[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 72 (Thursday, May 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3529-H3534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
YES, WE ARE BETTER OFF NOW THAN WE WERE FOUR YEARS AGO
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr.
Tiahrt) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.
Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, lately, in a rare turn of events, House
Democrats have adopted the old adage of Republican leaders and, in
floor communications, they have posed the famous question from Reagan,
Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?
Well, when the quote came, I think Democrats have found a moment of
despair. We will welcome their call for comparison of today's economic,
international and domestic status to that of 4 years. Yes, we are
better off now.
Just look at the war on terror. The attacks on September 11 awakened
the Nation to the threat of terror. Republicans have a clear strategy
to keep Americans safe and to spread freedom and peace throughout the
world.
In the past 3 years, we have seen great progress. Afghanistan is
free, Libya is now disarmed, Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. Iraq
is becoming a free country, making the heart of the Middle East more
stable and America more secure.
The Republican-controlled House quickly passed legislation creating
the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. All border activity has
been consolidated into the Department of Homeland Security, a single
agency, doing away with the fallible INS, or Immigration and
Naturalization Service, that allowed the September 11 hijackers to slip
through our borders, rent apartments, find employment and train in
flight schools, only to have their visas approved by INS after they
carried out attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
The Department of Homeland Security is implementing background checks
on 100 percent of applications for U.S. citizenship and has registered
over 1.5 million travelers into the United States VISIT program.
Over 500,000 first responders have been trained in weapons of mass
destruction, awareness and response since September 11, 2001.
[[Page H3530]]
The USA PATRIOT Act has broken down unnecessary barriers between
intelligence and law enforcement officers, ensuring that the best
available information about terrorist threats is provided to people who
need it most.
After two rounds of across-the-board, Republican-led tax cuts in 2001
and 2003, America's economy is strong and growing stronger, and we have
overcome the triple shock of terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and
recession.
Americans are seeing the benefit of the Republican progrowth agenda.
In the eighth straight month of growth, the economy created 288,000
jobs in April, bringing the total increase since August to more than
1.1 million jobs created.
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The real gross domestic product has grown at its fastest rate in
almost 20 years over the last three-quarters. Productivity has grown at
its fastest rate in 40 years. Homeownership is at an all-time high,
68.6 percent, with substantial gains among minority homeowners. We have
the highest total number of people working in the history of America.
Let me repeat that. We have the highest number of workers in the entire
history of America on the payroll today. Unemployment today is at its
lowest rate, lower than at the average of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
The average earnings by American workers is up, higher than it has ever
been before. These are high-paying jobs that are coming to America.
Manufacturing jobs have also increased for the first time in a long
time, 1.1 million jobs in total since August.
Now, we have had some really good news on the economy, but we need to
do much more; and we will talk about that later. First, let me talk
about health care. Republicans have been working to see that the rising
costs of health care are capped and lowered, accessibility to quality
care is expanded, and jobs for more Americans are created in the
process.
Millions of Americans are benefiting from lower prescription drug
costs and increased access to health care. In December 2003, a
prescription drug benefit was signed into law that will make Medicare
prescription drug coverage available to millions of seniors and people
with disabilities for the first time since Medicare's inception.
Health savings accounts were signed into law to give employees more
control over their health care decisions and the opportunity to save
tax-free income for future health care costs.
The number of children enrolled in the State Children's Health
Insurance Program increased from 4.6 million in 2001 to 5.8 million in
2003.
Now, let us talk about education. Under President Bush and the
Republican-led Congress, No Child Left Behind was signed into law to
ensure that all students become proficient at reading and math and to
close the achievement gap that exists between students of different
socioeconomic backgrounds. Students, teachers, and parents have seen
the prospective effects of accountability, challenge, and incentive.
No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, funding for K through 12 has increased
by 35 percent, and title I funding has increased 41 percent, the
largest investment in education to date. While only 11 States are in
full compliance with previous Federal education accountability
standards in January of 2001, NCLB ensured that by June 2003 all 50
States had approved accountability plans to ensure that students become
proficient in reading and math. Under NCLB, math scores have increased
by 9 points for fourth graders and by 5 points for eighth graders since
the 2000 National Assessment of Education Progress.
