[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 175 (Wednesday, November 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7587-S7588]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         LIFESAVING REGULATION

  Mr. REID. Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much these days, 
although I had a meeting with some veterans groups earlier today, and I 
indicated to them that maybe they are going to bring us some good luck 
because we were able to pass part of the President's jobs bill--the 
veterans employment--with an overwhelming majority. That was really 
good news, and I hope that is the beginning of some good days ahead of 
us.
  We do agree Congress must do something about the unemployment crisis 
we face. We have 14 million Americans out of work. There is no more 
pressing issue facing Congress or the country than jobs. Our plan, the 
Democrats' plan to address this problem, has been very straightforward. 
We have advocated for policies that will create jobs by investing in 
what makes this country great--our infrastructure, our education 
system, and our innovative workforce. Despite Republican 
obstructionism, we have continued to fight for middle-class jobs, 
bringing to the Senate floor bill after bill designed to bring 
Americans back to work.
  I met yesterday with the Business Roundtable, a stellar organization 
with the finest business executives we have in America today. I told 
them that I know they are all doing well financially, and I went over 
what we had proposed a week or so ago; that is, we need to do something 
about infrastructure that is deteriorating.
  I said we were able to put forward a piece of legislation that said: 
Let's

[[Page S7588]]

spend $50 billion creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. We would not 
punish millionaires and billionaires. What we would do is, people 
fortunate enough to make $1 million in a given year, we would say that 
on any money they make over $1 million, they would have to pay a surtax 
of seven-tenths of 1 percent. I said: Does anybody out here think that 
is an onerous suggestion? Nobody raised their hand because it isn't. 
But on a straight party-line vote, it failed.
  So we are going to continue to fight for middle-class jobs, bringing 
to the Senate floor bill after bill, as we have done, and we will bring 
some more in the future to put Americans back to work.
  The Republicans have taken a different approach. I talked about it 
yesterday. They have advocated a wholesale repeal of so-called job-
killing regulations. We know and we were able to show yesterday that of 
the jobs that have been lost, about three-tenths of 1 percent have been 
because of regulations. Does that mean all regulations are perfect? Of 
course not. That is why the Obama administration--as did the Bush 
administration, as did the Clinton administration--had a review of what 
regulations are onerous and we should change or get rid of. So we 
understand that. For Republicans, that is their job-creating mantra: 
Get rid of regulations. It doesn't work. They say that rolling back 
everything from limits on air pollution to rules that keep our 
worksites safe will create jobs and revive our economy. The problem is 
it is just not true.
  Business leaders and economists of every political stripe agree that 
this GOP mantra is a falsehood. A respected academic adviser to two 
Republican Presidents called this myth spread by Republicans to cover 
up their woeful lack of meaningful work plans to create jobs 
``nonsense'' and ``made up.'' I talked about him in some detail 
yesterday.
  The evidence, in fact, shows that government safeguards have little 
impact, if any, on employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics study 
found that last year only three-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs were 
caused by regulation. That is according to executives who ordered those 
layoffs. Nearly 85 times as many jobs were lost last year because of 
the slow economy.
  But rather than work with us to turn this weak economy around, 
creating hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, Republicans 
spent 11 months fighting Democratic policies that would have created 
these jobs. Meanwhile, they spent these past 11 months focused on 
killing regulations that make America safer, healthier, more efficient, 
and more productive.
  For example, Republicans want to halt updates to the Clean Air Act. 
Since its passage 40 years ago during the Presidency of Richard Nixon--
do you know why President Nixon and the Congress got kind of interested 
in that? In Ohio, the Cuyahoga River kept catching fire. The river 
started burning, they would put it out, and it would start burning 
again. So President Nixon and others felt that maybe we should do 
something about the Clean Water Act. We also, during that same period 
of time, did something about the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Air Act 
alone has reduced emission of key pollutants by 70 percent, while the 
economy has grown by some 200 percent during that same period of time. 
Long-planned updates to the law would reduce emissions of mercury, acid 
gases, and other life-threatening pollutants into the air, saving 
lives.
  Last year alone, the Clean Air Act saved the lives of more than 
160,000 Americans, and it prevented 86,000 emergency room visits and 13 
million lost workdays. This is money in the bank for all of us when we 
can save lives, prevent emergency room visits, and keep people working 
and not being sick. The Clean Air Act has prevented hundreds of 
thousands of cases of heart disease, chronic bronchitis, and asthma.
  It is wonderful that we have helped clean the air, but we also have 
medicines that help. I can remember as a little boy going out to visit 
a woman who lived on the outskirts of Searchlight--that is really a 
couple miles out of the main part of Searchlight--and I have never 
forgotten this. She had asthma, and my mom went out to see if there was 
anything she could do to help. There wasn't a thing she could do to 
help. This woman was in such a state of distress. She said, ``I can't 
breathe,'' and she was making horrible noises that I have never 
forgotten. So things are better. One reason they are better is because 
of medicines but also cleaner air.
  The Clean Air Act has prevented hundreds of thousands of cases of 
heart disease, as I have indicated, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, and 
last year alone it saved American companies and consumers $1.3 trillion 
by reducing medical costs and increasing productivity.
  Of course, all these benefits come with a price tag, but for every 
dollar spent complying with the Clean Air Act, this Nation saves $30 in 
emergency room bills, lost work days, and environmental cleanup. And 
repealing the law of the Clean Air Act wouldn't make the costs go away. 
Instead, it would shift them from corporations to consumers. Complying 
with environmental safeguards is one of the costs of doing business in 
the United States. It is a part of being a good corporate citizen. That 
is why two-thirds of voters say that scientists at the Environmental 
Protection Agency, not politicians in Congress, should set pollution 
standards. Seventy-one percent of voters, including the majority of 
Republicans, support the stronger environmental protections that are 
attacked by congressional Republicans. Eighty percent of voters believe 
those safeguards will improve public health and air quality.
  There is plenty of evidence that smart, fair regulations save lives 
and communities lots of money and also consumers lots of money. There 
is more evidence that stronger watchdogs could have prevented disasters 
such as the 2008 financial crisis or the West Virginia mining accident 
that killed 21 people last year. Simply repeating the fiction that 
regulations kill jobs doesn't make it a fact. But even if there is one 
ounce of truth in the fable, there are many ways to steer the economy 
out of the ditch and create jobs that don't risk American lives.

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