[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 58 (Wednesday, April 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2061-S2063]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 Tax Reform and Government Regulations

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, over the last couple of weeks, many of us 
have had an opportunity to spend more time at home than we do just 
going back and forth a few days a week.
  While I was there, I had the opportunity to talk to small business 
owners, employees--people who are seeing their paychecks for the first 
time reflecting what we have done with the tax bill. Both in my 
hometown of Springfield, MO, and around our State, I also heard a level 
of optimism that was very encouraging.
  One of the people I talked to was on the national board of 
manufacturers. A recent poll of the manufacturers looking at their 
confidence level reflected that it was the highest it has ever been in 
all of the time they have been polling on how they see the future.
  Mr. President, where you and I live, in an economy that makes things 
and grows things, we always do better. We are a productive part of the 
country. We don't do quite as well in an advice economy, but we are not 
opposed to an advice-giving economy. We have people who give advice. 
But, frankly, if you put that on top of truly productive capacity and a 
marketplace that meets that capacity, we always do very well.
  As I talked to people, I heard consistently two reasons that people 
feel their optimism is justified and understandably growing. One reason 
is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. No matter what was said about the Tax 
Cuts and Jobs Act, people who were told it wouldn't help them are 
finding out, when they get their first paychecks, that it is helping 
them. People who were told that the