Under a Democrat watch, we would not be better off. With the
Democrats in the majority, 34 million working families would not have
received an average of $1,549 in tax relief each year; 47 million
families would not have received the $1,000 child tax credit last
summer for each child; 35 million Americans would still be paying the
unfair double taxation on dividend income, discouraging them from
investing in our economy; the defense of our homeland would still be
spread among 22 different Federal agencies; 50,000 highly trained
Federal screeners would not be protecting America's airports; 24
million Iraqis would still be living in fear under Saddam Hussein's
hostile regime; more than 15 million Afghan citizens would still live
under the oppressive brutal regime of the Taliban; two-thirds of al
Qaeda's top leaders would still be on the loose, plotting attacks,
while congressional Democrats treat terrorism as a law enforcement
problem; millions of seniors would not benefit from access to
discounted prescription drugs, and an eventual prescription drug
benefit under Medicare; and millions of American employees would not be
able to save pre-tax income towards future health care costs in
personal health savings accounts.
The largest number in education to date, a 42.5 percent increase in
funding, would never have seen its day in American classrooms; and only
11 out of 50 States would meet acceptable accountability standards in
education today.
But things are better off under Republicans this year than they were
4 years ago. Now, every day we hear about how American jobs are going
overseas. We have a chart here that reflects some of the issues that
are going to be coming up and that I want to start talking about. But
there is a reason why jobs have been going overseas. It is not Benedict
CEOs, as we have heard before. It is not the wage levels in America.
The responsibility lies right here in Congress.
Over the last generation, Congress has passed laws that have come
back to haunt this generation and future generations, unless we act
now. Republicans have divided these barriers that prevent Americans
from keeping and creating jobs into eight categories. We have already
acted on two of these categories. The first one was health care
security. We have voted to limit health care costs and help provide
health care security in America. This week we have dealt with the cost
of bureaucratic red tape in our Bureaucratic Red Tape Termination group
of bills, these five bills which I will discuss later on.
In the weeks that follow, House Republicans will bring up to the
floor and vote on issues that address lifelong learning, so that we can
have a skilled and talented workforce that focuses on math, science,
and engineering skills.
We are going to deal with trade fairness and opportunity, so that we
have fair trade policies to help assure jobs here in America. We are
going to deal with tax relief and simplification so we can provide tax
relief and tax simplification for Americans. We are going to move
forward on an energy self-sufficiency and security plan. And we are
going to encourage research and development by bringing legislation to
the floor for research and development innovation. And we are going to
end lawsuit abuse and deal with litigation management, which is the
last issue we will deal with.
This is how we will make America more competitive. This is how we are
going to ensure that our children and grandchildren have a strong
economy, with opportunities to get a job if they want or start a
business if they choose.
This week, we focused on bureaucratic red tape, and I want to read
some facts. There are 65 words in The Lord's Prayer. There are 286
words in the Gettysburg Address. There are 1,322 words in the
Declaration of Independence. And there are 26,911 words in the Federal
regulation governing the sale of cabbage. This was made in a speech by
FDIC Vice Chairman John M. Reich. He said this because he wanted to
emphasize that bureaucratic red tape termination is vital for U.S.
competitiveness in a global economy.
Bureaucratic red tape termination means less government not only by
granting the freedom to allow Americans to pursue their dreams, but it
also means providing space for businesses to thrive. Instead, our
Federal Government has become a creeping ivy of regulations that
strangle enterprise. Unrealistic, impractical, unnecessary
environmental prohibitions, OSHA mandates and the like are literally
driving our industries and small businesses and our health care system
to a grinding halt.
How can we expect our economy to develop when bureaucracy prevents
businesses from starting or expanding; when doctors cannot even keep up
with the ever-changing codes, and teachers are forced to spend more
time filling out paperwork than teaching in the classroom? The total
compliance burden on our economy of environmental,
[[Page H3531]]
economic, workplace, and tax compliance regulations is $850 billion;
$160 billion on manufacturers alone, which is the equivalent of a 12
percent excise tax.
Of the $860 billion, we can see in the chart that it is spread
between four categories: tax compliance, the total is $132 billion;
workplace compliance is $84 billion; environmental regulations are $201
billion; and economic regulatory costs are $444 billion.
