[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 82 (Thursday, May 11, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2894-S2896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Congressional Review Act Resolutions
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, over the past few months, Congress has
passed 14 different resolutions that are going to save the American
people money and are going to make it a lot easier for our economy to
grow. There have been 14 times since February that we have struck down
unnecessary, burdensome, and costly regulations.
These were called ``midnight regulations'' because they came at the
end of the Obama administration. Some came out, actually, after the
Presidential election had been completed. The outcome was known, and,
still, the outgoing administration tried to continue with what
President Obama's Chief of Staff at one time called ``audacious
executive actions.'' Half of these 14 regulations--half of them--were
actually put in place after the November Presidential election.
When one thinks about the election last year in November, President
Obama said time and again during the campaign that his agenda was on
the ballot. The American people rejected that agenda, and the President
dumped these new rules on the American people as a parting shot. We
wiped out 14 of these regulations--wiped them off the books.
In one resolution, we rolled back an important part of President
Obama's war on coal. That was the so-called stream buffer rule. It was
designed to shut down a lot of the surface coal mining in this country.
It would have destroyed up to one-third of coal mining jobs in America.
So we passed a resolution that will protect coal mining jobs and
protect American energy independence.
There was another resolution we passed that restores the role of
local land managers in deciding how best to use Federal land. Before
the Obama administration, the local experts were the ones who would
help decide how Federal land could be used in so many areas around the
country. These are the people on the ground. They are the ones who know
best what works there. They are the ones with the best sense of how to
balance all of the different ways that land can be used. That could be
things like recreation, energy production, and grazing.
Well, the Obama administration said it wasn't interested in hearing
from the local experts anymore. It decided to put the decisions--all of
those decisions--in the hands of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats
in Washington, DC. So Congress passed a resolution that says these are
decisions that affect local communities and those communities should
have the say--and a significant amount of say--in how decisions get
made.
When we look at these 14 resolutions all together, they will save
Americans over $4 billion and more than 4 million hours of paperwork
because not only are the regulations expensive, they are burdensome and
time-consuming.
[[Page S2895]]
I can tell my colleagues this is just the beginning. These
resolutions are just one tool that we have to strike down bad
regulations. There is much more that Congress can do and will do, and
there is much more that the Trump administration can do.
The administration has already made it clear that the bureaucrats in
Washington are not in charge anymore. I plan to make sure the Trump
administration keeps up the pace and tosses some of the worst
regulations and rules into the garbage where they belong.
A good place to start would be for Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the
Interior, to throw out another rule that makes it more difficult to
produce American energy. This regulation supposedly tries to reduce how
much methane gets lost in oil and gas production. There is always some
unprocessed natural gas that gets released at gas and oil wells. Energy
producers try to gather up this gas and then ship it to a processing
plant where, of course, it can be sold. It can be used by customers,
and taxes are paid on it that go to State and local governments, as
well as money that is raised by the sales for the companies themselves.
To do that, the producers need small pipelines. They need these small
pipelines to collect the unprocessed gas from the wells and to get it
to the processing plant. Here is the problem: We don't have enough of
these gathering lines. Without the gathering lines, the only option is
for that gas to get burned, and that extra natural gas will escape into
the air.
So what do the bureaucrats in Washington say? They could have
addressed the real reason this gas is being lost; that is, the fact
that they haven't allowed enough of these gathering lines on Federal
land. Instead, they decided to write a regulation that makes it tougher
for us to produce American energy here in America. The Obama
administration blocked the permits to build the gathering lines.
So this methane rule is a terrible regulation. It is redundant. It is
unnecessary. I believe it is illegal, and it needs to go. Secretary
Zinke should wipe the slate clean and get rid of this outrageous rule
immediately. He should also order the bureaucrats who work for him to
start approving more of these gas-gathering lines. That is what we
really need. We need to make energy as clean as we can, as fast as we
can, and do it in ways that do not raise costs for American families.
We need to balance thoughtful regulation with a growing economy. We can
have both.
The Obama administration absolutely failed to strike the right
balance. The Trump administration and Congress have a lot more we can
do to make sure we get the balance right.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I will be brief. I think the Senator from
Oklahoma is going to go into some additional details, and the Senator
from Wyoming did a great job of summarizing some of the positive
results that have come from our actions. I want to refer to his
resolutions of disapproval for regulations that we feel were an
overreach.
When we went through the 14 votes--we actually had 15, but we were
not able to succeed in 1 last regulation of disapproval yesterday--
there were arguments put forth against our disapproving these
regulations. It was as if we were completely deregulating the subject
matter area that we were focused on, but that was not the case. What we
were trying to do is eliminate the duplication and the costs associated
with layering regulations on top of regulations.
We have a lot of discussion around here about tax reform, and we need
to do that, but if we look at the regulatory burden on businesses and
homeowners and State and local governments, there is a smart, right-
size way to implement regulations, and there is a costly, complex,
wrong way to implement regulations.
So I am proud we were able to get 14 resolutions of disapproval
completed. I think they were regulations that were not necessary. They
are obviously areas that if Congress ever needed to act, we could go
back and implement regulations, if necessary.
