industry and industrial laundries.
  Consider the EPA's recently proposed rule on mercury pollution from 
power plants. A few years ago, EPA set up a process to involve all of 
the interested parties, States and localities, public health 
representatives, fish and wildlife advocates, power plant owners and 
others. These stakeholders worked for over a year. They gave EPA a set 
of regulatory recommendations, and they were working on other technical 
recommendations.
  Then last spring, EPA halted the process and went behind closed 
doors. Nine months later, EPA emerged with an entirely new proposal 
based on another section of the Clean Air Act, and it allows many power 
plants to do nothing to control mercury emissions, perhaps for years, 
perhaps even for decades.
  Now, as we now know, key parts of this deregulatory proposal were 
actually written by the power industry, which is one of President 
Bush's largest donors. The EPA Inspector General is now looking into 
the proposal and the new administrator has promised to go back to do 
further analysis. This is simply not the way agencies are supposed to 
do regulation.
  Yesterday, we learned from the Chicago Tribune that livestock 
industry lobbyists are also setting environmental policy. The livestock 
industry sold the EPA on a proposal to let factory farms off the hook 
for air pollution violations. In exchange, the industry would conduct 
some monitoring, and monitoring only. Livestock lobbyists did not just 
come up with the idea; they also worked on all the details. EPA then 
publicly presented the proposal using, as EPA materials, slides that 
had been prepared by the lobbyists. The livestock industry is also an 
important source of campaign contributions to Republicans.
  On the same day as the Chicago Tribune story, the Washington Post 
detailed how industrial laundry lobbyists influenced an EPA rule on 
hazardous waste disposal. The key company in this industry is owned by 
a Bush Pioneer who had raised at least $100,000 for the President's 
2000 campaign.
  The Post reports that EPA gave industrial laundry lobbyists an 
advance copy of a portion of the proposed rule, the lobbyist edited the 
rule and EPA adopted the changes. EPA did not grant such access to any 
other interested parties, which included environmental advocates, a 
labor union, hazardous waste landfill operators and competitive 
industries.
  These are not accidents or isolated incidents. The Bush 
administration defends these proposals. Apparently, the administration 
sees nothing wrong with providing special access to large donors who 
own or represent polluting industries. But when industry buys the 
regulatory process, all Americans pay the bills. The prices are health, 
polluted air, dirty water, poisoned land, tainted fish and dying 
forests.
  We do need regulatory reform, but this bill would only make the real 
problems worse.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I would just remind Members that this bill does not 
speak to any agency in specificity, but only to process.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Schrock), who also happens to be the distinguished vice chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory 
Affairs.
  Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2432, and 
I am glad to be a cosponsor of the very sensible bill offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).
  Mr. Chairman, small businesses and the public need relief from the 
burdensome and costly impact of Federal rules and paperwork. In 2001, 
the Small Business Administration found that firms employing fewer than 
20 employees face an annual regulatory burden of $6,975 per employee. 
The SBA also found that Federal regulations and paperwork compose $843 
billion in compliance costs on small businesses.
  As the chairman of the Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on 
Regulatory Affairs and Oversight and as a member of the Subcommittee on 
Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs chaired by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), I have heard on numerous occasions 
the testimony of small business owners about how regulations cost our 
small businesses time and money.
  This bill will provide relief to small businesses by reducing the tax 
paperwork for small business. It will improve the completeness and 
timeliness of the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory 
accounting reports, and it provides for a study of the feasibility of 
regulatory budgeting that is desperately needed to better manage the 
huge regulatory burdens on the public, especially small business.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this bill because, in 
the end, it will free up more time and money for small businesses that, 
in turn, can reinvest in new technologies, new research and additional 
development.

[[Page H3147]]

  Most importantly, this bill will also allow businesses to create more 
jobs for America's families.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, as I noted, under this administration, we have had the 
largest increases in the number of hours of paperwork burden ever.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. 
Eddie Bernice Johnson).
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the 
gentleman for yielding me time.
  I rise in support of the Waxman-Tierney amendment to establish a 
Commission on Politicization of Science in the Regulatory Process. We 
need this commission because Congress and the administration have 
failed to do their jobs adequately. We also need this commission 
because scientific information has become politicized more and more 
recently, and this really has to change.
  We have all read and heard of the allegations that politics has been 
used as a litmus test for the appointment of scientists to the Federal 
science advisory panels and that interpretation of scientific 
information has been skewed to emphasize uncertainties and justify 
inaction.
  When 20 Nobel Laureates sign a letter stating that their belief is in 
the existence of a problem, we should take notice and examine the 
allegations. Yet Congress has failed to hold any hearings on this 
issue.
  Dr. Marburger, the President's chief science advisor, does little 
more than issue a rebuttal to the Union of Concerned Scientist's 
report, denying that any problem exists.
  It is true that the plural of anecdote is not data. However, at some 
point a series of anecdotes begins to look like a pattern. The pattern 
is disturbing and threatens to undermine our ability to rely on 
scientific and technical information as we weigh alternative policies.

                              {time}  1745

  At a minimum, the number of cases and the range of scientific issues 
they encompass create the perception that the Federal science advisory 
process has been undermined by politics. The perception alone is 
damaging. Policymakers and the public must have confidence in 
scientific information and scientific advice provided by experts.
  Policy and regulatory decisions are political. Science can inform our 
decisions and help us to understand the likely outcomes associated with 
different policy choices. However, science does not determine policy 
choices. This is our job.
  We must examine the processes we use to incorporate scientific 
information into our policy decisions, and we need constructive 
suggestions about how to ensure that political influence over the 
development of scientific information is minimized. It appears the 
current system is ripe for manipulation, and reform is needed. There 
are steps we can and should take to make it more difficult to 
politicize science. The commission can help us to identify these steps.
  I urge support of this amendment. It is too costly and too misleading 
for us to depend on hearsay and ideology to substitute for the truth in 
scientific findings.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) has 8 minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) has 13 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Kelly).
  Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support for H.R. 
2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvement Act, of which I am a co-
sponsor. This important legislation will enable Congress to take 
responsibility for the laws and regulations imposed on this Nation.
  Over the past 20 years, the costs and impacts of regulations have 
increased dramatically. We routinely authorize executive branch 
agencies to issue rules implementing the laws we pass in Congress. Just 
as Congress needs a Congressional Budget Office to check and balance 
the executive branch in the budget process, it also needs an analytic 
capability to check and balance the executive branch in the regulatory 
process. Our delegation of authority to the agencies does not relieve 
us of our duty to ensure the responsiveness and effectiveness of those 
agency regulations. Agency rules and regulations have the force and 
effect of law. They spew forth from the agencies more than 3 or 4,000 
rules and regulations every 2 years, and Congress rightly should have 
better oversight.
  Since the 104th Congress, I have led the fight for a Congressional 
Office of Regulatory Analysis resulting in the passage of the Truth in 
Regulating Act of 2000. That statute authorized a 3-year pilot project, 
adding a function at the General Accounting Office to respond to 
Congress' request for an independent evaluation of selective 
economically significant proposed rules, including an evaluation of the 
proposals that are consistent with congressional intent. Instead of 
using their own experts, GAO planned to hire outside contractor experts 
for the 3-year pilot test. As a consequence Congress did not fund this 
approach.
  Today it is regrettable that despite the passage of TIRA, we still do 
not have an independent analysis of the various agencies regulatory 
analyses required by law or by executive order. H.R. 2432 would 
permanently authorize this function within GAO, ensuring full-time 
agency expertise within GAO. More importantly, the GAO's analysis would 
allow us to submit more informed and more influential comments on the 
cost, scope, and content of proposed rules during the public comment 
period.
  Clearly it is time to increase the transparency of important 
regulatory decisions, promote effective congressional oversight,and 
increase the accountability of agencies. The government is accountable 
to the people and must take responsibilities for the rules established 
under the laws Congress passes.
  Passage of H.R. 2432 would be one step toward Congress meeting its 
regulatory responsibilities. It is long past time for us to stop trying 
to change the subject and politicizing good public policy for small 
businesses. I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill, which is a 
small step towards giving some agencies the oversight they require.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleague to stay around for the 
amendment that the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I will 
present to talk about politicization of particular projects and 
policies.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Waxman-
Tierney amendment, which would create an expert commission to study the 
politicization of science and make recommendations on how to protect 
science from political interference in the decision-making process.
  This is an extremely important bill. It should have bipartisan 
support. We need our decisions to be based on science, not politics. 
Yet too often the decisions that are coming forward really overrule the 
recommendations of the scientists for a political goal or a certain 
ideology. For one example, 2 weeks ago, the FDA denied an application 
to allow the sale of Plan B emergency contraception and give it over-
the-counter status. In this case, the science was very, very clear; and 
the FDA's own advisory panel voted 27 to zero that Plan B could be 
safely sold as an over-the-counter medication.
  It then voted 23 to 4 to recommend that the FDA approve the 
application to make it available over the counter, but the FDA's 
commissioner ignored this determination and overruled the opinion of 
his own expert panelists. He was in conflict with the science and the 
experts.
  I must say that according to the New England Journal of Medicine, the 
FDA's decision has no scientific basis. Editors wrote that ``a 
treatment for any other condition, from hangnail to headache to heart 
disease, with a similar record of safety would be approved quickly and 
immediately.''
  So this really is a horrific decision. It flies in the face of 
science.
  Mr. Chairman, the following are several news articles that have 
appeared in major newspapers and letters of support from Planned 
Parenthood and NARAL in support of the Waxman-Tierney amendment.


[[Page H3148]]


                                                Planned Parenthood


                                  Federation of America, Inc.,

                                     Washington, DC, May 18, 2004.
       Dear Representative: Today, Representatives Waxman and 
     Tierney will offer an amendment to H.R. 2432, the Paperwork 
     and Regulatory Improvements Act. The amendment would create 
     an expert commission to study the politicization of science 
     and make recommendations on how to protect science from 
     political and ideological manipulation and interference. 
     Planned Parenthood Federation of America strongly urges you 
     to support this amendment.
       Over the past few years an alarming amount of decisions 
     that should have been decided on scientific merits have been 
     politicized. Ideology has crept into all aspects of the 
     government's decision-making on science. Some of the most 
     egregious offenses have affected women's health and well-
     being. The most recent example is the Food and Drug 
     Administration's (FDA), the gold-standard for scientific 
     integrity, denial of Plan B emergency contraception's (EC) 
     over-the-counter status. This major public health setback was 
     politics at its worst. There is no scientific reason to 
     restrict access to this safe, effective backup method of 
     contraception. This decision flied in the face of a joint 
     hearing of the FDA Nonprescription Drugs and Reproductive 
     Health Drugs Advisory Committees recommendation of 23 to 4 
     that the FDA make EC available over the counter. Virtually 
     all major medical and health care organizations, including 
     the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
     support making EC available without a prescription.
       In addition, in October 2002 Department of Health and Human 
     Services web sites removed medically accurate information 
     about condom effectiveness and the lack of a proven link 
     between abortion and breast cancer. Then in November 2002, 
     the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Web site posts a 
     ``revised'' that suggests an unproved link between abortion 
     and breast cancer, a link that has been soundly refuted.
       These attempts to replace science with ideology deserve 
     investigation and Representatives Waxman and Tierney's 
     amendment to set-up an expert commission to do just that 
     deserves your support.
       Thank you for your time and attention to this issue. Please 
     do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may 
     have.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Gloria Feldt,
     President.
                                  ____