Now, if we compare that $860 billion to the gross domestic product of
Mexico, we can see that the $860 billion is higher than the $574
billion that is the entire gross national product of Mexico. Our
regulatory burden is higher than the $701 billion, which is the entire
gross national product of Canada. It is a tremendous burden on our
businesses.
The regulatory costs compared with individual income taxes and
corporate taxes and corporate pretax profits, here again is the $860
billion of regulatory costs, the total individual income taxes that
were paid last year were $949 billion, the corporate income taxes were
$201 billion, and the corporate profits were $699 billion. So we can
see this is a tremendous regulatory burden on our businesses, and it is
keeping us from creating and holding jobs here in America.
But the Bush administration has made great strides in curbing the
growth of regulations and is making a concerted effort to review
existing regulations to the extent possible. They have utilized the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and its administrator, Dr.
John Graham, more than any other administration. We must support them
in our efforts and encourage them to do even more.
Congress should also do a better job of oversight. Too often my
colleagues and I are overburdened with committee work and we do not
have the time or the staff to completely review how agencies operate
within what cumbersome and unnecessary regulations they are placing on
our citizens. I hope, myself, to work with leadership and refocus the
committees' efforts to take time to review what is in place as we do
the work that must be done immediately.
I have come up with a bill called CARFA, that I will explain more
later, but it is called the Commission on Accountability and Review of
Federal Agencies. It is a base realignment-type committee, a BRAC-like
effort. BRAC was used for the military to determine which bases should
be closed. CARFA would be used by this commission to find out which
parts of the Federal Government should be closed, but I will explain
more about that later.
House Republicans are taking on these problems of regulations and
overburdening of rules. Over the last generation, legislation has been
passed with good intentions, but the disastrous consequences have come
in the form of these regulations and policies. These regulations and
policies have made it difficult to stay competitive; and Congress, the
Republicans in Congress, intend to do something about it.
We divided these into eight categories, and we are going to continue
for the next 6 weeks, after we return from recess, to take one issue a
week in order to reach the compliance that we need. Our goal is more
high-quality, high-paying jobs today and for future generations.
The Heritage Foundation asserts that regulatory costs are killing our
jobs. They say that reducing the regulatory burden would do much to
speed the economic recovery and create jobs as well as help consumers.
There are opportunities for reform in a number of areas, ranging from
the burdensome telecommunication rules that are slowing progress for
the next generation of Internet technologies, to unnecessary costly
environmental regulations that make economic growth difficult. It goes
to outdated workplace regulations that also discourage job creation.
OMB, or the Office of Management and Budget, recently reported to
Congress that the annual cost to society of major Federal regulations,
just issued between 1992 and 2002, in other words for a decade, are
estimated to range between $38 billion and $44 billion. Now these are
dollars that are going to compliance and not towards investment. This
estimate suggests that Americans spend about $1.50 in compliance costs
for every dollar in tax costs devoted to regulation.
For firms employing fewer than 20 employees, the annual regulatory
burden in 2000 was estimated to be $6,975 per employee, nearly 60
percent higher than the $4,463 estimated for firms with more than 500
employees. In other words, it is the most difficult for small
businesses.
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Instead of spending more on wages or health care for these employees,
they have to spend nearly $7,000 per employee just complying with the
paperwork that the Federal Government requires.
Over the last decade, small firms have accounted for 60 to 80 percent
of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy. During and coming out of the
last two recession periods, 1990 through 1992, and 2000 through 2001,
small businesses created all of the new net jobs.
According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the
budgetary cost to taxpayers for funding regulatory agencies topped $25
billion in 2002 alone. The Code of Federal Regulations extends 19 feet.
If you can imagine that, that is more than three times my height. If it
was stacked from the floor up towards the ceiling, 19 feet high. From
1991 to 2000, the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations
increased 28 percent.
This Republican Congress has made regulatory reform a priority. It
started back in the 104th Congress when we passed the Federal
bureaucratic reforms under the Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act,
which was part of the contract with America. That, among other things,
has Federal agencies assess the risk and cost imposed by regulations.
To mark the passage of H.R. 1375, the Financial Services Regulatory
Relief Act, had a myriad of bills and amendments that aimed at cutting
red tape. According to the Congressional Research Service, the average
number of rules issued each year, proposed and final, declined sharply
during the Reagan administration, and dropped even further during the
Bush administration, rose slightly during the Clinton administration,
and has declined even further during the first 3 years of George W.
