[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 103 (Tuesday, June 13, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H2815-H2816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRESS' CONSTITUTIONAL ROLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, this week, Congress is going 
to take up one of the most consequential pieces of legislation that 
this body has considered in years.
  Despite the lack of fanfare from the national media, the REINS Act is 
a very important piece of legislation and has the potential to overhaul 
the Federal bureaucracy, overhaul what many of us and many of my 
constituents back in Louisiana refer to as part of the deep state. It 
also has the potential to restore Congress' constitutional role as the 
chief rulemaking body in America.
  However, to understand the necessity of this bill, it is important 
that we take a step back for just a moment and examine how Congress has 
ceded our lawmaking authority to nameless, faceless bureaucrats that 
aren't accountable to anyone: not to voters and really, largely, not 
even to those of us in Congress.
  Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution itself declares that: ``All 
legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the 
United States. . . . '' All. All legislative powers.
  The Founders intended that governments derive their powers from the 
consent of the governed, of course--a radical idea that suggests that 
laws are unjust unless they come from the people. The way that is done 
in our system, in our unmatched constitutional Republic, is that it 
comes from the people through their duly elected Representatives in 
Congress. This idea, of course, was espoused originally by principles 
originated in the Nation's birth certificate, the Declaration of 
Independence.
  The Founders, having signaled their intent to break free from the 
world's most powerful nation were fearful of the undue power and 
influence of an absolute monarch, but of course, tyranny in any of its 
forms is an evil.

[[Page H2816]]

Therefore, they created this system, this system that we have, with 
separation of powers, checks and balances, one that provides elected 
Representatives with the authority to make the laws, an executive to 
implement them, and a judiciary to call the balls and strikes about 
disputes over that.
  However, through the decades of congressional disinterest in 
lawmaking and an ever-growing Federal bureaucracy, the executive branch 
has usurped Congress' role as the rulemaking authority in America.

  It is important to note that this development has been somewhat of a 
slow creep, and it is not a sinister plan to upend Congress' authority. 
You can mostly blame the Congress itself for this having happened.
  Here is what has occurred: For decades, Congress has really willfully 
delegated its authority to Federal agencies, through passage of a 
patchwork of spending bills and the ``vote now, read later'' mindset. 
It also allows some of the duly elected Representatives of the people 
to evade their responsibilities because they don't have to take tough 
votes. If you can just make bureaucrats do it, it is a lot easier.
  However, think of the results of this. Just consider this one 
statistic: In 2021 alone, Congress here passed 143 laws, that is bills 
that passed both Chambers and were signed into law by the President. In 
that same year, by comparison, Federal agencies enacted 3,257 rules. 
That is 23 times the number of laws actually duly passed by the 
Congress.
  Unfortunately, these rules often serve the interests of liberal and 
progressive causes. That is the effect of it. They cater to the desires 
of environmental groups, unions, LGBTQ activists, and those who want to 
abolish the Second Amendment. We have example after example after 
example.
  Progressives have realized that congressional inaction has opened a 
window to usher in this agenda outside of the legislative or electoral 
framework. Their ideas aren't popular at the ballot box, so they 
entrust Federal agencies to do all that bidding behind closed doors. It 
is not American.
  Frankly, my concerns with the growth of the administrative state are 
viewpoint neutral. I don't somehow quietly hope for a similarly sized 
Federal Government that serves conservative political interests. No, we 
are intellectually consistent in this.
  Reining in the administrative state is not about retribution. It is 
about restoration; restoration of our founding principles, the things 
that made our great Nation in the first place. That is why passing the 
REINS Act is a critical first step in achieving these goals.
  This bill would reassert the Article I legislative authority of 
Congress and prevent excessive overreach by the executive branch in the 
Federal rulemaking process. What it means is that every new major rule 
proposed by Federal agencies would be subject to congressional scrutiny 
before going into effect. We define ``major rule'' as any regulation 
with an annual effect on the economy of over $100 million, any major 
increase in cost or prices for consumers, or any significant adverse 
impact on competition, employment, investment, or productivity of U.S.-
based enterprises.
  By quick way of example, if Congress would have passed this bill in 
the last session, President Biden's student loan bailout, his ban on 
oil and gas lease sales, his plan to allow retirement funds to consider 
ESG, and even the mandated climate risk disclosures would all have been 
subject to an up-or-down vote by the people's duly elected 
Representatives in this body.
  Instead, in President Biden's first year, he finalized 69 regulations 
that carried over a $100 million price tag or significantly impacted 
the economy. Those regulations add up to more than $200 billion--
billion with a b--in regulatory costs, and Congress wasn't even 
consulted to approve one dime of it.
  The REINS Act represents a long overdue first step in restoring 
accountability and reducing government overreach. I am really grateful 
that House Republicans have prioritized this bill this week. We will 
pass it off this floor. We will send it to the Senate, and hopefully we 
can rein in the bloated government that is controlling all of our 
lives.

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