                                     NARAL Pro-Choice America,

                                     Washington, DC, May 18, 2004.
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative: Later today, when the House considers 
     H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act, an 
     important public-health issue is expected to arise. Reps. 
     Henry Waxman and John Tierney will offer an amendment to 
     establish an independent, bi-partisan commission to study 
     whether political considerations have undermined the quality 
     and use of science in the executive branch, and to make 
     suggestions for how science can be protected from 
     politicization. NARAL Pro-Choice America strongly supports 
     the Waxman-Tierney amendment and urges lawmakers' support.
       Since the first days of the Bush administration, public 
     health and sciences have been politicized and subverted in 
     favor of an ideological agenda:
       Federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research has been 
     slowed to a trickle because of severe restrictions imposed 
     for ideological reasons--bringing potentially life-saving 
     science to a virtual standstill;
       The Food and Drug Administration two weeks ago refused an 
     application allowing over-the-counter sale of Plan B, an 
     emergency contraceptive pill--overriding the recommendations 
     of its own hand-picked advisory panels, its own scientist-
     experts, and scores of medical and public-health 
     organizations;
       Respected federal agencies, including the National Cancer 
     Institute and the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
     have censored public-health information and scientific 
     research from their Web sites in order to satisfy the demands 
     of fringe anti-choice activists;
       Risky and unproven ``abstinence-only'' programs have been 
     promoted at the expense of proven-effective approaches to 
     teen-pregnancy reduction like traditional sex-education 
     programs and better funding for contraceptive services 
     through the Title X program;
       Individuals with questionable scientific credentials but 
     robust anti-choice and political connections have been 
     appointed to key federal panels that make recommendations on 
     public-health policy;
       Federal health-care reports have been ``edited'' to remove 
     mention of information that could be potentially embarrassing 
     to the administration;
       Federally funded researchers who study contraception and 
     related topics have been added to a ``hit list,'' triggering 
     the National Institutes of Health to warn the scientists that 
     they could be subjected to special political scrutiny; and
       Financial support for a long-standing, non-partisan public-
     health conference was rescinded because the diverse list of 
     speakers and audience members included representatives from 
     groups that do not share the Bush administration's choice 
     views.
       These are only some of the examples in which science has 
     appeared to be subverted for political purposes. The American 
     public deserves a federal government that does not censor, 
     rewrite, or hide important health information, and one that 
     makes policy decisions based on sound science--not ideology. 
     This issue bears very close examination, and the Waxman-
     Tierney amendment is an important step in the right 
     direction.
       Attached is more information about the troubling pattern of 
     politics overriding science in the Bush administration. As 
     always, thank you for your consideration.
           Sincerely,
                                           Elizabeth A. Cavendish,
                                                Interim President.

  This commission, this independent commission would look at these 
decisions and make sure that they are based on science. I am very 
disturbed because over the past year an alarming number of decisions 
that should have been decided on scientific merit have been 
politicized. I cite the one 2 weeks ago.
  Mr. Chairman, the following are a series of other decisions that are 
very, very questionable and do not rely on science.

                     [From USA TODAY, May 10, 2004]

                    Plan B Decision Called Political

                            (By Rita Rubin)

       Now that the Food and Drug Administration has disregarded 
     their recommendation to make emergency contraception 
     available without a prescription, some members of two FDA 
     advisory committees say they've thought about resigning over 
     what they view as a political decision.
       ``E-mails suggesting mass resignations are already flying 
     around among people who were on this committee,'' says 
     Michael Greene, a Harvard OB-GYN who serves on the 
     Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. ``People are 
     just hopping mad. The decision is blatantly contrary to the 
     science and the facts, and so blatantly politicized.''
        In December, Greene's panel and the Non-Prescription Drugs 
     Advisory Committee voted 23 to 4 in favor of selling Plan B, 
     a ``morning-after pill,'' over the counter. The FDA almost 
     always follows its outside experts' advice.
       But Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for 
     Drug Evaluation and Research, last week rejected Barr 
     Laboratories' plan to make Plan B a non-prescription drug. He 
     cited a lack of data about whether the drug can be safely 
     used by girls ages 11 to 15 without a doctor's supervision.
       Critics of Galson's decision say that information, which 
     the FDA never previously required for a non-prescription 
     drug, is unnecessary and nearly impossible to get.
       ``There are no data that would convince this White House to 
     take this product over the counter,'' says James Trussell, 
     head of Princeton's Office of Population Research and a 
     voting consultant to the reproductive health drugs panel. 
     ``The only way that this drug is going to be approved is if 
     we get a new administration.''
       Vanderbilt drug expert Alastair Wood, of the non-
     prescription panel, says, ``What's disturbing is that the 
     science was overwhelming here, and the FDA is supposed to 
     make decisions on science.''
       In a news conference, Galson acknowledged that he overrode 
     the opinion of his staff as well as that of the advisory 
     committees but denied that anyone outside the FDA influenced 
     his decision. ``As is the case with a lot of these difficult 
     decisions, there may not be agreement among people who are 
     experts in data analysis,'' Galson said.
       Frank Davidoff, who sits on the non-prescription drugs 
     advisory panel, calls Galson's comments ``disingenuous.'' 
     Davidoff, editor emeritus of the Annals of Internal Medicine, 
     notes that 44 members of Congress wrote panel members to urge 
     them to reject Barr's plan.
       Opponents of selling Plan B over the counter argue that 
     emergency contraceptive pills cause abortions and that easier 
     access will lead to increased promiscuity.
       ``The morning-after pill is a pedophile's best friend,'' 
     Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women of 
     America, a public policy organization, said in a statement 
     after learning of Galson's decision. ``Morning-after pill 
     proponents treat women like sex machines.''
       Proponents of non-prescription sales of Plan B, most 
     effective when taken within 24 hours of unprotected 
     intercourse, say there is no evidence that it would increase 
     promiscuity. ``In fact, the evidence is to the contrary,'' 
     says Davidoff. And Galson says the FDA believes Plan B 
     primarily prevents pregnancies rather than ends them.
       Davidoff says he has thought about resigning from the 
     committee. ``But I don't think I will. There's always an 
     issue: Can you do more good by hanging in there?''
       Barr spokeswoman Carol Cox says her company was encouraged 
     that the FDA left the door open. Barr has proposed selling 
     Plan B without a prescription to those over 15 and with one 
     to younger girls. That would be unprecedented, and Galson has 
     asked Barr how it would meet prescription and non-
     prescription labeling requirements in one package.

  Mr. Chairman, over 40 Nobel laureates have supported the idea of an 
independent commission that makes sure that these decisions are not 
based on politics, but on the merits.

[[Page H3149]]

  We cannot afford to have our decisions, our scientific decisions 
based on political manipulation which has certainly happened in these 
cases. This is a tremendously important amendment, and I hope that my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support the Waxman-Tierney 
amendment.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).
  Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I certainly want to 
commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) for taking this very bold step on regulatory 
reform.
  There is no question that we need regulatory reform. It has been 
estimated that Americans pay more than $800 billion a year to comply 
with regulatory burdens, and that amounts to about $8,000 per 
household. I am talking to you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer out there.
  The IRS alone accounts for about 80 percent of the paperwork burden 
on the public. In the House budget language, and I serve on the 
Committee on the Budget, I inserted some language on regulatory reform, 
and I would like to read just part of it: ``It is the sense of this 
House that Congress should establish a mechanism for reviewing Federal 
agencies and their regulations with the express purpose of making 
recommendations to Congress when agencies prove to be inefficient, 
duplicative, outdated, irrelevant, or fail to accomplish their intended 
purpose.''
  Clearly, this will be the result of the gentleman from California's 
(Mr. Ose) very fine bill. Obviously, in accordance with the language in 
the House budget resolution, some of the provisions I would like to 
detail are that they strengthen the Congressional Review Act by 
providing Congress with more information much earlier in the process. 
It also provides Congress with in-house expertise comparable to the 
administration's experts at the Office of Information and Regulatory 
Affairs.
  Certainly, additional reforms are necessary. We need regulatory 
reform that goes even further than this very fine bill. And I am sure 
we will be seeing that later this year or next year. We must remember 
that the Constitutional responsibility in article 1, section 8 ``to 
make all laws which are necessary and proper'' rests with us.
  Congress is elected by the people, for the people and is held 
accountable to the people. Having a regulatory system that reflects 
these principles are not only outlined in the Constitution but are 
reflected in this bill.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, I continue to be amused by the railing on the other 
side of all this paperwork burden as if they did not understand that 
the cause of that was their own administration. The President ran on a 
platform of cutting back the regulatory burden on businesses; and if 
you go back in history during that period of time before 2000, you can 
see speech after speech telling us how terrible the paperwork burden 
was and what he was going to do to improve it. But the fact of the 
matter is if you look at the report done for the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman) and for me, it states clearly, ``The annual 
paperwork hours today is over 700 million burden hours higher than it 
was when President Bush took office.'' In the year 2000, it increased 
by 7.4 billion hours. In 2003 it went up to 8.1 billion hours. It is an 
increase of over 10 percent.
  The Internal Revenue Service accounts for more paperwork than any 
other Federal agency with 81 percent of the total paperwork burden 
hours. Yet that is exactly where most of the increases came. The 
largest sources of statutory increases in paperwork have been the 
recent tax law changes. They have been introduced and made a 
substantial additional complexity and burden for individuals and small 
businesses in filling out their tax forms.
  And that, Mr. Chairman, is the reason for the increase.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on our side?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) has 3 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) as to whether he has additional speakers.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, I have additional speakers coming.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, we are down to 3 minutes on our side.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I have two more speakers on their way 
over.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent for an 
additional 5 minutes for each side for the purpose of debate on this 
bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. That unanimous consent request is not in order in the 
Committee of the Whole.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. OSE. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. Under the general rules 
of debate within the Committee of the Whole, how might we address a 
shortage of time here treating each side equally?
  The CHAIRMAN. The Committee of the Whole does not have authority to 
extend general debate time established by the House.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) has 9 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate some of the things I may have touched 
on earlier and maybe one new point. The bill that we are talking about 
here today really does not reduce paperwork or improve the regulatory 
process. One of the problems it has, it talks about a study on 
regulatory budgeting, but yet it does not define the term ``regulatory 
budget.''
  In prior hearings, the subcommittee chairman indicated he thought 
this was going to set a cap on the cost that an agency's combined 
regulations could impose on the public. An agency with a regulatory 
budget would then face an arbitrarily set cap on how much its 
regulations could cost industry in any given year; and under that 
system, no consideration whatsoever would be given to why the 
regulation was needed. Once the agency hit that cost cap, it cannot 
issue any more regulations even if another regulation is needed to save 
lives, prevent injuries, protect our environment, or improve homeland 
security.