Bush.
The average number of rules issued each year during the current Bush
administration is 6,712. It is just over half as many issued, on
average, each year during the Carter administration; that was 12,325.
They have utilized the Office of Information Regulatory Affairs to do
this through Dr. John Graham, and the U.S. Small Business
Administration's Office of Advocacy has gone out of its way to stand up
for small businesses and encourage fellow agencies to reduce the red
tape and the regulatory burdens.
Bolstered by the President's commitment to remove regulatory barriers
that can stifle entrepreneurial growth and job creation, it has
incorporated the views of small businesses into hundreds of agency
decisions. Those efforts have changed regulations and curbed new
mandates resulting in over $31 billion of savings. Those savings have
been reinvested back into the economy, and we are starting to see the
improvement with a number of jobs. I support the administration's
efforts and encourage them to do more.
Let me talk about competitiveness, because compliance costs can be
regarded as the silent killer of manufacturing competitiveness.
According to the Heritage Foundation, a global CEO survey shows six of
ten company heads view regulations as a serious threat to the growth of
their business, topping exchange rates, corporate governance issues,
and even terrorism. Small business is leading America's economic
recovery, but an overwhelming burden of Federal paperwork rules and
regulations threatens their competitiveness and their ability to spur
job creation.
Regulation imposes its heaviest burden on small- and medium-sized
businesses because it is even harder for them to handle the necessary
paperwork and overhead costs, and the attorney and the accountant fees
that go along with it. Richard Vedder, an economist at the Center For
the Study of American Business, finds that Federal regulations cause
$1.3 trillion in economic output to be lost each year.
In order to give an idea of what a trillion dollars is, let us assume
you started a business the day after Christ
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rose from the dead, and you made a million dollars that day and each
day until today. In other words, your profit was a million dollars a
day for nearly 2,000 years; by that time you would not yet have made a
trillion dollars. You would only be three-quarters of the way to
earning a trillion dollars.
So the cost of $1.3 trillion to economic output is a tremendous cost
to our economy. This is roughly equivalent to the entire output of the
Midatlantic region which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia,
Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
According to a study done by the Manufacturing Alliance, entitled
``How Structural Costs Imposed on U.S. Manufacturers Harm Workers and
Threaten Competitiveness,'' in terms of compliance, three areas of
regulation are hit particularly hard: consumer safety, workplace safety
and environmental protection.
The total compliance burden is the $850 billion we have been talking
about. And again, for manufacturers, that is equivalent to a 12 percent
excise tax. That means we are 12 percent less competitive. If we could
cut that in half, we could make ourselves 6 percent more competitive
worldwide.
The burden on the pollution abatement expenditures alone reduces the
cost of competitiveness by 3.5 percentage points, in comparison with
our nine largest trading partners.
In a recent working paper by the Mercatus Center, which surveyed 100
manufacturing companies and estimated that the total cost of complying
with the 25 statutes and executive orders, just 25 statutes and
executive orders that encompass workplace regulation, it was about a
$32 billion cost in the year 2000. That is equivalent to a 1.6 percent
excise tax on manufactured goods.
In addition to the problem of adding to the number of uninsured and
employers losing work due to the inability to provide coverage, health
care costs are making America uncompetitive in the global market as
well. While I do not advocate socialized medicine, most foreign nations
provide health care coverage through their government and this is a
huge cost that our companies have to worry about, but foreign companies
do not have to worry about.
The National Association of Manufacturers calculated that the benefit
costs put American companies at a 5.5 percent disadvantage compared to
our nine largest trading partners. Not only does the United States
spend more on health care annually, but 7.7 percent of our gross
domestic product is the private sector contribution to health care
coverage, and that far exceeds those of our foreign competitors. If we
add the public sector to that, it is 14 percent of our gross domestic
product.
America has been blessed with the best health care system. However,
we must keep working to make it available and affordable, and the
bureaucratic red tape tied to it is driving the cost of health care up.
The Kansas Hospital Association has told me that for every hour of
health care they provide, there is an additional hour required for
paperwork compliance. We must improve access to health care and reduce
the demands on paperwork so the quality of health care does not
diminish.
