[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

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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.