                              {time}  1800

  One good example of this is the EPA recently announced its new clean 
air, nonroad diesel rule that, according to the EPA, will cut emissions 
from industrial and other diesel-powered equipment by over 90 percent. 
If the EPA had a regulatory budget and had reached its cap for the 
year, it would not have been able to issue that rule, no matter how 
necessary the rule or how much pollution it would have cleaned up. That 
essentially is one of the major problems with this bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I think that we cannot allow that type of a study to 
even start down that path. We do not want to be measuring things just 
on costs, without factoring in safety obligations and other 
improvements in homeland security, our environment and preventing 
injuries.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Manzullo).
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, as the Chairman of the Committee on Small 
Business, we have held close to 60 hearings on the issue of the loss of 
our manufacturing base in America, and much of that is centered on the 
fact that we have a tremendous burden of regulations. These regulations 
come from the people and agencies that issued the regulations, 
regardless of who is in the White House.
  What we are trying to do here today is to have a bipartisan approach 
to cut away at these regulations and not concern ourselves as to who is 
responsible for the promulgation.
  H.R. 2432 permanently authorizes the General Accounting Office to 
perform analyses of major rules proposed or issued by the Federal 
agencies. This would have proven invaluable in responding to the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development's proposed regulations on 
modifying real estate closing procedures.
  HUD's analysis was woefully inadequate. An independent analysis by 
GAO that accurately estimated the costs of the proposal on small 
business

[[Page H3150]]

would have been helpful to the Committee on Small Business and other 
Members of Congress as we considered actions needed to avert a 
potential disaster for thousands of small businesses involved in 
residential real estate settlement.
  H.R. 2432 also addresses the problems of paperwork burdens imposed by 
the IRS on small businesses. Our committee held a hearing on the IRS 
compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act. At that hearing, the 
IRS contended that many of its paperwork burdens are imposed by 
statute. In reality, the Service imposes the reporting and record-
keeping requirements under various broad rule-making authorities 
contained in the Internal Revenue Code. Leaving it up to the IRS to 
determine how to reduce paperwork burdens it imposes on taxpayers is 
akin to the fox guarding the hen house.
  We would urge the House to adopt H.R. 2432.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the work he has 
done on this bill and the work to point out the real problems with this 
bill.
  I must tell my colleagues, I would be in the corner of those who want 
to control the regulatory process. I chaired the EEOC, completely 
reformed the agency to reduce regulations, and one of the reasons I am 
for controlling the regulatory process is because overregulation makes 
people hate government. I do not hate government. I think government 
does many good things.
  I come to the floor to tell my colleagues one of the reasons why I 
oppose this bill. During hearings we discussed so-called regulatory 
budgeting. That is not defined in this bill, as it should be, but it 
was clear during the hearings that the point was to set a limit on the 
total costs of regulations. This limit is based on the gross costs, not 
the net costs, which would account for benefits from social legislation 
or regulations.
  For example, we have seen lead in the water in D.C., and now we think 
it is all over the United States. Who would not believe that in trying 
to control lead in the water, even if it proved costly, we would not 
know more if we knew what the benefits were.
  Assuming we could ascertain that, let us look at how inconsistent my 
good friends on the other side of the aisle are.
  When it comes to tax cuts, they insist upon something called dynamic 
scoring. I know of no reputable economist who believes in dynamic 
scoring, but they say what we should count are the benefits from the 
tax cuts as well as the expenditures or the costs to the government. 
Well, if this is the case with tax cuts, why are we not counting the 
benefits of regulations as well as their costs to get a fair estimate? 
That is only one of the problems with this bill.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, might I inquire, I believe I have but 1 minute 
left?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Ose) has 1 minute remaining. The gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Solis).
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Chairman, today I rise in support of the Waxman-
Tierney amendment. This week we are debating regulatory reform. 
However, I believe that the greatest threat facing our regulatory 
system is the political manipulation of the scientific process.
  Repeatedly, the Bush administration has been caught with their hands 
in the cookie jar, removing, manipulating or ignoring findings of 
credible scientists on the environment so we can promote the 
regulations it believes makes political campaign donors and the 
conservative right wing happy.
  The pattern is there, and it is disturbing.
  First, in August of 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services 
replaced 15 of the 18 members on the advisory committee at the National 
Center For Environmental Health. These scientific advisory positions 
were filled with a number of people who were very closely related to 
the industry that they were supposed to be regulating.
  Can my colleagues imagine that political appointees at the Department 
of Health and Human Services were also caught tampering and removing 
information about the disparities that exist between racial and ethnic 
minorities in health care?
  Then, secondly, in June of 2003, the EPA published a comprehensive 
report on the environment, while omitting information on global 
warming. The threat to the community I represent is extraordinary, 
longer droughts, more water shortages, tougher fire seasons. Last year, 
our fire season was vicious, but in the EPA's report, no one would know 
that those threats exist because the White House refuses to let the EPA 
publish what the scientists consider to be the best available science.
  Most recently, on April 29, 2004, EPA experts called attention to a 
new Bush policy that will hamper accurate modeling of the effects of 
power plants.
  These examples are just a few of many the administration has done in 
terms of removing, manipulating and ignoring the findings of credible 
scientists. More than 20 Nobel Laureates, dozens of scholars, credible 
scientific journals and many scientific organizations have expressed 
concern about the impact this manipulation could have on the U.S.'s 
role in the world as a leader in science.
  We cannot create effective policy without the free input of qualified 
scientific experts. We need to stop the manipulation of science and 
restore integrity to the scientific process. Support this amendment.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Waxman-
Tierney amendment.
  The biggest threat facing the regulatory system today is political 
interference with the scientific process. The interference threatens 
the integrity of the science-based agencies and hampers their ability 
to apply the best possible information and expertise to regulatory 
problems.
  There is a rising concern in the scientific community and among 
former agency administrators about the unprecedented political 
interference with science occurring today.
  In one egregious example, HHS released a heavily edited version of 
the National Health Care Disparities Report, a major report requested 
by Congress. This document hardly mentioned the word ``disparities,'' 
did not state that the disparities were a problem, and even said that 
racial and ethnic groups had health advantages compared to the general 
population.
  Members of Congress then obtained a June 2003 copy of this same 
report that was prepared by HHS scientists. The scientists had actually 
found that racial and ethnic disparities in health care are ``national 
problems'' that are ``pervasive in our health care system'' and carry a 
significant ``personal and societal price.'' These important 
conclusions had been censored from the final version by the political 
appointees at HHS.
  I, along with other Members of the Congress, wrote HHS Secretary 
Thompson to protest the manipulation of science on health care 
disparities and to request copies of all drafts and comments on the 
disparities report. HHS initially defended its report saying that it 
was just trying to show that the glass was half full. Deleting 
scientists' conclusions about racial and ethnic disparities is not 
public relations; it is the manipulation of science for political ends.
  A month later HHS Secretary Thompson admitted that there was a 
mistake made and released the scientists' version of the report, but we 
still do not know what went wrong and never received any further 
explanation for this false information.
  An independent, bipartisan Commission on the Politicization of 
Science is urgently needed to protect the public health from incidents 
like this.
  The Waxman-Tierney amendment will establish an independent, 
bipartisan commission to investigate the politicization of science in 
the regulatory process and make recommendations to restore scientific 
integrity.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Tierney) has 45 seconds remaining. The gentleman from California (Mr. 
Ose) has 1 minute remaining.

[[Page H3151]]

  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that I have the right 
to close?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.
  I just say, Mr. Chairman, I think we have heard adequate reasons here 
why this bill comes up short in what would be a help in any sense in 
types of burden relief. It does have to be a situation where we are 
concerned about who is responsible.
  One of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle raised that 
issue that we should not be, but hopefully, we need to enlist the 
support of this administration and a majority here to help get the 
burden down, and this administration has had record increases in 
paperwork burdens, mostly because of the Internal Revenue Code changes 
that they have made, which have substantially added to that situation.
  Not only did it not address the recession and not address the job 
losses, which have been historic, it also failed to do anything about 
reducing paperwork burdens and, in fact, increased that substantially.
  So I think that this debate has made that clear, Mr. Chairman. I 
would advise folks to please read the report the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman) and I had done and introduced in the Record and 
vote against this bill.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of the time to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) for the purpose of closing.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me the time. I also thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Ose) for his leadership on this issue. It is really a great tribute to 
all the work that he has done.
  Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we are talking about these days 
is, how do we stop pushing jobs overseas? One of the problems we have 
is, we are in the time of global competition, and our manufacturers and 
our small businesses are really struggling to compete in the global 
marketplace.
  One of the ways in which we push jobs overseas is by making it more 
expensive to do business in America and to hire people to build things 
in America is the cost of regulations.
  This bill, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act, helps make 
good on the promise that Congress is giving to the American people that 
we are going to reduce the cost of regulations. Getting the essential 
information on how the costs and benefits accumulate on our regulations 
is a critical component to our agenda to reduce the cost that our 
government imposes on businesses so they can be more competitive in the 
global marketplace so that we can keep jobs in America.
  This is about jobs. It is about common sense. I urge adoption of this 
bill.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our chairman for his 
work on H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act, and I 
rise today in support of this overdue legislation. I came to Congress 
to support small businesses, and this is a step in the right direction.
  We have all heard the saying--the road to ruin is paved with good 
intentions. This is an appropriate statement to consider as we discuss 
the purpose of the original Paperwork Reduction Act. In 1980 this 
legislation was passed to ensure that government didn't place an undue 
repetitive and duplicative paperwork burden on the Nation's businesses. 
In 1995, Congress again took up the issue and amended PRA by 
establishing additional paperwork reduction goals. Unfortunately, the 
result has not been less paperwork.
  Since 1995, the paperwork burden has consistently increased. In a 
2002 report to Congress, OMB found that the Department of Labor alone 
imposed over 181 million hours of paperwork in FY 2001. And OMB 
estimated that processing the paperwork costs business $30 an hour--the 
Labor Department's regulations alone, at that rate, are costing 
American businesses $5.43 billion. And the total per-employee cost of 
regulation can be as much as 60 percent greater for small businesses.
  Mr. Chairman, time and again, at town halls and business roundtables 
across my district, I'm hearing from business owners, small and large, 
that they are frustrated and, quite frankly, they are tired of the 
government costing them time and money for purposeless paperwork.
  H.R. 2432 gives Congress the tools needed to effectively study and 
gauge the value of particular regulations and make informed, cost-
benefit judgments on their worth. I urge my colleagues to support this 
commonsense legislation today.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the 
Waxman/Tierney amendment to establish an independent commission on the 
politicization of science in the regulatory process. As a family 
physician and Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Health 
Braintrust, I have made numerous appearances on this floor to remind my 
congressional colleagues and this Nation about the gaping deficiencies 
in our healthcare system. With these deficiencies being most salient in 
minority communities, members have introduced and passed a number of 
legislative proposals geared towards eliminating racial and ethnic 
health disparities. Public Law 106-129 was one of these proposals and 
required the Agency for Health care Quality and Research to produce 
annual reports on the existing disparities in this Nation.
  But the Bush administration, who seeks to evangelize individual 
responsibility as the sole mechanism for redressing health disparities 
and improving health care for the underserved, have produced policy 
directives sought to downgrade proven programmatic efforts to eliminate 
health disparities, and overtly question the reality of the health care 
system's failings in the requested report entitled National Health Care 
Disparities Report (NHDR).
  The NHDR was published by Department of Health and Human Services' 
Agency for Health Care Quality and Research in December of 2003 and 
took the position that racial and ethnic minorities are in better 
health than the general population. After an investigation was launched 
at the request of Congressman Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and members of the 
Congressional Minority Caucuses, it became apparent that there were two 
starkly different versions of the report.
  The June version of the report found ``significant inequality'' in 
health care in the United States, referred to health care disparities 
as ``national problems,'' emphasized that these disparities are 
``pervasive in our health care system,'' and found that the disparities 
carry a significant ``personal and societal price.'' The December 
version of the report that was released, however, contains none of 
these conclusions. Furthermore, the June versions of NHDR defined 
``disparity'' as the condition or fact of being unequal, as in age, 
rank, or degree, and included the term over the 30 times in the ``key 
findings'' section of the executive summary. By contrast, the December 
version leaves ``disparity'' undefined and deletes the uses of the 
``disparity'' throughout the report.
  After much political pressure and public embarrassment, the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services retracted the December report and released 
the June version. But after three months of aggressively defending and 
justifying the December report it was clear the Administration's 
understanding of death from health disparities and unequal treatment of 
the underserved by the health care system based on ideological 
perspective rather than science. Perspective-based policy making in 
health care is problematic because its solutions hinge on its biases. 
With over a century of science-based evidence available, such policy-
making appears not just partisan before activity harmful.
  Mr. Chairman, we do not have time to allow political ideology to take 
precedent over science. I urge my colleagues to support the Waxman/
Tierney amendment and put an end to politicization of science.
  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, please include the attached 
exchange of letters between Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the Committee on 
Agriculture, Chairman Jim Nussle of the Committee on the Budget and 
myself in the Congressional Record at the end of the debate on H.R. 
2432 under general leave.