Now, this week we have dealt with four OSHA bills and one paperwork
reduction bill and we are committed, the Republicans are committed to
reduce the cost of bureaucratic red tape. Congress established OSHA in
1970. OSHA, which is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,
OSHA's mandate was to ensure for all workers safe and healthful working
conditions, I am quoting from the original law which says, ``by
encouraging employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the
number of occupational, safety and health hazards at their place of
employment.''
Yet, unsurprisingly, OSHA's 30-year record has been marred by
failure. According to the regulatory analysis performed by the Cato
Institute, while OSHA's supporters cite evidence attesting to the
agency's effectiveness, the vast majority of studies have found no
statistical significance in the reduction of workplace fatalities or
injuries due to OSHA. Interventionists are hard pressed to maintain
that OSHA meets even the minimum criteria for any government program.
That criteria is, does it have any desirable effect on the problem it
is supposed to solve.
OSHA's failure has been bad for business. A 1995 study by the
Employment Policy Foundation found that 19 percent of the productivity
slow-downs in the 1970s was directly attributable to regulations
imposed by OSHA, and nearly half of those slow-downs in long-term
productivity can be explained by rising governmental regulatory
activity.
OSHA's poor track record even forced Vice President Gore to admit
that the agency ``does not work well enough.'' Yet despite its
failures, OSHA continues to intimidate businesses with the heavy hand
of regulation, and it continues to make us worse off. As with almost
any form of persistent government meddling, regulation stifles the very
forces that drive growth and enhance prosperity here at home.
OSHA was created to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for workers
throughout our Nation. Over the past 30 years, America's workplace has
become safer and more secure than any time in our history, much of it
through initiatives through the private sector. But in the last 3
decades, OSHA has developed an affliction which many Federal agencies
share. Those same Federal agencies, while created to do good, have
become unwelcome visitors, bearing gifts such as regulation and
misguided oversight. The affliction to which I am referring is an
insatiable appetite for too much control of the day-to-day lives of
American workers and the companies they have worked hard to build.
This is particularly true in the residential construction industry. A
few months ago, OSHA seemed to unfairly target the residential industry
in Sedgwick County, Kansas. In June, I was contacted by the home
builders from Wichita who were terrified by the prospect of having to
stop work in order to avoid fines by OSHA. OSHA had targeted three
counties in Kansas and they flooded these OSHA employees into those
areas.
My constituents told me that OSHA was planning to fine builders for
having plastic coffee cups on the ground and workers' failure to wear
ear plugs while operating a wet-vac. These fines could be as high as
$50,000, and would effectively put these small businessmen out of
business.
OSHA claimed these reports were exaggerated, but there is no way I
can exaggerate the impact of OSHA's hostility and excessive regulation
on the fragile economy in Wichita. Allow me to explain, and prevent
further harm to the small business sector.
As the Air Capital of the World, nowhere else do you find so many
top-name general aviation aircraft manufacturers located in such close
proximity. We also manufacture structural components for large
commercial airlines. It has been said that what Detroit is to the
automobile and what Silicon Valley is to the computer chip, Wichita,
Kansas, is to the airplane.
Wichita proudly claims as corporate residents the Boeing Company,
Cessna, Raytheon, Bombardier Aerospace's Learjet division. As a result,
Wichita supplies components of two-thirds of the world's commercial
airlines and manufactures 60 percent of the world's general aviation
aircraft.
As you are aware, the aviation industry is the first to feel the
effects of an economic downturn and the last to recover from it, and
that is exactly what happened after the terrorist attacks on September
11, 2001. Wichita and surrounding area lost more jobs as a percentage
of the total number of jobs than any other community in the United
States. That resulted in the layoff of over 12,000 aircraft
manufacturing workers.
The last thing Wichita needs is a Federal agency running around
harassing small business and operating as though it would rather push
paper and impose fines than working with employers to create a safe and
healthy work environment.
In the case of the residential construction companies, OSHA chose
surprise visits, ill-conceived compliance guidelines, and an
adversarial demeanor to achieve everyone's goal of a safer, more secure
workplace. Many small contractors were forced to stop working in order
to avoid unfair fines which could have been as much as $7,000 per
infraction, no matter how insignificant the infraction was.