What we ended up doing through this action over the past couple of
months with the administration is reduce regulatory burdens by $67
billion, and we have eliminated some 56 million paperwork hours. We are
eliminating, we are cutting redtape, and that is a good thing.
I appreciate all the Members who worked hard on getting this
together. I particularly appreciate my staff--Bill Bode and Torie Ness
in particular--who worked hard with the other Senate offices to see
what kind of support we could get for moving these regulatory
disapprovals forward. I thank my fellow Members and the administration
for working with us to fulfill our promise, which is to right-size
government and get our economy going again.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate the comments
made by my colleague from North Carolina. It is even more meaningful to
me because all during the time the regulations were coming on, I
happened to be the one who was chairing the Environment and Public
Works Committee, and we knew what was going to happen.
I am almost speechless when I think about the success. We went 20
years only taking up 1 CRA, and then we end up passing 14 of them--all
but 1. That is a huge, successful record. My colleagues understand,
this gives us the opportunity for people who are answerable to the
public--people who are elected and have to stand for elections--to have
a part in what is sometimes considered to be the action of an unelected
bureaucrat.
We have had great opportunities here. I think the ``midnight''
regulations--a term that is used quite often--so that a party going out
of office, such as President Obama, being very liberal--a very proud
liberal, I might add--wanted to get as many of his rules in at the last
minute. We were able to come in and pass these in the time required. We
were able to pass 14 of these, in addition to the other regulations and
other methods of doing regulations, which I want to address a little
bit. It is just not something that we really anticipated would happen.
Now, I am particularly proud because mine was the first CRA to be
passed in 20 years, and that was the very first one that came from what
President Obama wanted having to do with the oil and gas industry, but
the fact that nothing passed in that long period of time just shows now
that people are recognizing that we who stand for election should be
involved in this process of doing away with these regulations.
Now, the rule that I brought to the floor, which was the first one
the President signed--we had a great signing ceremony and I enjoyed it
very much--was the one that affected the oil and gas industry. It was
an SEC ruling of the Obama administration that said that if you are a
domestic producer of oil and gas--of course, that is the private
sector--you have to release all of the information you are using in
producing a bid against maybe another country. To use an example, in
China, it is not in the private sector like it is in the United States.
Their oil and gas business is in the public sector so they would have a
distinct advantage. Quite frankly, it is consistent with what the
previous President--President Obama--was doing in his war on fossil
fuels. Fossil fuels are coal, oil, and gas, and he was very proud to be
opposed to coal, oil, and gas, and frankly nuclear too.
I have often wondered--I go back to Oklahoma virtually every weekend
that I don't have to be in one of the war zones or someplace like that.
I go there really for my therapy because they ask questions that make
sense. We don't get these questions in Washington. One of them I
remember was in Shattuck, OK. When I was there, somebody said: Explain
this to me. We have a President who wants to do away with fossil fuels
and he wants to do away with nuclear energy. Now, we are dependent upon
fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, and nuclear energy for 89 percent of
the power it takes to run this machine called America. If he is
successful in doing away with it, how do we run this machine called
America?
Well, I am proud to say that the war against fossil fuels is over.
The particular CRA I sponsored came out of the Dodd-Frank Act.
By the way, overregulation is overregulation. When I talk to people
back in my State of Oklahoma, if they are in
[[Page S2896]]
the banking business or the financial services business, they are
concerned about the overregulation that comes from Dodd-Frank. If they
are farmers, they are concerned about the regulation that would take
the jurisdiction of regulating our water resources out of the States
and putting it in the Federal Government. So that is what this is all
about.
So I will tell you how serious this was. The CRA that I had was so
significant that the Federal courts came in, in July of 2013, and said
that the SEC made several errors in rushing this regulation through.
They actually vacated the rule. That was a major accomplishment. I was
very proud that I had the courts on my side, for a change.
Anyway, the SEC finalized the second rule under the authority of
Dodd-Frank, section 1504, by making some--without any really
substantial changes. Nonetheless, this is the one that he first signed.
So thanks to the Congressional Review Act, oil and gas companies are
not at a disadvantage when they are competing with State-owned oil and
gas companies such as we have in China.
We passed other critical CRAs because regulations tied the hands of
our businesses and took local control away from the States. A lot of
people in America--and I think a higher percentage of my people in
Oklahoma--are really concerned about Second Amendment rights. Of
course, we had one of the regulations that went through--in fact,
Second Amendment rights, when we talk about the farmers and the
ranchers and not just from my State of Oklahoma--we are a farm State--
but throughout America, they will tell you that there are problems.
Their No. 1 concern was--and I asked the Farm Bureau representative. He
said the greatest problem facing farmers is not anything that is found
in the ag bill, it is the overregulation by the EPA and specifically
what they call the WOTUS bill. The WOTUS bill, which is the one I just
mentioned, would take the jurisdiction away from the State and give it
to the Federal Government.