                                         House of Representatives,


                                     Committee on Agriculture,

                                     Washington, DC, May 14, 2004.
     Hon. Tom Davis,
     Chairman, House Committee on Government Reform, Rayburn House 
         Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: This correspondence is in regard to H.R. 
     2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2003. 
     As you are aware, the Committee on Agriculture was granted a 
     sequential referral of H.R. 2432 because of its 
     jurisdictional interest in agriculture commodity programs 
     created and reauthorized in the Farm Security and Rural 
     Investment Act of 2002.
       Section 4 of H.R. 2432 amends the Farm Security and Rural 
     Investment Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-171) by eliminating 
     provisions that were inserted to ensure the farm bill 
     programs and payments would apply to the crops of the 2002 
     crop year.
       Knowing of your interest in expediting this legislation, I 
     will discharge H.R. 2432 from further consideration by the 
     Committee on Agriculture. I do so with the understanding that 
     by discharging the bill the Committee on Agriculture does not 
     waive any future jurisdictional claim over this or similar 
     measures. In addition, in the event a conference with the 
     Senate is requested on this matter, the Committee on 
     Agriculture reserves the

[[Page H3152]]

     right to seek appointment of conferees, if one should become 
     necessary.
       Thank you very much for your courtesy in this matter and I 
     look forward to continued cooperation between our Committees 
     as we deal with these issues in the future.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Bob Goodlatte,
     Chairman.
                                  ____

                                         House of Representatives,


                               Committee on Government Reform,

                                     Washington, DC, May 14, 2004.
     Hon. Bob Goodlatte,
     Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, Longworth House Office 
         Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your recent letter 
     regarding the Agriculture Committee's jurisdictional interest 
     in H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act. 
     Section 4 of H.R. 2432 repeals eight provisions within the 
     Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-
     171). Those eight provisions exempted certain farm programs 
     from the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act.
       I agree that the Committee on Agriculture does not waive 
     its jurisdiction over H.R. 2432 or P.L. 107-171 by waiving 
     further consideration of the bill. In addition, I will 
     support your request for conferees from the Agriculture 
     Committee should a House-Senate conference on this or similar 
     legislation be convened.
       I will include a copy of your letter and this response as 
     part of the Government Reform Committee's report and the 
     Congressional Record during consideration of the legislation 
     on the House floor. Thank you for your cooperation as we work 
     towards the enactment of H.R. 2432.
           Sincerely,
                                                        Tom Davis,
     Chairman.
                                  ____

                                         House of Representatives,


                                      Committee on the Budget,

                                     Washington, DC, May 18, 2004.
     Hon. Tom Davis,
     Chairman, Committee on Government Reform, Rayburn House 
         Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman: On May 10, 2004, the Committee on Government 
     Reform ordered reported H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and 
     Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004. As you know, the 
     Committee on the Budget was granted an additional referral 
     upon the bill's introduction pursuant to the Committee's 
     jurisdiction under Rule X of the Rules of the House of 
     Representatives.
       Because of your willingness to consult with this Committee, 
     and because of your desire to move this legislation 
     expeditiously as an individual bill, I have agreed that the 
     Committee will be discharged of the bill. However, the 
     Committee does not waive any part of its current 
     jurisdiction. In addition, the Committee reserves its 
     authority to seek conferees on any provisions of the bill 
     that are within its jurisdiction during any House-Senate 
     conference that may be convened on this legislation. I ask 
     your commitment to support any request for conferees by the 
     Committee on H.R. 2432 or similar legislation.
       I request that you include this letter and your response in 
     your Committee Report and in the Congressional Record during 
     consideration of the legislation on the House Floor. Thank 
     you for your attention to these matters.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Jim Nussle,
     Chairman.
                                  ____

                                         House of Representatives,


                               Committee on Government Reform,

                                     Washington, DC, May 18, 2004.
     Hon. Jim Nussle,
     Chairman, Committee on the Budget, Cannon House Office 
         Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your recent letter 
     regarding the Budget Committee's jurisdictional interest in 
     H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements act. The 
     bill was primarily referred to the Committee on Government 
     Reform and additionally to the Committee on the Budget. 
     Section 6 of H.R. 2432 requires the Office of Management and 
     Budget to study the feasibility of integrating of the 
     regulatory accounting statement into the President's budget. 
     The contents of the President's budget is within the Budget 
     Committee's rule X jurisdiction, and accordingly, the Speaker 
     additionally referred H.R. 2432 to your Committee.
       I agree that the Committee on the Budget does not waive its 
     jurisdiction over H.R. 2432 by waiving further consideration 
     of the bill. In addition, I will support your request for 
     conferees from the Budget Committee should a House-Senate 
     conference on this or similar legislation be convened.
       As you have requested, I will include a copy of your letter 
     and in the Congressional Record during consideration of the 
     legislation on the House floor. Thank you for your 
     cooperation as we work towards the enactment of H.R. 2432.
           Sincerely,
                                                        Tom Davis,
                                                         Chairman.

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. All time for general debate has expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute printed in the bill shall be considered as an original bill 
for the purpose of amendment under the 5-minute rule and shall be 
considered read.
  The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute is 
as follows:

                               H.R. 2432

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Paperwork and Regulatory 
     Improvements Act of 2004''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following:
       (1) In 1980, in the Paperwork Reduction Act, Congress 
     established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs 
     (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget. OIRA's 
     principal responsibility is to reduce the paperwork burden on 
     the public that results from the collection of information by 
     or for the Federal Government. In 2002, OIRA estimated that 
     the paperwork burden imposed on the public was 7.7 billion 
     hours, at a cost of $230 billion. The Internal Revenue 
     Service accounted for 83 percent of the paperwork burden.
       (2) In 1995, Congress amended the Paperwork Reduction Act 
     and established annual governmentwide paperwork reduction 
     goals of 10 percent for each of fiscal years 1996 and 1997, 
     and 5 percent for each of fiscal years 1998 through 2001, but 
     the paperwork burden increased, rather than decreased, in 
     each of those fiscal years and fiscal year 2002. Both the 
     Office of Management and Budget and the Internal Revenue 
     Service need to devote additional attention to paperwork 
     reduction.
       (3) In 2002, the House Report accompanying the Treasury and 
     General Government Appropriations Act, 2003 (House Report 
     107-575) stated, ``The Office of Management and Budget has 
     reported that paperwork burdens on Americans have increased 
     in each of the last six years. Since the Internal Revenue 
     Service imposes over 80 percent of these paperwork burdens, 
     the Committee believes that OMB should work to identify and 
     review proposed and existing IRS paperwork.''.
       (4) One key to success in paperwork reduction is the Office 
     of Management and Budget's systematic review of every new and 
     revised agency paperwork proposal. Recent statutory 
     exemptions from that office's review responsibility, 
     especially those without any stated justification, should be 
     removed.
       (5) In 2000, researchers Mark Crain of George Mason 
     University and Thomas Hopkins of the Rochester Institute of 
     Technology, in their October 2001 publication titled ``The 
     Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms'', estimated that 
     Americans spend $843 billion annually to comply with Federal 
     regulations. Congress has a responsibility to review major 
     rules (as defined by section 804 of title 5, United States 
     Code) proposed by agencies, especially regulatory 
     alternatives and the costs and benefits associated with each 
     of them. In 2000, in the Truth in Regulating Act, Congress 
     established new responsibility within the General Accounting 
     Office to assist Congress with this responsibility.
       (6) In 1996, because of the increasing costs and 
     incompletely estimated benefits of Federal rules and 
     paperwork, Congress required the Office of Management and 
     Budget for the first time to submit an annual report to 
     Congress on the total costs and benefits to the public of 
     Federal rules and paperwork requirements, including an 
     assessment of the effects of Federal rules on the private 
     sector and State and local governments. In 1998, Congress 
     changed the annual report's due date to coincide with the due 
     date of the President's budget, so that Congress and the 
     public could be given an opportunity to simultaneously review 
     both the on-budget and off-budget costs associated with the 
     regulatory and paperwork requirements of each Federal agency. 
     In 2000, Congress made this a permanent annual reporting 
     requirement.
       (7) The Office of Management and Budget requires agencies 
     to submit annual budget and paperwork burden estimates in 
     order to prepare certain required reports for Congress, but 
     it does not require agencies to submit estimates on costs and 
     benefits of agency rules and paperwork. The Office of 
     Management and Budget needs to require agencies to submit 
     such estimates on costs and benefits to help prepare the 
     annual accounting statement and associated report required 
     under section 624 of the Treasury and General Government 
     Appropriations Act, 2001.

     SEC. 3. REDUCTION OF TAX PAPERWORK.

       Section 3504 of title 44, United States Code, is amended by 
     adding at the end the following new subsection:
       ``(i) In carrying out subsection (c)(3), the Director shall 
     (in consultation with the Internal Revenue Service and the 
     Office of Tax Policy of the Department of the Treasury and 
     the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration) 
     conduct a review of the collections of information conducted 
     by the Internal Revenue Service to identify actions that the 
     Internal Revenue Service can take to reduce the information 
     collection burden imposed on small business concerns, 
     consistent with section 3520(c)(1) of this chapter. The 
     Director shall include the results of the review in the 
     annual report that the Director submits under section 3514 of 
     this chapter for fiscal year 2006.''.

     SEC. 4. REPEAL OF EXEMPTIONS FROM PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT, 
                   ETC.

       (a) Repeals.--The following provisions of the Farm Security 
     and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-171) are 
     repealed:
       (1) Subparagraphs (A) and (C) of section 1601(c)(2).

[[Page H3153]]

       (2) Section 1601(c)(3).
       (3) Section 2702(b)(1)(A).
       (4) Section 2702(b)(2)(A).
       (5) Section 2702(c).
       (6) Subparagraphs (A) and (C) of section 6103(b)(2).
       (7) Section 6103(b)(3).
       (8) Subparagraphs (A) and (C) of section 10105(d)(2).
       (9) Section 10105(d)(3).
       (b) Effective Date.--The repeals of the provisions listed 
     in subsection (a) shall take effect 180 days after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 5. AMENDMENT OF TRUTH IN REGULATING ACT TO MAKE 
                   PERMANENT PILOT PROJECT FOR REPORT ON RULES.