[[Page H3533]]
Under this approach, OSHA was doing more to hurt employees than to
help them by threatening the ability of the men and women in the
residential construction industry to make a living. The work
environment was safer; it was safe because there was nobody there. They
were afraid to go to the work site in fear of being find by OSHA.
The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) has been a leader in the
fight to keep American businesses competitive without sacrificing
workplace safety and health protections. As a part of our Bureaucratic
Red Tape Reduction Week, the gentleman brought to the floor this week
several bills which are aimed at establishing the basic principles of
fairness, reducing regulatory burdens and expediting administrative
reviews that will increase business productivity among America's small
businesses.
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These four bills are H.R. 2728, the Occupational and Safety Health
Small Business Day in Court Act; H.R. 2729, the Occupational Safety and
Health Review Commission Efficiency Act; H.R. 2730, the Occupational
Safety and Health Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act; and H.R.
2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to
Justice Act. I am pleased to say that the House passed all four
measures despite overwhelming Democratic opposition to the measures.
As we continue to focus on Bureaucratic Red Tape Termination week, I
would like to share with my colleagues legislation that I will be
introducing to assist small businesses in their latest battle against
Big Government. My legislation accomplishes five goals. First, the bill
will streamline the amount of time businesses have to contest citations
and the amount of time OSHA has to issue citations. Today, businesses
have 15 days to contest citations while OSHA has 6 months to issue
them. Under my bill, OSHA will have 30 days to issue citations and
provide employers with 30 days to contest it.
Secondly, this legislation allows businesses the right to correct
OSHA violations without immediate monetary penalty. Under my plan,
safety would be improved because employers would be given the incentive
to promptly correct conditions that violate OSHA standards, except in
the case of willful violations where the employer had knowledge of the
violation and made no reasonable effort to correct it.
This section of the bill would give employers 72 hours to correct a
violation following an OSHA inspection. Once corrected, the employer
must provide an abatement certification to OSHA of the correction. Upon
completion of the correction and certification, OSHA would not issue a
monetary penalty for the citation, although the citation would be kept
on record.
Third, my bill addresses the multi-employer citation policy issue by
more narrowly defining the multi-employer citation policy at OSHA.
OSHA's recent enforcement of this policy has potentially overstepped
their statutory authority that was authorized by Congress in the
Occupational Safety and Heath Act. The legislation that I will be
proposing clarifies to whom OSHA can issue citations on work sites
where multiple employers are operating and allows OSHA to issue
citations for a violation only to the employer who has exposed their
employee to that given condition.
Fourth, my legislation will change the criteria for issuing
subsequent repeat citations by stating that ``other than serious''
citations cannot be used as a basis for repeat or subsequent citations.
Finally, the bill will require OSHA inspectors to provide to
employers a written statement or summary at the conclusion of the
inspection that lists the items which OSHA inspectors noticed during
the inspection. OSHA must then use these summary items as the basis for
their citations. Requiring a summary at the end of the inspection would
provide employers with prompt notification of hazardous conditions on
their job site, thereby improving safety on the work site by providing
employers with the opportunity to correct hazardous conditions
immediately.
Currently, employers are often unaware of what the inspector's
concerns were until they receive the citation, sometimes up to 6 months
after the inspection. The bill also includes the added benefit of
providing OSHA with the incentive to ensure that their inspectors are
well versed and educated on OSHA regulations prior to conducting the
site inspection.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that OSHA's first approach to those who
provide jobs in our communities should be cooperative and not
combative. This agency should be driven to work with, and not against,
America's businesses.
Since 1971, OSHA's safety guidelines have accomplished some decline
in occupational injuries and illness rates, and workplace fatalities
have been cut in half. And I am convinced that it is possible to
continue job protection for the American worker while at the same time
create a climate for more jobs and economic growth.
The fifth bill that was passed this week to reduce bureaucratic red
tape and paperwork was called the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements
Act. It was H.R. 2432, and it requires the Office of Management and
Budget, in concert with the Internal Revenue Service, to conduct a
review and then report to Congress on possible actions to reduce tax
paperwork burden imposed on small businesses. H.R. 2432 provides
Congress with a needed permanent analytic capability to serve as a
check and balance on the executive branch's cost-benefit estimates of
its proposed and final regulations and their consistency with
congressional intent. Under the current law, OMB is required to submit
an annual regulatory accounting statement with the President's fiscal
budget.
