[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S766-S768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         REGULATORY RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR ECONOMY ACT OF 2011

  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I recently introduced a bill called the 
Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act of 2011--it is S. 358--
and I would urge my colleagues who would like to, after hearing my 
remarks, to cosponsor this. I realize the bill is a mouthful--the 
Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act--but I think it is 
appropriate.
  This bill would strengthen and codify President Obama's Executive 
order from January 18. In that Executive order, the President made a 
commitment to review, to modify, to streamline, to expand or repeal--
that is a lot of things, to review, modify, streamline, expand, and 
repeal--those regulatory actions that are duplicative, unnecessary, 
overly burdensome, or would have significant economic impacts on 
Americans. So the Regulatory Responsibility for Our Economy Act of 2011 
would ensure just that.
  My legislation would require that all regulations put forth by the 
current and future administrations--regardless of the President--
consider the economic burden on American businesses, ensure stakeholder 
input--i.e., the people who are affected--during the regulatory 
process, and promote innovation. Back on January 18, the President 
signed an Executive order to do precisely that, we thought. It was for 
``improving regulation and regulatory review.'' But the President also 
released a factsheet on the intent for his regulatory strategy. It was 
in detail. Per the factsheet, ``In this Executive Order, the President 
requires Federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based 
regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and 
competitiveness.'' My legislation would ensure that would actually 
happen.
  In addition, the President published an op-ed in the Wall Street 
Journal detailing the administration's commitment to reviewing 
regulations. As part of this op-ed, the President stated:

       We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those 
     rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against 
     threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people in 
     business from abuse.

  But he also noted that--and this is the key:

       Sometimes those rules have gotten out of balance, placing 
     unreasonable burdens on business--burdens that have stifled 
     innovation and had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.

  I must say I absolutely agree with the President. I was extremely 
pleased when he came out with the Executive order on January 16. And as 
I travel across my home State, I have heard Kansan after Kansan, 
regardless of the business, regardless of where they are on Main 
Street, who find themselves weighed down by the burden of too many 
regulations. As a matter of fact, I think if any Member of this Senate 
would like to get a standing ovation from even a group of five at a 
coffee shop or at a meeting of any organization that is business-
oriented or just folks, you can talk about the debt, you

[[Page S767]]

can talk about spending, you can talk about other issues, but the one 
that really grabs them is this business of overregulation.
  This has been going on for too many years--too many decades. As a 
matter of fact, you can come into a meeting, and you will probably get 
the question--even the distinguished President pro tempore, the Senator 
from New York, would get the question, though probably a little nicer 
than I would get it, and certainly the other Senator from New York, who 
is now leaving the Chamber--the question usually comes as: Pat, what on 
Earth are you doing back there, saddling us with paperwork and 
regulations that are costly, burdensome, and that we don't even know 
about? All of a sudden, on a Wednesday morning we wake up and we face 
this regulatory dictate. It is counterproductive, and the cost 
outweighs the benefit. What is going on back there? What are you guys 
doing?
  My response: Well, let's stop there for just a minute. I am not a 
``you guy,'' I am an ``us guy.''
  Clear back in the days when I was in the House of Representatives and 
I had the privilege of serving in that body, we were all trying to do 
something about unnecessary and burdensome regulations. So I have had a 
longstanding concern with the regulatory process, and that is the one 
issue that is a tinderbox issue. It is one where you really get an 
immediate response, with people saying: Amen. Somebody needs to do 
something about that. And they were so pleased with the President when 
he came out with the Executive order, saying: Hey, I am going to do 
something about this.
  As of January 3, 2011, less than 6 months after the Dodd-Frank act 
was signed into law, regulators have issued over 1,000 pages of 
regulatory proposals and 360 pages of final rules. Talk about asking 
Senators whether they have read a bill, I know that nobody in the 
Senate has read over the 1,000 pages of regulatory proposals and 360 
pages of final rules on the regulatory reform act. And many more pages 
of regulations--upwards of 5,000--are expected.
  Regulations such as those put forth by the Department of Health and 
Human Services, along with the Departments of Labor and Treasury, have 
resulted in the child-only insurance market effectively disappearing in 
20 States because of the regulations. The idea was to provide just the 
opposite but in 20 States today, that is not the case.
  The Environmental Protection Agency began implementing its greenhouse 
gas regulations on stationary sources of energy that emit 75,000 or 
more tons of CO2 a year, which, on its surface, aims to only 
regulate those largest emitters, such as powerplants and oil 
refineries, but it is only a matter of time--it is only a matter of 
time--before stricter regulations are handed down that will impact 
every corner of commerce.
  Let me just say that the EPA--knowing, of course, that Congress said 
no to cap and trade--is trying very hard to go around the Congress to 
try to put forth these regulations into compliance with the law.
  Last year, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard 
Administration--and everything has to have an acronym in Washington, 
but the one for that is called GIPSA--published a proposed rule that 
would change longstanding rules governing the production and marketing 
of livestock. This is an agriculture thing. This proposed rule goes far 
beyond what was intended in the last farm bill. In fact, a number of 
items in the proposed rule were defeated here on the Senate floor, and 
yet they were put in the proposed rule.
  A number of private economic studies show the loss of gross domestic 
product is in excess of $1 billion--much more costly than the $100 
million threshold required for an economic analysis to be completed. 
Unfortunately, an economic analysis is yet to be completed.
  So I was encouraged, Madam President. I was a happy camper there for 
a little bit by President Obama's commitment to a new regulatory 
strategy. But the devil is in the details, and with staff help, after 
reviewing the Executive order, I must say I was left with some larger 
concerns. I was upset.
  The Executive order states:

       In applying these principles, each agency is directed to 
     use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated 
     present and future benefits and costs as accurately as 
     possible.