       The purpose of this section is to make permanent the 
     authority to request the performance of regulatory analysis 
     to enhance Congressional responsibility for regulatory 
     decisions developed under the laws enacted by Congress. The 
     Truth in Regulating Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-312; 5 U.S.C. 
     801 note) is amended--
       (1) in the heading for section 4, by striking ``PILOT 
     PROJECT FOR'',
       (2) by striking section 5 and redesignating section 6 as 
     section 5; and
       (3) in section 5 (as redesignated by paragraph (2))--
       (A) in the heading, by striking ``and duration of pilot 
     project'';
       (B) in subsection (a), by striking ``(a) Effective Date.--
     ''; and
       (C) by striking subsections (b) and (c).

     SEC. 6. IMPROVED REGULATORY ACCOUNTING.

       (a) Requirement for Agencies To Submit Information on 
     Regulations and Paperwork to OMB.--Section 624 of the 
     Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001 (as 
     enacted into law by Public Law 106-554; 114 Stat. 2763A-161), 
     is amended
       (1) by redesignating subsections (b), (c), and (d) as 
     subsection (c), (d), and (e), respectively, and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (a) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(b) Agency Submissions to OMB.--To carry out subsection 
     (a), the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
     shall require each agency annually to submit to the Office of 
     Management and Budget an estimate of the total annual costs 
     and benefits of Federal rules and paperwork, to the extent 
     feasible--
       ``(1) for the agency in the aggregate; and
       ``(2) for each agency program.''.
       (b) Integration of OMB Accounting Statement and Report Into 
     President's Budget.--Section 624 of the Treasury and General 
     Government Appropriations Act, 2001 (as enacted into law by 
     Public Law 106-554; 114 Stat. 2763A-161) is further amended 
     in subsection (a), by striking ``with the budget'' and 
     inserting ``as part of the budget''.
       (c) Regulatory Budgeting.--(1) Chapter 11 of title 31, 
     United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new section:

     ``Sec. 1120. Regulatory budgeting

       ``(a) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 
     after consultation with the head of each agency, shall 
     designate not less than three agencies (or offices within an 
     agency) to participate in a study on regulatory budgeting for 
     fiscal years 2006 and 2007. The designated agencies shall 
     include three regulatory agencies or offices from among the 
     following: the Department of Labor, the Department of 
     Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services, 
     and the Environmental Protection Agency.
       ``(b) The study shall address the preparation of regulatory 
     budgets. Such budgets shall include the presentation of the 
     varying estimated levels of benefits that would be associated 
     with the different estimated levels of costs with respect to 
     the regulatory alternatives under consideration by the agency 
     (or office within the agency).
       ``(c) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
     shall include, in the accounting statement and associated 
     report submitted to Congress for calendar year 2006 under 
     section 624 of the Treasury and General Government 
     Appropriations Act, 2001 (as enacted into law by Public Law 
     106-554; 114 Stat. 2763A-161), a presentation of the 
     different levels of estimated regulatory benefits and costs 
     with respect to the regulatory alternatives under 
     consideration for one or more of the major regulatory 
     programs of each of the agencies designated under subsection 
     (a).
       ``(d) In the accounting statement and associated report 
     submitted to Congress for calendar year 2009 under section 
     624 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations 
     Act, 2001 (as so enacted), the Director of the Office of 
     Management and Budget shall include a report on the study on 
     regulatory budgeting. The report shall--
       ``(1) assess the feasibility and advisability of including 
     a regulatory budget as part of the annual budget submitted 
     under section 1105;
       ``(2) describe any difficulties encountered by the Office 
     of Management and Budget and the participating agencies in 
     conducting the study; and
       ``(3) recommend, to the extent the President considers 
     necessary or expedient, proposed legislation regarding 
     regulatory budgets.''.
       (2) The table of sections at the beginning of such chapter 
     is amended by adding at the end the following new item:

``1120. Regulatory budgeting.''.

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. No amendment to the committee amendment is 
in order except those printed in part D of House Report 108-497. Each 
amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, by a 
Member designated in the report, shall be considered read, shall be 
debatable for the time specified in the report, equally divided and 
controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to 
amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the 
question.

                              {time}  1815

  It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 printed in part D of 
House Report 108-497.


                   Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Ose

  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). The Clerk will designate the 
amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 1 offered by Mr. Ose:
       In section 5, insert ``(a) Permanent 
     Authority.--'' before ``The purpose''.
       In section 5, strike paragraph (2) and the matter preceding 
     subparagraph (A) of paragraph (3) and insert the following:
       (2) in section 5, by striking ``$5,200,000 for each of 
     fiscal years 2000 through 2002'' and inserting ``$5,000,000 
     for each fiscal year beginning after September 30, 2004''; 
     and
       (3) in section 6--
       Add at the end of section 5 the following:
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall take effect 90 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act.
       In section 6, strike subsection (b) and redesignate 
     subsection (c) as subsection (b).
       In section 1120(d) of title 31, United States Code, as 
     proposed to be added by section 6(b) (as so redesignated), in 
     the matter preceding paragraph (1), insert after ``Management 
     and Budget'' the following: ``, after consultation with the 
     Committees on the Budget and on Government Reform of the 
     House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget and 
     on Governmental Affairs of the Senate,''.
       In section 1120 of title 31, United States Code, as 
     proposed to be added by section 6(b) (as so redesignated), 
     strike the closing quotation marks and second period at the 
     end and insert the following:
       ``(e) The report on the study on regulatory budgeting 
     required under subsection (d) shall also be submitted 
     directly to the Committees on the Budget and on Government 
     Reform of the House of Representatives and the Committees on 
     the Budget and on Governmental Affairs of the Senate.''.

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 645, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and a Member opposed each will 
control 5 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, this particular amendment is technical in nature. It 
conforms the text that was sent over from the committee to the 
expectations of everybody here on the floor. Specifically, it changes 
the applicable dates. In section 5, it changes the effective date of 
the GAO requirement to 90 days after the date of enactment. It deletes 
the integration requirement of the budget and regulatory accounting 
statement, and it includes consultation with the Committee on the 
Budget and the Committee on Government Reform of the House and the 
Budget and Governmental Affairs Committees in the Senate.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Does anyone claim the time in opposition to 
the amendment?
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition; and though 
I rise to claim the time in opposition, we do not oppose the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) will control the time in oppostion.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, Congress did create a 3-year pilot program 
in the Truth in Regulating Act, the so-called TIRA act, of 2000. That 
required the General Accounting Office to report on economically 
significant rules, if asked by the chairman or the ranking minority 
member. Authorization for funding was included in the bill; but, 
unfortunately, during the entire 3-year pilot program, Congress never 
appropriated any money to fund the project. Because of this, the pilot 
program never happened.
  The bill before us today would make this pilot project permanent, 
oddly enough. The amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) 
would provide authorization of $5 million each year to fund the 
project; but the General Accounting Office has said it would need $8 
million in actual funds,

[[Page H3154]]

not just promised funds, in order to perform the extra work required in 
this provision.
  What the General Accounting Office really supports is making this 
provision a pilot project instead of making it permanent, which seems 
to make eminent sense, given the fact that the original pilot program 
was not able to be conducted. We should fund the pilot program and find 
out whether it even works before we make it permanent.
  Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record a May 11, 2004, letter from the 
General Accounting Office comptroller, David Walker, to the ranking 
member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). In this letter, Mr. 
Walker writes, and I quote, ``If Congress wants TIRA to continue, we 
believe it should do so as a pilot project rather than as permanent 
authority.''
  The entire letter is as follows, Mr. Chairman:

                                             United States General


                                            Accounting Office,

                                     Washington, DC, May 11, 2004.
     Hon. Tom Davis,
     Chairman, Committee on Government Reform, House of 
         Representatives.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Truth in Regulating Act of 2000 
     (TIRA), Pub. L. No. 106-312, 114 Stat. 1248 (Oct. 17, 2000), 
     became effective on January 15, 2001. (Codified at 5 U.S.C. 
     Sec. 801 note.) TIRA contemplated a 3-year pilot project, 
     during which GAO would perform independent evaluations of 
     ``economically significant'' agency rules when requested by a 
     chairman or ranking member of a committee of jurisdiction of 
     either House of Congress. The independent evaluation would 
     include an evaluation of the agency's analysis of the 
     potential benefits, potential costs, and alternative 
     approaches considered during the rulemaking proceeding. Under 
     TIRA, GAO was required to report on our evaluations within 
     180 calendar days after we received a committee request.
       Section 6(b) of the Act, however, provided that the pilot 
     project would continue only if, in each fiscal year, ``a 
     specific annual appropriation not less than $5,200,000 or the 
     pro-rated equivalent thereof shall have been made for the 
     pilot project.'' Section 6(c) of the Act directed GAO to 
     submit to Congress, before the conclusion of the 3-year 
     period, ``a report reviewing the effectiveness of the pilot 
     project and recommending whether or not Congress should 
     permanently authorize the pilot project.'' During the 3-year 
     period contemplated for the pilot project, Congress did not 
     enact any specific appropriation to cover TIRA evaluations. 
     The authority for the 3-year pilot project expired on January 
     15, 2004.
       On June 11, 2003, Congressman Ose introduced H.R. 2432 
     that, in section 5, would make TIRA's pilot permanent. In 
     August 2003, GAO provided staff of Congressman Ose with 
     amendments to H.R. 2432 to make clear that the same 
     limitation enacted in TIRA would continue if H.R. 2432 was 
     enacted, that is, GAO could not conduct any TIRA evaluations 
     without a specific appropriation enacted by Congress. (GAO's 
     proposed amendment enclosed.)
       The GAO has conducted no TIRA evaluation. Therefore, in our 
     view, if Congress wants TIRA to continue, we believe it 
     should do so as a pilot project rather than as a permanent 
     authority. Moreover, we cannot support any proposal to make 
     TIRA permanent, such as H.R. 2432, without the inclusion of 
     language that makes clear that a specific appropriation must 
     be enacted before GAO can conduct TIRA reviews. In a recent 
     GAO report, we noted that the Office of Information and 
     Regulatory Analysis within the Office of Management and 
     Budget (OMB) has reviewed approximately 600 ``economically 
     significant'' rules a year since 1994. While realistically 
     GAO would only be asked to review selected rules, any 
     expansion of GAO's scope without additional dedicated 
     resources would pose a serious problem for us, especially in 
     light of what will likely be increasing budgetary 
     constraints. It would also likely serve to adversely affect 
     our ability to provide the same level of service to the 
     Congress in connection with our existing statutory 
     authorities.
       TIRA evaluations will require a significant amount of 
     resources that cannot be absorbed within, for example, GAO's 
     fiscal year 2004 appropriation, given the substantial present 
     workload at GAO, our current backlog of pending requests, and 
     the anticipated need for contracting for specialized 
     expertise to assist us in our evaluations of particular 
     rules. Accordingly, we respectfully request that H.R. 24321 
     be amended to condition GAO's obligation to conduct 
     independent evaluations on the enactment of a separate and 
     specific annual appropriation. To cover the cost of such work 
     we propose an amendment to H.R. 2432 authorizing an annual 
     appropriation of $8,000,000 for fiscal year 2005.
       Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
           Sincerely yours,
                                                  David M. Walker,
                         Comptroller General of the United States.
       Enclosure.


           amendments to the truth in lending regulating act

       Section 5 of Public Law 106-312 is amending by striking 
     everything after the heading and inserting the following:
       (a) There are authorized to be appropriated to the General 
     Accounting Office to carry out this Act $8,000,000 for fiscal 
     year 2005.
       (b) For each fiscal year thereafter, there are authorized 
     to be appropriated an amount equal to the prior fiscal year's 
     authorization plus an amount calculated by multiplying the 
     prior year's authorization by the change in the Consumer 
     Price Index as prepared by the Department of Labor for that 
     fiscal year.
       Section 6 of Public Law 106-312 is amended by striking 
     subsection (b) and inserting the following new subsection 
     (b):
       (b)(1) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in 
     the General Accounting Office's appropriation for fiscal year 
     2005 of not less than $8,000,000 for this purpose, the 
     General Accounting Office shall not conduct in fiscal year 
     2005 any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act.
       (2) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in the 
     General Accounting Office's appropriation for each fiscal 
     year thereafter of not less than the amount authorized for 
     that fiscal year by section 5(b) for that purpose, the 
     General Accounting Office shall not conduct in that fiscal 
     year any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act.