To date, the usefulness of these reports has been undermined since
they have not been integrated with the budget. In other words, they do
not permit Congress to review simultaneously the on-budget and off-
budget costs associated with each Federal agency and each Federal
agency program that imposes regulatory or paperwork burdens on the
public. H.R. 2432 improves the utility of these reports to Congress by
ensuring we have this simultaneous review.
Currently, there is no end to regulatory burdens imposed on the
public including both large and small businesses, but H.R. 2432
requires the first-ever multi-agency study of regulatory budgeting to
determine if agencies can better manage regulatory burdens on the
public. This is a good government bill which makes incremental
improvements in the existing processes governing paperwork and
regulatory reviews, including strengthening tools for those of us here
in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, tonight I also want to discuss another tool that I think
can be used in eliminating unwanted and unneeded regulation and
regulatory bodies in our Federal Government, and that is the creation
of the Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies
or CARFA.
It is certainly no secret that the Federal budget is filled with
examples of duplicative, inefficient, and failed Federal agencies and
programs. Many of these programs and agencies share regulatory
oversight which very often ties the hands of businesses and employers
due to the outrageous compliance costs these businesses must bear. I
have introduced legislation that I believe would eliminate much of the
fraud, abuse, and unnecessary regulation that persists in our Federal
Government in a politically visible manner.
It has become increasingly clear that Congress's normal procedures
cannot address the spending and waste problems that persist within our
Federal Government. Time and again we see congressionally authorized
programs become institutionalized, ultimately becoming a permanent
fixture at the expense of taxpayers. This ties up precious Federal
resources that could be used towards paying down the national debt or
higher congressional priorities. By cutting out unnecessary Federal
programs and agencies, we will send a strong message that we are
serious about exercising fiscal responsibility and controlling
government spending.
A first step towards a stable financial future for this country
certainly can be found in H.R. 3213, the CARFA bill, which is also
known as the Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal
Agencies Act. CARFA is based on a process with an established record of
successful program elimination and
[[Page H3534]]
prioritizing of spending. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission,
or BRAC as it is called, is similar only it deals strictly with
military bases, whereas H.R. 3213 will establish a commission to
conduct a comprehensive review of Federal agencies and programs and
recommend the elimination or the realignment of duplicative, wasteful,
and outdated functions.
CARFA provides for a disciplined spending review process for
nondefense, nonentitlement programs. Congress will simply have to vote
up or down on the commission's recommendations in their entirety. The
congressional log-rolling that normally bogs down the process will be
short-circuited. In this way, real reform can emerge and the deficit
and debt program can be brought under control. H.R. 3213 offers
Congress and the administration a unique opportunity rather than simply
re-fund and increase funding for every Federal program. CARFA will
eliminate unproductive, duplicative, and outdated programs.
Here is how CARFA would work. The commission would consist of 12
members appointed by the President no later than 90 days after the
enactment of this bill. Members would be appointed for the life of the
commission and would be required to meet no later than 30 days after
the date on which all the members of the commission have been
appointed. CARFA's duties would then include conducting a top to bottom
review of all Federal programs and agencies, excepting the Department
of Defense and any agency that solely administers entitlement programs.
CARFA would seek to identify those programs or agencies that could be
considered duplicative in mission, grossly wasteful or inefficient,
outdated, irrelevant, or simply failed. The assessment of these
programs would be based primarily on the achievement of common
performance measures, financial management, and other factors
determined by the President. No later than 2 years after the enactment
of this act, the commission would be required to submit to the
President and Congress a plan with recommendations of the agencies and
programs that should be realigned or eliminated and propose legislation
to implement this plan. CARFA would require congressional consideration
of the review's findings under the expedited legislative rules. In
short, Congress would be voting up or down to continue or stop wasteful
spending.
CARFA's main focus would be to make our government smarter and more
effective and also to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to
support programs such as the Federal Tea-taster, who until 1995 headed
the Board of Tea Experts, which was created by the Imported Tea Act of
1897. Until this program's elimination just 8 short years ago, the
Federal Government was spending $120,000 in salary and operating
expenses per year to taste tea.