I have to say this. When you talk about ``liberals,'' that is not a
negative term. It is a reality. It is how much power should be in the
hands of the Federal bureaucrats as opposed to individuals and the
States. So we have a lot of these regulations. One of the things the
CRA has done is, it has taken away an excuse that people will use--I am
talking about people in this Chamber who are legitimately liberals and
believe we should have more control in Washington--it takes the power
away from the Federal bureaucrats because what they can do is go ahead
and pass the regulations. Then you go back home and when people are
yelling and screaming about being overregulated back in their home
States, they say: Don't blame me, blame the unelected bureaucrats. A
CRA takes away that excuse because it forces them to actually get on
record.
So as chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, we were involved with more of these regulations than any other
committee because that is what we do for a living there. So I was very
happy to see all of the successes we had.
Let me just mention because I don't think it has been mentioned
before--and I will submit this for the Record. There are two ways of
doing away with these regulations, and one is through Executive orders.
I think everybody knows that. But they don't realize what has already
been done. I think we have had a total of 30, 31 regulations that have
been done away with either through Executive orders or through the
Congressional Review Act. Some of the Executive orders, for example,
are the WOTUS, the one we have been talking about; clean energy,
something which repeals the Clean Power Plan and something which
officially ended the war on fossil fuels, I might add; the Executive
order on rebuilding the military; the Executive order on the Keystone
and Dakota Access Pipelines--we are all familiar with that and the
ongoing debate.
Some of the CRAs really aren't talked about too much, and we are
talking about regulations that came from the Obama administration that
now have been done away with through use of CRAs--the educational rule
mandating Federal standards for evaluating teacher performance; the
educational rule establishing a national school board, with an effort
to get away from local control of the schools; the Interior rule that
blocked Alaska from controlling their own hunting and fishing in that
beautiful State; the Social Security rule that put seniors on a gun ban
list--Second Amendment rights.
All of these things are very significant, and I am very proud, quite
frankly, of this body. With the exception of one, we passed all 14 of
the CRAs, and I can't think of any time that has been done in the past.
So it is a great thing. It did put the power back in the hands of the
people who are elected here, and I am very glad to have been a
participant in that.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the complete list of the
Congressional Review Act resolutions passed and the Trump Executive
actions be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Congressional Review Act Resolutions Passed
SEC Rule requiring oil and gas companies to disclose their
``playbooks'' on how to win deals. Inhofe-CRA--first signed
since 2001; Stream Buffer Zone rule that blocks coal mining;
Education rule mandating federal standards for evaluating
teacher performance; Education rule establishing national
school board; Interior rule that blocked Alaska-control of
hunting & fishing; Social Security rule that put seniors with
``representative payees'' on gun-ban list; OSHA rule that
changed paperwork violation statute of limitations from 6-
months to 5-years.
Defense rule that blocked contractors from getting deals if
suspected (not convicted) of employment-law violations; Labor
rule blocking drug-testing of unemployment beneficiaries; BLM
rule blocking oil and gas development on federal lands.
Federal Communications Commission rule that would have
established 2nd regime of privacy rules in addition to
Federal Trade Commission; HHS rule that would make it easier
for states to fund Planned Parenthood; Department of Labor
(DOL) rule forcing private sector employees onto goverment
run retirement plans; DOL rule allowing states to bypass
protections on retirement plans.
Trump Executive Actions
Regulatory reform: requires 2 regulations be repealed for
each new regulation; WOTUS: directs EPA to rescind Waters of
the United States Act; Energy: repeals clean power plan,
other harmful regulations . . . ending War on Fossil Fuels;
Mexico City: reinstates ban of fed funds going to NGOs that
do abortions; Hiring Freeze: freezes federal hiring (exempted
military); Military: rebuilds military; Approves Keystone XL
pipeline; Approves Dakota Access pipeline.
Permit Streamlining: expedites infrastructure and
manufacturing project permits; Immigration: 90 day suspension
on visas for visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan, Yemen. 20 day suspension of U.S. Refugee Admission
Program; Sanctuary Cities: blocks federal Department of
Justice grants to sanctuary cities; Dodd-Frank: demands
review of Dodd-Frank banking regulations and demanding roll-
back; Shrink government: directs federal agencies to
reorganize to reduce waste and duplication; Trade: evaluates
policies to reduce trade deficit; Opioids: fed task force to
address opioid drug crisis; Fiduciary rule: delays
implementation of bad DOJ rule; Religious Liberty: Eases
enforcement of Johnson Amendment and grants other protections
for religious freedom; Offshore drilling: revises Obama-era
offshore drilling restrictions and orders a review of limits
on drilling locations; National Monuments: Directs a review
of national monument designations.
Improves accountability and whistleblower protections for
VA employees; Affirms local control of school policies and
examines Department of Ed regulations; Reviews agricultural
regulations; Reviews use of H-1B visas; Top-to-bottom audit
of Executive Branch; Moves Historically Black Colleges and
Universities offices from Department of Ed to White House;
Obamacare: directs federal agencies to ease burdens of ACA;
Establishes American Technology Council; Establishes office
of Trade and Manufacturing Policy; Identifies and reduces tax
regulatory burdens; ``Hire America, Buy America'';
Establishes a collection and enforcement of antidumping and
countervailing duties and violations of Trade and Customs
laws; Creates an order of succession within DOJ; Revokes
federal contracting executive orders.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). Without objection, it is so
ordered.