  The underlying bill that we are considering has other problems also, 
Mr. Chairman, and I will mention those briefly.
  One is the provision that would require targeted agencies to 
participate in a study on regulatory budgeting. And I talked a little 
about this in the last session we had. An agency with a regulatory 
budget faces an arbitrary cap on how much its regulations can cost 
industry. The benefits of regulation, such as saving lives or 
preventing injuries, are not even considered under such a regulatory 
budget.
  A study of regulatory budgeting may seem harmless enough, but it 
actually is not. It is one step down the path of regulatory budgeting 
that would be a step too far. The underlying bill requires every agency 
to submit every year to the Office of Management and Budget the annual 
costs and benefits of all rules and paperwork, to the extent feasible, 
for the entire agency and every program.
  Mr. Chairman, I am concerned the committee report states this 
provision, and I quote, ``requires Federal agencies to submit annual 
estimates of the costs and benefits associated with the Federal rules 
and paperwork for each of their agency programs.''
  We have not offered an amendment to strike this provision because the 
committee majority informed us before we considered the bill that this 
provision is not intended to require agencies to conduct any extra 
cost-benefit evaluation beyond that which they already prepare. 
Expanding the use of cost-benefit analysis would divert resources from 
the work that agencies are supposed to be doing to carry out their core 
missions, and it would not add value or improve the quality of 
decision-making in the regulatory process.
  I could go on, Mr. Chairman, with the problems in this bill; but the 
bottom line is this bill does nothing to improve the regulatory process 
and could, in fact, result in a worsening of the regulatory process.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the amendment of 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and his bill, the Paperwork and 
Regulatory Improvements Act, and thank his staff as well for the fine 
work they have done. This legislation is a needed addition and an 
improvement of existing law. H.R. 2432 would increase the transparency 
and effectiveness of government and lessen the burden associated with 
taxation-related paperwork for small businesses.
  In 1980, the Congress passed the Paperwork Reduction Act, which 
established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The 
principal responsibility of this office is to reduce the paperwork 
burden from Federal regulations on the American public. The burden is 
considerable.
  According to a 2001 study, Americans spend an estimated $843 billion 
annually to comply with Federal regulations. It is our responsibility 
as Members of Congress to review the new agency rules and regulations. 
Most importantly, it is our duty to find ways to reduce red tape. In 
order to fulfill this responsibility, Congress needs detailed 
information on the costs and benefits associated with each regulation. 
The

[[Page H3155]]

Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act would ensure this information 
is provided to Congress.
  H.R. 2432 would do three things. It would require the Office of 
Management and Budget to seek agency input for its annual regulatory 
accounting report to Congress; permanently fund an independent 
regulatory analysis function within the General Accounting Office; and 
authorize OMB to designate at least three agencies to conduct a 2-year 
study on regulatory budgeting.
  Based on the results of this study, OMB will report to Congress on 
the feasibility of regulatory budgeting. We can then determine if it is 
a useful tool for managing regulatory burdens on the public.
  Finally, this legislation addresses the challenges small businesses 
face with regard to the paperwork burden. Small businesses spend an 
extremely disproportionate amount of resources, time, and money on 
compliance with regulations. The largest share, almost 80 percent of 
the paperwork, is taxation-related paperwork.
  H.R. 2432 would require the OMB and the Internal Revenue Service to 
jointly develop specific solutions to reduce the paperwork burden on 
small businesses. It is time Congress paid attention to this pressing 
problem.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to urge all of my colleagues here today to 
support this sound piece of legislation.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, might I inquire how much time remains.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) has 
1\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Tierney) has 2 minutes remaining.
  Mr. OSE. If I understand correctly, the gentleman from Massachusetts 
has the right to close on this? It is my amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from California, as the 
proponent of the amendment for which there is no opposition, has the 
right to close.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I will just use the couple of remaining moments to talk about 
something that both of the last speakers raised.
  I think it is important to note that while we are all concerned about 
paperwork burdens, especially on small businesses, the Internal Revenue 
Service accounts for more paperwork than any other Federal agency. It 
is 81 percent of the total paperwork hours. In contrast, the 
Environmental Protection Agency only accounts for 1.8 percent of 
Federal paperwork burden; the Department of Labor, including OSHA, only 
accounts for 2 percent of the Federal paperwork burden. So, again, we 
get back to the point that if we really want to do something about 
this, we could look at the tax bills that were passed by this 
administration which increased the paperwork burden 290 million hours 
in one year and 570 million in another year and continue to be going at 
a record pace.
  We should be concerned about that, and we should be concerned again 
about the regulatory budget aspect that is being suggested in this 
bill. Again, it does not do enough to take care of the issue of 
regulations needing to be in place to save lives, to prevent injuries, 
to protect our environment, or to improve homeland security. All of 
those things must be factored in every bit as much as the dollar cost. 
And this whole idea of regulatory budgeting would not allow for that. 
It would in that sense be counterproductive and against the interests 
of the American people.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Regarding the amendment at the desk, it is a technical amendment. It 
conforms to the actual writing of the bill reported from the committee 
to the representations we have made here on the floor.
  I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his kind remarks on the 
amendment, and I urge its passage.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The question is on the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. It is now in order to consider amendment 
No. 2 printed in part D of House Report 108-497.


                 Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. Waxman

  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 2 offered by Mr. Waxman:
       Add at the end the following new title:

  TITLE II--COMMISSION ON POLITICIZATION OF SCIENCE IN THE REGULATORY 
                                PROCESS

     SEC. 201. ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMISSION.

        There is established in the legislative branch the 
     Independent Commission on Politicization of Science in the 
     Regulatory Process (in this Act referred to as the 
     ``Commission'').

     SEC. 202. DUTIES.

       The Commission shall carry out the following duties:
       (1) Examine and evaluate executive branch regulatory 
     activities and associated decisions to determine the extent 
     to which political considerations have undermined the quality 
     and use of science. As part of this examination and 
     evaluation, the Commission shall consider the regulatory 
     activities and associated decisions listed in--
       (A) ``Politics and Science in the Bush Administration,'' an 
     August 2003 report prepared by the minority staff of the 
     Committee on Government Reform of the House of 
     Representatives; and
       (B) ``Scientific Integrity in Policymaking,'' a March 2004 
     report prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which 
     was accompanied by a statement of concern signed by 20 Nobel 
     Laureates and other distinguished scientists.
       (2) Report to Congress and the President on its findings 
     and conclusions, as well as make recommendations to Congress 
     and the President on measures that can be taken to enhance 
     the integrity of science in executive branch regulatory 
     activities and associated decisions.

     SEC. 203. COMPOSITION OF COMMISSION.

       (a) Members.--The Commission shall be composed of 10 
     members, of whom--
       (1) 1 member shall be appointed by the President, who shall 
     serve as chairman of the Commission;
       (2) 1 member shall be jointly appointed by the minority 
     leader of the Senate and the minority leader of the House of 
     Representatives, who shall serve as vice chairman of the 
     Commission;
       (3) 2 members shall be appointed by the majority leader of 
     the Senate;
       (4) 2 members shall be appointed by the Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives;
       (5) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the Senate; and
       (6) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the House of Representatives.
       (b) Qualifications; Initial Meeting.--
       (1) Nongovernmental appointees.--An individual appointed to 
     the Commission may not be an officer or employee of the 
     Federal Government or any State or local government.
       (2) Other qualifications.--Individuals that shall be 
     appointed to the Commission should be prominent United States 
     citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of 
     experience in scientific professions, governmental service, 
     and public administration.
       (3) Deadline for appointment.--All members of the 
     Commission shall be appointed within 45 days following the 
     enactment of this Act.
       (4) Meetings.--The Commission shall meet and begin the 
     operations of the Commission as soon as practicable. After 
     its initial meeting, the Commission shall meet upon the call 
     of the chairman or a majority of its members.
       (c) Quorum; Vacancies.--Six members of the Commission shall 
     constitute a quorum. Any vacancy in the Commission shall not 
     affect its powers, but shall be filled in the same manner in 
     which the original appointment was made.
       (d) Conflicts of Interest.--Each member appointed to the 
     Commission shall submit a financial disclosure report 
     pursuant to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, 
     notwithstanding the minimum required rate of compensation or 
     time period employed.

     SEC. 204. POWERS OF COMMISSION.

       (a) Hearings and Evidence.--The Commission or, on the 
     authority of the Commission, any subcommittee or member 
     thereof, may, for the purpose of carrying out this title, 
     hold such hearings and sit and act at such times and places, 
     take such testimony, receive such evidence, and administer 
     such oaths as the Commission or such designated subcommittee 
     or designated member may determine advisable.
       (b) Contracting.--The Commission may, to such extent and in 
     such amounts as are provided in appropriation Acts, enter 
     into contracts to enable the Commission to discharge its 
     duties of this Act.
       (c) Information From Federal Agencies.--

[[Page H3156]]

       (1) In general.--The Commission may secure directly from 
     any executive department, bureau, agency, board, commission, 
     office, independent establishment, or instrumentality of the 
     Federal Government, information, suggestions, estimates, and 
     statistics for the purposes of this Act. Each department, 
     bureau, agency, board, commission, office, independent 
     establishment, or instrumentality shall, to the extent 
     authorized by law, furnish such information, suggestions, 
     estimates, and statistics directly to the Commission, upon 
     request made by the chairman, the chairman of any 
     subcommittee created by a majority of the Commission, or any 
     member designated by a majority of the Commission.
       (2) Receipt, handling, storage, and dissemination.--
     Information shall only be received, handled, stored, and 
     disseminated by members of the Commission and its staff 
     consistent with all applicable statutes, regulations, and 
     Executive Orders.
       (d) Assistance From Federal Agencies.--
       (1) General services administration.--The Administrator of 
     General Services shall provide to the Commission on a 
     reimbursable basis administrative support and other services 
     for the performance of the Commission's functions.
       (2) Other departments and agencies.--In addition to the 
     assistance prescribed in paragraph (1), departments and 
     agencies of the United States may provide to the Commission 
     such services, funds, facilities, staff, and other support 
     services as they may determine advisable and as may be 
     authorized by law.
       (e) Gifts.--The Commission may accept, use, and dispose of 
     gifts or donations of services or property.
       (f) Postal Services.--The Commission may use the United 
     States mails in the same manner and under the same conditions 
     as departments and agencies of the United States.

     SEC. 205. STAFF OF COMMISSION.