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investment opportunities that would encourage them to grow their small 
businesses wouldn't be there for them are finding out that they are 
there for them, and they see those things coming. The economy is 
generally seeing money stay where we live that otherwise would have 
gone to Washington, DC. Forty-three different entities have come to our 
offices with ideas about what they are doing.
  The 53,000 State employees in our State--the payroll deduction would 
indicate that this year, $32\1/2\ million from just that group of 
employees that was sent to Washington, DC, last year--it will stay in 
Missouri this year.
  I mentioned on the floor not too long ago that one of our counties 
had reported that their county payroll--that the average county 
employee would take home $1,800 more this year, with the same paycheck 
to start with. That is beyond what they would have taken home last 
year. For all of those county employees put together, in Boone County, 
MO, it would mean that $946,000 will stay in Boone County that 
previously would have gone to Washington, DC. That makes a difference 
in the economy of the county because there are a lot of other people 
beyond those 485 employees who see the same kinds of things happening 
to them, but it really makes a difference for families. That take-home 
pay difference that some people here in the Senate and other places in 
this building would suggest won't matter to families--it turns out it 
matters a lot. And I will say again that it particularly matters a lot 
if you don't have it. If you have all kinds of money, it is easy to 
say: Well, $200 a month--what difference does that make? Let me assure 
you, it makes a difference if you don't have it. Lots of families and 
individuals are beginning to see the ability to do more things with 
their own money.
  The second thing I consistently heard about was just the difference 
in the regulation atmosphere. Earlier this week, a dozen Federal 
agencies came together in an effort to improve the environmental review 
process to allow infrastructure projects to go on more quickly--not 
only to diminish the time it takes to get a project started but also to 
be able to, with more certainty, go out and start the process of 
bidding and acquiring and the things you need to do to make that 
happen.
  There were a dozen Federal agencies working together with a common 
purpose, asking: What can we do to make this system work better? We 
have had up to 29 statutes and 5 Executive orders that resulted in a 
number of different decisions under Federal law that allow those 
projects to move forward more quickly.
  We had a discussion in the Commerce Committee this morning with one 
of the nominees for the Surface Transportation Board who had been 
instrumental in helping put together a more streamlined way to get 
things done if, for instance, you were putting something back exactly 
where it had been. It makes sense to everybody in America that if you 
are building a bridge where there was a bridge, it should take less of 
an environmental impact study than if you are building a bridge where 
there has never been a bridge before. But until right now, those two 
things were not treated in a significantly different way; they were 
treated in the same way. Now, because of legislation that we passed and 
the President signed, they will be treated in a different way, as they 
should have been.
  Location is a great advantage to our whole country. Again, in the 
middle of the country, where I live, I have seen--I think it may be our 
greatest competitive advantage--access not only to the national 
marketplace but to the world marketplace. Generally, we have the same 
things in America. Things that allow us to put infrastructure in place 
more readily and make it more affordable to get it done in a quicker 
way are all good things.
  This week, one of the nominees we will be voting on is the Deputy 
Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the last 
decade, based on theirs own estimate, the Environmental Protection 
Agency imposed somewhere between $43 and $51 billion in regulatory 
costs annually. You have to be an incredibly strong economy to absorb 
another $50 billion in regulatory costs from one agency. And that is 
their estimate; you could get other estimates that say: Oh, no, it is 
going to be a lot more costly than that. These are the costs they are 
willing to admit to.
  The current administration has turned the page. I hope that the new 
Deputy Administrator becomes an active part of that. I think the EPA 
has been on the forefront of really looking at the kinds of things that 
are holding back the economy and trying to do things that make sense.
  The EPA Administrator, Administrator Pruitt, quickly got on the job 
of dismantling two of the most costly and burdensome regulations that 
may have ever been proposed by any Federal agency. One is the waters of 
the United States, where the EPA decided that virtually all of the 
water in the country was somehow related to navigable water. Some of it 
might eventually run into navigable water, but the law says that the 
EPA has the authority to regulate navigable water.
  The EPA said: Oh, no, that means any water that could ever run into 
any water that could ever run into any water that could ever run into 
navigable water.
  In our State, that meant that 99.7 percent of the State would have 
been under the EPA authority, if they wanted to exercise it, for things 
that would have slowed down the economy, made it harder to resurface 
your driveway or dig a utility pole or put fertilizer on your field or 
get a building permit.
  It was a ridiculous proposal, and Administrator Pruitt and the EPA 
understood that it is ridiculous--just as, by the way, the courts did. 
The reason this had not gone into effect yet is largely because the 
courts basically said to the EPA, in many instances: You don't have the 
authority to do that. This change was made because the EPA realized 
that they didn't have the authority. Frankly, if they did have the 
authority, it would have been a bad idea.
  There was a power plan that would have been so excessive that, in the 
State where I live, the utility bill would have doubled in about 10 or 
12 years--a power plan that would have added up to $39 billion in 
compliance costs, every single penny of which would have been passed 
along in your utility bill and mine, all of it added to the utility 
bill in ways that just, frankly, didn't make sense.
  The EPA has moved away from that but not away from the idea of 
regulation or environmental control. In fact, Administrator Pruitt came 
to the Thomas Hill Energy Center in our State in April of last year to 
hear directly from workers, from the electric co-op members that 
provide electricity to many of our rural residents, and from ag leaders 
about the impact of that. He listened to that and went back--I am sure 
he did that in other places--and withdrew that rule but at the same 
time proposed a solution for West Lake Landfill, which has been on the 
critical ``we need to take care of this'' list for 30 years.
  The job of the EPA is not to strangle the economy. The job of the EPA 
is to make the environment more protected by doing the things that the 
EPA was designed to do. I think that is what they have been doing--
looking at the rules that don't make sense, trying to be sure that we 
don't do things at the Federal level that cost people their jobs, their 
livelihood, and their opportunities for no reason at all.
  I had a meeting this week--it was Friday a week ago--at the Missouri 
State University, where the head of the Missouri Department of 
Agriculture, Chris Chinn, and the Missouri Farm Bureau president, Blake 
Hurst, and I answered questions for about 45 minutes from a crowd there 
to talk about agriculture and the future of agriculture. Not a single 
question was asked about the farm bill. The questions were basically 
about trade, rural broadband, and regulation. I think you could go to 
lots of other places and say: What do you want to talk about that you 
are most concerned about with the Federal Government, and two or three 
of those topics would come up again.
  Last year the Senate used the Congressional Review Act to block 15 
new major rules that had come up late in the previous administration. 
That act had been used exactly one time since it was put into law, in 
1995 or 1996. It had been used exactly one time during the entire life 
of the law until we were able to look at it and use it 15 times last 
year to eliminate rules that would

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have cost our economy $36 billion in compliance costs. They were not 
rules that we had before. In the case of the last administration, the 
country had gone along without these rules even being proposed for 7\1/
2\ years but, suddenly, on the way out the door, there were all these 
new things that would have held the economy back in a way that, 
frankly, nobody would want to have to do if they were still there to 
take responsibility for it. So we are looking at what we can do in 
regulation, looking at what we can do in transportation, looking at 
what we can do to make us more competitive and allow things to happen 
so the taxpayers have the benefit of a process that works for them 
instead of a process that works with them.
  Rolling back unnecessary redtape isn't just important for 
infrastructure. It isn't just important for individuals. It is also 
important for strengthening our economy. I think we are seeing that 
happen. These people who are willing to serve, like some of the 
individuals we will be voting on this week, are people who are willing 
to give of themselves and their time, their effort, and their energy to 
work for the citizens of our country. We should be grateful to them, 
but we should also be sure that we are watching carefully to be sure 
that they continue to do the kinds of things that create opportunity 
and competition.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Mr. TOOMEY assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.