Obviously, this is only one example of the type of program that CARFA
would target, but I am convinced that our Federal Government is replete
with programs such as this that make a mockery out of our hard-earned
tax dollars and that dramatically increase the costs of doing business
in this country. Other examples of government waste that CARFA would
target include surplus lands owned by the Department of Energy, which
if sold would save taxpayers $12 million over 5 years. In addition,
eliminating four duplicative bilingual education programs at the
Department of Education would save taxpayers $800 million over a 5-year
period. We could save $1 million every year by simply eliminating
overlapping responsibilities and reducing administrative positions at
the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The examples of inefficiency
and wasteful government practices that CARFA could target are far too
numerous to cite in this short amount of time. However, it is clear to
me that the need for CARFA is very real.
The strict time limits governing the commission which would expire
shortly after submitting its findings would ensure that its costs are
kept to a minimum. I believe that the savings that would occur as a
result of the commission's findings will more than justify the minimal
expenses the study might incur. In addition, it is worth noting that
CARFA requires that all funds saved by implementation of this plan can
only, only, be used for supporting other domestic programs or paying
down the national debt.
H.R. 3213 offers Congress and the administration a test: Can we
address a real and present problem by adopting a method that has been
successful in the past? CARFA is a realistic plan that will make
genuine reform possible. We welcome support of this politically viable
solution to government spending gone awry. If the CARFA commission
comes to fruition, it will give Congress arms-length distance to do the
right thing and vote down ridiculous, redundant, and outdated programs.
Over 65 of my colleagues in the House have agreed to cosponsor this
legislation, and our numbers are growing stronger. We hope to see the
CARFA commission hard at work cutting wasteful spending and eliminating
burdensome overregulation by this time next year if not sooner.
So in summary, Mr. Speaker, we have seen that, over the last
generation, Congress through good intentions has created barriers to
keeping and creating jobs in America. Republicans in the House have
come up with a plan of dividing these barriers into eight issues, and
over a period of 8 weeks we are going to address each one of these
issues with the purpose of creating high-quality, high-paying jobs
right here in America and bringing jobs home, jobs that we have lost
due to the acts of Congress and the regulations and policies and rules
that have followed these acts of Congress.
Again, Mr. Speaker, those eight issues are health care security,
bureaucratic red tape termination, lifelong learning, trade fairness
and opportunity, tax relief and simplification, energy self-sufficiency
and security, spurring innovation, and ending lawsuit abuse.
{time} 2200
Last week we dealt with health care security by passing health care
liability reform and by passing Flexible Savings Accounts and Medical
Savings Accounts.
This week we have dealt with bureaucratic red tape termination. We
passed four bills relating to OSHA and the Paperwork and Regulatory
Improvement Act 2030.
Next week we are in recess, so the following week we are going to
deal with lifelong learning. It is our intent during that week to focus
on those types of training and education that we believe will bring
more jobs into America. We want to focus on math, on science, on
engineering. We want to develop a system where we can teach our young
men and women to be technical in their training, so they can be
innovative and ready to accept the jobs that will be created by
reducing these other burdens. So lifelong learning will be the week
next after we are on recess.
So, Mr. Speaker, these eight issues are going to be dealt with. They
are not easily overcome by businesses, small and large, because they
are things they cannot control. Businesses can control wages, they can
control overhead, but they cannot control their health care costs, they
cannot control the bureaucratic red tape that burdens them down every
day, they cannot control the trade issues and policies, they cannot
control the energy policy we have and they cannot control the lawsuits
that come and haunt them. So we intend to address these issues.
This is the debate that we should be having on the floor of the House
now. This is how we are going to secure a future for our children and
our grandchildren. We are going to, if successful, create a strong
economy in the future, where they can either start a business or get a
job.
For those who are in opposition to these issues, I want to ask you,
why would you oppose an energy policy that would create 700,000 more
jobs in America? Why would you oppose reducing red tape so we can
create additional work in areas where we do not have jobs now? Why
would you want to oppose lawsuit reform, because right now it is
driving jobs overseas?
The Republicans in the House want to bring jobs back into America.
This is our plan. It is the most aggressive and organized plan that we
have ever had for bringing jobs back to America. I am very proud to
head up this effort through a Jobs Action Team.
Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to be successful in bringing jobs
back.
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