       (a) In General.--
       (1) Appointment and compensation.--The chairman, in 
     consultation with vice chairman, in accordance with rules 
     agreed upon by the Commission, may appoint and fix the 
     compensation of a staff director and such other personnel as 
     may be necessary to enable the Commission to carry out its 
     functions, without regard to the provisions of title 5, 
     United States Code, governing appointments in the competitive 
     service, and without regard to the provisions of chapter 51 
     and subchapter III of chapter 53 of such title relating to 
     classification and General Schedule pay rates, except that no 
     rate of pay fixed under this subsection may exceed the 
     equivalent of that payable for a position at level V of the 
     Executive Schedule under section 5316 of title 5, United 
     States Code.
       (2) Personnel as federal employees.--
       (A) In general.--The staff director and any personnel of 
     the Commission who are employees shall be employees under 
     section 2105 of title 5, United States Code, for purposes of 
     chapters 63, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, and 90 of that title.
       (B) Members of commission.--Subparagraph (A) shall not be 
     construed to apply to members of the Commission.
       (b) Detailees.--Any Federal Government employee may be 
     detailed to the Commission without reimbursement from the 
     Commission, and such detailee shall retain the rights, 
     status, and privileges of his or her regular employment 
     without interruption.
       (c) Consultant Services.--The Commission is authorized to 
     procure the services of experts and consultants in accordance 
     with section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, but at 
     rates not to exceed the daily rate paid a person occupying a 
     position at level IV of the Executive Schedule under section 
     5315 of title 5, United States Code.

     SEC. 206. COMPENSATION AND TRAVEL EXPENSES.

       (a) Compensation.--Each member of the Commission may be 
     compensated at a rate not to exceed the daily equivalent of 
     the annual rate of basic pay in effect for a position at 
     level IV of the Executive Schedule under section 5315 of 
     title 5, United States Code, for each day during which that 
     member is engaged in the actual performance of the duties of 
     the Commission.
       (b) Travel Expenses.--While away from their homes or 
     regular places of business in the performance of services for 
     the Commission, members of the Commission shall be allowed 
     travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, 
     in the same manner as persons employed intermittently in the 
     Government service are allowed expenses under section 5703(b) 
     of title 5, United States Code.

     SEC. 207. REPORTS OF COMMISSION; TERMINATION.

       (a) Interim Reports.--The Commission may submit to Congress 
     and the President interim reports containing such findings, 
     conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures as 
     have been agreed to by a majority of Commission members.
       (b) Final Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to 
     Congress and the President a final report containing such 
     findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective 
     measures as have been agreed to by a majority of Commission 
     members.

     SEC. 208. TERMINATION.

       (a) In General.--The Commission, and all the authorities of 
     this Act, shall terminate 60 days after the date on which the 
     final report is submitted under subsection (b).
       (b) Administrative Activities Before Termination.--The 
     Commission may use the 60-day period referred to in paragraph 
     (1) for the purpose of concluding its activities, including 
     providing testimony to committees of Congress concerning its 
     reports and disseminating the final report.

     SEC. 209. FUNDING.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated funds not to exceed $5,000,000 for 
     purposes of the activities of the Commission under this Act.
       (b) Duration of Availability.--Amounts made available to 
     the Commission under subsection (a) shall remain available 
     until the termination of the Commission.
       At the end of section 2, insert the following:

          TITLE I--AMENDMENTS RELATING TO PAPERWORK REDUCTION

       Redesignate sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 as sections 101, 102, 
     103, and 104, respectively.

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 645, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and a Member opposed each will 
control 10 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes of debate time.
  H.R. 2432, the bill that is before us today, is intended to improve 
the way that Federal agencies create and implement regulations, but in 
its current form this legislation will do nothing to address the most 
serious threat to the integrity of the regulatory process: political 
interference with science.
  Without good science for policymakers, we cannot make the best policy 
judgments. We as policymakers or the regulatory agencies need good 
science, science that has not been interfered with by politicians. That 
is why the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I are 
offering this amendment to establish an independent commission to 
investigate whether science is being politicized and to make 
recommendations to Congress to protect scientific integrity.
  This amendment responds to the concerns of the scientific community. 
Twenty Nobel Laureates, major scientific organizations, and leading 
scientific and medical journals have protested a pattern of political 
interference with science by the Bush administration. This pattern has 
involved gagging scientists, suppressing research, and rewriting 
reports to eliminate scientific answers that conflict with the 
administration's political or ideological agenda. It has also involved 
misleading the public and Congress on key scientific facts, 
manipulating performance measures for ideologically favored programs, 
and stacking advisory committees, scientific advisory committees 
stacked with people who will come up with the right political answer.
  The Bush administration's interference with science has undermined 
efforts to protect the public's health, safeguard the environment, and 
even provide accurate information about the war on terrorism. We have a 
report that we have prepared called ``Politics and Science in the Bush 
Administration,'' and it goes through a whole pattern of interference 
with scientific decisions.
  We have heard about the interference with scientific research at the 
National Institutes of Health. We have heard about suppression of 
information where the environmental scientist wanted to talk about the 
global warming issue, but their report was taken out of the overall 
category of information about environmental problems in this country. 
We know that this administration favors the kinds of programs that 
would talk about abstinence for sex for teenagers, and they do not want 
to really talk about some of the other programs that have a broader 
perspective, including family planning.
  But even in the last couple of days, we have another example where we 
even are seeing that accurate information that is needed for us to have 
about the war on terrorism is being stopped. The State Department did a 
report on patterns of global terrorism; and according to the report, 
terrorist attacks fell to a record low in 2003. At the press conference 
releasing the report, Deputy Secretary Armitage said: ``You will find 
in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight.''

                              {time}  1830

  But this is a fabrication resulting from manipulation of the data. In 
fact, significant terrorist attacks reached a 20-year high in 2003. It 
is deplorable

[[Page H3157]]

that this administration would manipulate data to make it seem like 
terrorism is less a threat than ever when, in reality, the very 
opposite is true.
  I ask my colleagues today to join me in supporting this amendment. It 
is supported by a wide range of groups, including the League of 
Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, and the Union of Concerned 
Scientists.
  Respect for evidence and the scientific process is not a partisan 
issue. I urge that we take the responsible step of supporting an 
independent bipartisan commission to investigate the politicization of 
science and restore scientific integrity across the Federal Government.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the 
amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) for 10 minutes.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, this is not the first iteration of this amendment we 
have seen. We also saw this in committee. While I would describe its 
purpose as well-meaning and well-intended, my position in the committee 
and my position today are the same, and that is that this piece of 
legislation dealing with regulatory processes and paperwork burden is 
not the proper vehicle to establish a commission dealing with the 
quality of science that this or any other administration might 
otherwise wish to entertain.
  I would ask the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) just for 
clarification. The amendment mentions a report dated August 2003, and 
yet I have a copy here that is updated November 13. Might I inquire as 
to which report we are working off of?
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OSE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the August report was updated on November 
13, 2003. They are practically identical reports.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, are we working off the August report or the 
November report?
  Mr. WAXMAN. Whatever the amendment provides. It does not make too 
much difference. It is the same report with the same substance 
outlining the political interference with science by the Bush 
administration.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, regardless of the date, I 
would still register my opposition on the basis that this regulatory 
process and paperwork reduction legislation is not the vehicle by which 
we should properly discuss the quality of science that this or any 
other administration might wish to use in the deliberative decisions 
that they make.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest this kind of 
partisan language would not be appropriate in any legislation.
  I assume the goal of the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) is 
not to politicize science and research, yet I respectfully suggest that 
is what this amendment does. And the comments of the gentleman on the 
floor were sort of blasting the Bush administration for some of the 
things that they have done.
  I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Research, and the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) is the ranking member of that 
subcommittee. In fact, all of the members on that committee, 
Republicans and Democrats, and on the full Committee on Science work 
very diligently to not politicize what we are doing in science and 
research in this country.
  This amendment requires that a commission be created to study the 
politicization of science by the Bush administration. What we all sort 
of agree is, politicizing this is what we are doing with this 
amendment. I urge my colleagues, I urge the Democrats not to start, 
even though it is an election year and we are approaching the election, 
not to start politicizing.
  We have references to the Committee on Government Reform. Regardless 
of whether it is an August or November date, it is a minority staff 
report that the majority had nothing to do with, and it is directing 
the commission in this amendment. And by the way, this amendment, as I 
count the pages, a 10-page amendment in a 9-page bill, otherwise 
directs this new commission to take the minority report and study that 
report that bashes the Bush administration.
  The sponsor references the Union of Concerned Scientists and their 
report; and the Union of Concerned Scientists, with all due respect, is 
a left-wing organization which has been bashing the Bush administration 
for the last 2 years.
  So I think we need to be very careful of not politicizing what we are 
doing in science and research in this country and in this Congress.
  On the Union of Concerned Scientists, Mr. Marburger, the scientific 
adviser for the President, informs me that they have studied and 
reacted to every point of suggested criticism in that report. If there 
is additional review of the gentleman's minority report, I would be 
glad to instigate it in our Subcommittee on Research because I think it 
is important that we do not politicize. But it seems to me, and I would 
respectfully and humbly suggest that passing this amendment does just 
that, it politicizes by creating a commission that bashes the Bush 
administration.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that science has already been 
politicized by the Bush administration, and that is what our report has 
pointed out. This report was favorably received in the leading 
scientific journal Nature. It was cited dozens of times in scientific 
and medical literature, including the New England Journal of Medicine 
and Science.
  The issue that we pointed out is named the fifth most important story 
of 2003 by Discover magazine. When we point out how the Bush 
administration has politicized science, we are accused of being 
supporters of left-wing organizations and we should not politicize 
science.
  Let us get an independent, bipartisan commission to review whether 
science has been manipulated and distorted and otherwise subjected to 
political pressures by this administration.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, I have in my hand this ``Dear Colleague'' 
letter, one of several, actually, from the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Waxman). This one is titled ``Keep Science Out of the `Political 
and Ideological Shredder.' '' It goes on to quote articles in several 
newspapers, including my own, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
  This is what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said about this 
President. On the political censoring of a report on health care 
disparities, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution concluded that, to 
paraphrase rhythm and blues legend Sam Cooke, top aides in the Bush 
administration do not know much biology, and I am old enough to 
remember that song, I did not know much about trigonometry, or the 
French he took, but he did know that 1 and 1 is 2. The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution very conveniently left that part of the verse out, that he 
did know 1 and 1 is 2.
  That cuts right to the matter. All of these rules and regulations and 
all of this science they are talking about and the politicization of 
it, what we are talking about is having rules and regulations based on 
good science that makes sense. We hear from the other side and some of 
the Members who are supporting this amendment this whole spring, 
talking about outsourcing of jobs and all of the jobs that are lost by 
this administration over the last 3 years; and they conveniently forget 
that we are losing a lot of jobs because of these burdensome rules and 
regulations, many of which, as Sam Cooke knew years ago when he wrote 
that song, could be a little bit nonsensical.
  But he did know 1 and 1 is 2, and that is what this President and 
this administration knows, and that is why this bill, H.R. 2432, is a 
good one and that is why this Waxman-Tierney amendment is a bad one.
  The Waxman amendment would not result in paperwork reduction or 
regulatory improvement. The amendment is purely a political attack on 
the Bush administration and asserts that political considerations have 
undermined the quality and use of science.