  Wonderful. We will have a cost-benefit yardstick applied to all of 
the regulations pouring out of all the agencies in Washington. The 
distinguished Speaker of the House said the other day that we had 
200,000 more Federal employees in Washington than we did 2 years ago. I 
can assure you they are not twiddling their thumbs. They are issuing 
regulations, and they tend to be agenda-oriented, not really getting 
down to sound science or determining the unanticipated effects of their 
regulations.

  Picking up again on what the President said:

       Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may 
     consider and discuss qualitatively values that are difficult 
     or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, 
     fairness, and distributive impacts.

  The partridge in the pear tree was left out.
  Let me read this again.

       Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency--

  As they go through the regulations to determine which are 
counterproductive to this economy, costing billions in regard to 
manufacturing and businesses and harming our economy where it should 
not be harmed, they say, OK, but, but, but--

       Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may 
     consider--

  And this is the part where we ought to really take a look at it--

     values that are difficult or impossible to quantify--
  How are you going to do that? How are you going to quantify values 
that are difficult or impossible--

     including equity--

  Everybody is for that--

     human dignity--

  I don't know anyone who is against that--

     fairness, and distributive impacts.

  Now, try to figure that out if you are working in a Federal agency 
and you are trying to issue a regulation. If that isn't a loophole 
large enough to drive a truck through, I don't know what is.
  As the Wall Street Journal captured so eloquently in their response 
to President Obama's editorial, ``These amorphous concepts are not 
measurable at all.'' You can't do it. You can't measure them.
  On the surface, I think this language has the potential to be a very 
large loophole. This, coupled with an exception for independent 
agencies such as the FDIC, the SEC, or the EPA, has the potential to 
result in no changes at all. So we issue an Executive order saying: 
Let's take a tough look at the regulations that are so terribly 
counterproductive, and we may end up with nothing, more especially 
without the independent agencies. Note I said the FDIC. Note I said the 
SEC. Read Dodd-Frank, read financial regulatory reform. Read the reach 
into the small community banks and what they are going to have to put 
up with and hire a bunch of bad news bears--employees--to figure out 
and tell the rest of the employees how on Earth they are going to 
comply with these new regulations.
  And my favorite, the EPA, which had the temerity and the unmitigated 
gall, after this loophole came out, to say: Well, none of our 
regulations even apply. Our regulations are just fine. I got news for 
the EPA. The chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Deborah Stabenow, 
and I have agreed to hold a hearing on this to determine just exactly 
where we are, and where we are is not good.
  My legislation would close the loophole in President Obama's 
Executive order and would close other existing loopholes, including 
those that the administration has been using to bypass valuable 
stakeholder input on regulations. Again, there is that word--
``stakeholder.'' That is a Senate word. Those are the people who are 
getting smacked right up alongside the face in regard to the 
regulations they do not even know adhere to their business or what they 
are about.
  The President has also agreed--and here is the key word or phrase:

       Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing 
     unreasonable burdens on businesses--burdens that have stifled 
     innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.

  The President went on to say, ``At other times, we have failed to 
meet our

[[Page S768]]

basic responsibility to protect the public interest leading to 
disastrous consequences,'' precisely what I am trying to demonstrate 
here. My legislation would assure a review of these regulations to 
assure fewer burdensome and economically irresponsible regulatory 
actions on struggling businesses in the United States.
  President Obama's Executive order ``requires the Federal agencies 
ensure that regulations protect our safety, our health and environment 
while promoting economic growth.'' So does my legislation. ``And it 
orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to 
remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our 
economy less competitive.''
  That is what the President's Executive order does, and so does my 
legislation.
  The President said, ``It's a review that will help bring order to 
regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the 
result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties 
and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.''
  The President was right. My legislation would do this but would add 
some teeth to the commitment--sharp teeth--by cutting out the 
loopholes, the very loophole I read. I am not going to read it again. I 
defy anybody to tell me what it means or how anybody could use that 
kind of language in determining the cost-benefit of any regulation.
  The President has made it his ``mission to root out regulations that 
conflict,''--and I am quoting here--``that are not worth the cost or 
are just plain dumb.'' That is pretty clear, if the President says 
these regulations are just plain dumb. I said ``counterproductive.'' 
That is the Senate word. He said ``dumb.'' That is the Dodge City word 
and I think Dodge City would agree. I think my legislation is something 
the administration can support. So while the President believes his 
Executive order ``makes clear, we are seeking more affordable, less 
intrusive means to achieve the same ends--giving careful consideration 
to benefits and costs,'' and that it ``means writing rules with more 
input from experts, businesses and ordinary citizens,'' there were a 
number of loopholes in the Executive order I am happy to address with 
the administration in my legislation.
  My bill would keep the President accountable for another promise to 
Americans, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, the 
details of which I am happy to share with my colleagues. I hope we get 
a great number of colleagues to help us codify the Executive order, put 
some teeth in it, make it work, and get at regulatory reform as opposed 
to being disingenuous. I think that is exactly what has happened in 
regard to this, what turned out to be a very noble effort, but the end 
result had so many loopholes in it as to be completely ineffective.
  I yield any time I may have.

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