[[Page H3158]]

  Listen to what President Bush's science adviser, Dr. Marburger, 
recently stated, ``The President believes that policies should be made 
with the best and most complete information possible and expects his 
administration to conduct its business with integrity and in a way that 
fulfills that belief.''
  Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill and it is a bad amendment. I stand 
to oppose the amendment and support the bill.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I am always amazed to see how frightening 
it is for our colleagues to be confronted with a nonpartisan study, and 
that would be by a commission that was appointed by the President and 
by members of that party and members of this party.
  One of the speakers talked about this being political and partisan. 
Basically, we are in an atmosphere here that is political by nature. It 
is our obligation, if the President is putting a twist onto different 
regulations and either avoiding their implementation or manipulating 
them and missing science altogether, our obligation is to make sure 
this is set right; and a commission should look at it to make sure that 
all regulations are either enforced or implemented based on good, hard 
science and not ideology and politics, as many are accusing the 
President of doing.
  We should not stop with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We should 
go on to the New York Times that editorialized that ``the 
administration belittled, misrepresented, altered, or quashed multiple 
reports suggesting a clear link between greenhouse gas emissions and 
the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.''
  The Chattanooga Free Press wrote that ``the Bush administration has 
elevated its political agenda, ideology and vested interests over 
substantive scientific concerns about the environmental and health 
consequences of its policies.''
  Citing the manipulation of data on caribou in the ANWR and the firing 
of qualified experts from a lead poisoning advisory committee, the 
Boston Globe concluded ``at a time when so many issues are grounded in 
laboratory or field work, this corrupting of scientific evidence 
misinforms lawmakers and the public and could make scientists unwilling 
to work for the government.''
  And the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that ``the Bush 
administration is risking public trust in vital government agencies by 
putting scientific findings through a political and ideological 
shredder.''
  The Kansas City Star declared that ``it is time for a thorough 
review.''
  So it is not just the Democratic Party over here. I would assume 
there are members in the Republican Party who are sensible enough to 
want to have a good analysis of this done, and want to put aside all of 
the political shenanigans of this administration.
  Across the country, editorial page after editorial page acknowledges 
this is the most political White House we have ever had on these 
issues; and everybody wants it to stop, stop taking these regulations 
and manipulating them to say something that is not true or accurate. 
Let us get the science right.
  This is the perfect bill for this to be brought forward in. We are 
talking about regulations, and it is imperative that regulations are 
implemented in a proper way based on scientific evidence and not 
politics.
  This White House has politicized this, not this party. I would think 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if they have a shred of 
desire to see the integrity of this institution maintained, would join 
us and vote for this amendment.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Hayes).
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Ose) for this vital legislation, and I rise in support of the 
gentleman's effort to reduce the paperwork and the regulatory costs 
that do not provide health, protection and safety for people in America 
today.
  There is $843 billion that could be used to grow this economy, to 
create jobs, to do the things that our workers need. We have to get 
this study out of the way so we can do the right thing and make sure 
that the regulations we have are transparent, they can be seen by the 
people that write them, that are impacted by them, and make sure that 
these regulations do what they are intended to do, not sap the economy, 
not cut jobs.
  I support the bill.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  There is no transparency when this administration appoints people to 
a lead poisoning scientific committee and puts a person on who 
represents the industry point of view, comes right from the industry, 
and then comes in and recommends a level of lead that is harmful to 
kids.
  It is not transparency when references to global warming are taken 
out at the insistence of the White House, the EPA administrator is 
forced to drop it out of his or her analysis of overall problems.
  It is not transparency when we have Web sites that say to women, you 
should worry about having an abortion because it could lead to breast 
cancer when there is no scientific basis for it.
  What we have is continuous interference in scientific decisions by 
the political people in this administration.
  We need to respond to the concerns that have been raised by 20 Nobel 
laureates, by Science Magazine, Nature Magazine, New England Journal of 
Medicine, leading scientific organizations, including the American 
Academy For the Advancement of Science, by making sure that we have 
good scientific data, not politicized scientific data.
  We are calling for a bipartisan commission to examine this 
politicization of science that we are now seeing so frequently by this 
administration, so that we can stop it and let the policymakers make 
the decision based on good science.
  Our country is losing its edge as a leader in science because 
scientists do not want to work in an atmosphere where an administration 
wants to just do favors for the right-wing religious extremists who 
want to stop science that might offend their notions of what they think 
is appropriate. And they do not want to work for an administration in 
the scientific area where industry groups that reward this 
administration with campaign contributions are rewarded by having the 
science distorted to suit their needs.
  I ask for support for the amendment.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I just want to reiterate my rationale for not supporting the 
amendment. If my colleagues look at the amendment, it refers to a 
report put out by the minority staff entitled ``Politics and Science in 
the Bush Administration.'' We have not had that report vetted. It was 
issued by the minority staff. There has been no input by the majority 
staff or review.
  I daresay that that would be a very, very dangerous template to set 
for this Congress, because who knows what other committees might adopt 
majority or minority reports and then just jam them down the other 
side's throat.
  I would urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and instead seek 
to have it discussed under the purview of the Committee on Science. 
This particular piece of legislation dealing with regulatory process 
and paperwork reduction is not the vehicle that should properly deal 
with this issue. This may well be a very serious issue, but this is not 
the vehicle where it should properly be discussed.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment.
  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this 
amendment. We had a very similar measure at the committee markup and 
defeated it there.
  The amendment is supposed to create an expert commission to study the 
politicization of science and make recommendations for how to protect 
science in the regulatory process from political and ideological 
manipulation and interference.
  The problem with a commission like this is it is designed to find a 
problem and highlight it. Whether the problem is real or serious the 
commission fails if it finds nothing at all.
  This is the kind of unfair fishing expedition that can only harm and 
destroy public faith in the Federal rulemaking process.
  Even worse than being unnecessary, the commission is expensive and 
duplicative, and

[[Page H3159]]

its powers are questionable. It will cost $5 million. The commission 
will also duplicate the work of the permanent congressional office of 
regulatory affairs the base bill creates. And, the commission would 
have the authority to enter into contracts, but it is unclear if such 
contracts could be awarded without any competition. Certainly my 
colleague didn't intend to provide sole source authority to the 
commission.
  There is no question that the Bush administration is surpassing 
previous administrations in its commitment to good science. Under this 
administration, OMB has issued the first information quality guidelines 
that establish rigorous quality standards for using science when 
developing regulations.
  Mr. Chairman, it does not make sense to fund an unneeded commission 
with a predetermined finding that will misrepresent the good work of 
this administration. I'm opposed to this amendment and I ask that all 
Members vote to defeat it.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentlemen's 
amendment.
  Knowledge is power, or as Francis Bacon used to say ``Nam et ipsa 
scientia potestas est.'' Bacon inspired both this observation and what 
we have come to know as the scientific method, the underpinning of 
modern science. Whatever the inspiration for his famous quote, it 
appears that from the very beginning, science and politics mixed.
  Here in Congress we rely on scientists to inform policy, since the 
term congressional ``expert'' is really an oxymoron--like ``Jumbo 
Shrimp'' or ``Jobless Recovery.'' Scientists tell us whether Yucca 
Mountain can be used to safely store nuclear waste for a hundred 
thousand years, how fast global warming is occurring, and whether 
therapeutic cloning is possible.
  Unfortunately, the Bush administration has taken its relentless drive 
to weaken the environmental regulations of this country to a whole new 
level, and it has politicized the scientific process in a way we 
haven't seen since Galileo was tried and jailed by the Inquisition.
  Lead is one of the most dangerous and potent toxins to the brains of 
young children. A year and a half ago, I learned that the Bush 
administration had rejected the CDC staff nominations of three renowned 
scientists to its Advisory Panel on Preventing Childhood Lead 
Poisoning. In their place, individuals with clear ties to the lead 
industry were nominated--including one who had actually been nominated 
by the lead industry, and another who was an expert witness for the 
lead industry, testifying that lead posed very little health risk in 
lawsuits brought against it. Clearly, the lead industry was unhappy 
with the CDC panel, which was considering revising the safe blood lead 
levels downward. So it decided to perform a little policy alchemy by 
compromising the advisory committee process. I tried to head it off by 
issuing a report entitled ``Turning Lead into Gold: How the Bush 
Administration is Poisoning the Lead Advisory Committee at the CDC.'' 
While one of the nominees admitted her conflict of interest and bowed 
out, the other industry nominees serve on that panel today.
  The lead industry seems to have gotten its way for now. This same 
committee just recently decided not to lower the lead level of concern, 
despite a clear finding by a CDC working group that there are adverse 
health effects at the lower level.
  To add insult to injury, the President is proposing a $35 million cut 
in funds for lead abatement in low-income homes. In the face of 
significant national drinking water needs--illustrated by the shocking 
revelations of extremely high lead levels in the Washington, DC, 
water--the President's budget also proposes to cut water quality 
funding by $822 million. This all adds up to a policy that counts 
politics more than all of the science on the adverse effects of lead on 
young children.
  Vote ``yes'' on the Waxman-Tierney amendment to restore integrity to 
the government's scientific process.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). The question is on the 
amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 201, 
noes 226, not voting 6, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 187]

                               AYES--201

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Alexander
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Ballance
     Becerra
     Bell
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Case
     Chandler
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley (CA)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lynch
     Majette
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NOES--226

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole
     Collins
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--6

     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Hayworth
     Hunter
     Leach
     Tauzin


                Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter) (during the vote). Members 
are advised 2 minutes are remaining in this vote.

[[Page H3160]]

                              {time}  1911

  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey and Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California 
changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Ms. DeGETTE changed her vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The question is on the committee amendment 
in the nature of a substitute, as amended.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended, 
was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Bonner) having assumed the chair, Mr. Bereuter, Chairman pro tempore of 
the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported 
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 
2432) to amend the Paperwork Reduction Act and titles 5 and 31, United 
States Code, to reform Federal paperwork and regulatory processes, 
pursuant to House Resolution 645, he reported the bill back to the 
House with an amendment adopted by the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  Is a separate vote demanded on the amendment to the committee 
amendment in the nature of a substitute adopted by the Committee of the 
Whole? If not, the question is on the committee amendment in the nature 
of a substitute.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-
minute vote on passage will be followed by 5-minute votes on H.R. 2731, 
by the yeas and nays; and the motion to suspend the rules on H.R. 4176, 
by the yeas and nays.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 373, 
nays 54, not voting 6, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 188]

                               YEAS--373

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Ballance
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Becerra
     Bell
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Cole
     Collins
     Cooper
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Doggett
     Dooley (CA)
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Fattah
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gephardt
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hill
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hooley (OR)
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Israel
     Issa
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Majette
     Maloney
     Manzullo
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Mica
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Ruppersberger
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Schiff
     Schrock
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Towns
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Waters
     Watt
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--54

     Allen
     Andrews
     Baldwin
     Berman
     Blumenauer
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Conyers
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     Dingell
     Engel
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Grijalva
     Hastings (FL)
     Hinchey
     Holt
     Honda
     Jackson (IL)
     Jones (OH)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     Lee
     Lewis (GA)
     Markey
     McCollum
     McDermott
     Meehan
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Nadler
     Oberstar
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne
     Rothman
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Schakowsky
     Sherman
     Slaughter
     Solis
     Stark
     Tierney
     Van Hollen
     Watson
     Waxman
     Woolsey

                             NOT VOTING--6

     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Hayworth
     Leach
     Smith (MI)
     Tauzin


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonner) (during the vote). Members are 
advised 2 minutes remain in this vote.

                              {time}  1931

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio, Mr. RUSH and Mr. ENGEL changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. BECERRA changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________