[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6310-6311]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            PROPER BALANCE BETWEEN STATE AND FEDERAL POWERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, Justice Brandeis, as we have talked 
once before, has said States are the ideal laboratory for democracy, 
for indeed they have the better ability of being creative, and, if the 
creation goes wrong, can move back from that, from the Federal 
Government. For indeed when we try to be creative, and it goes wrong, 
the entire Nation has an impact with it.
  The idea of a Sunset Commission is one which has been experimented on 
by various States, various times for a several or a few years now. As 
our good friend Mr. Brady from Texas clearly said, it has proven 
effective in cutting away bureaucracy, eliminating inefficient 
agencies, letting go of outdated programs, and also saving the 
taxpayers money.
  Another way of saying that is this Commission can make citizens of 
America more free, can keep government within its proper bounds and 
help us to keep more of our own money and rule our own lives, which is 
another reason why the Constitutional Caucus is supporting the creation 
of this Sunset Commission.
  The administration actually started this ball rolling several years 
ago with the introduction of their Program Assessment Rating Tool, or 
PART, the results of which have been the basis of administrative 
decisions on budget proposals every year now. The key now is to give 
these recommendations some legislative teeth, which is something that 
the former Director, as well as the Budget Director of OMB, has urged 
us.
  He wrote, one time, we need to involve Congress more directly in 
holding agencies and programs accountable

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for their performance through a Sunset Commission which provides 
regular formal scrutiny of Federal programs. This bipartisan Commission 
would review each Federal program on a schedule established by Congress 
to determine whether it is producing results and should continue to 
exist. Programs would automatically terminate according to the 
schedule, unless the Congress took action to continue them.
  Mr. Speaker, I suggest also that one of the things we might want to 
do is expand it to one other role. Many States, including mine, have a 
regulatory oversight committee, which means a committee of the 
legislative body which meets on a regular basis to review all rules 
that are established and step in where rules established by the 
bureaucracy become egregious.
  Let's face it. All legislative bodies are sometimes sloppy. Sometimes 
we have a grand idea, and then we will empower an agency to implement 
that idea. Oftentimes those implementations, those rules and 
regulations, they go awry. When there happens to be nobody directly 
accessible or accountable to citizens who can then go to that and 
attack and change that rule, well, that is when problems develop. That 
is why we need to have legislative bodies who could step in and set 
things right.
  Much of the erosion of States rights in our country's history has 
come from unaccountable Federal agencies that grow and then wrap their 
arms around States and people and don't ever want to let go. Congress 
has certainly done its part to ignore 10th amendment issues. Courts 
have also siphoned off some power. But a slow and insidious 
encroachment of Federal agencies is perhaps the worst of these 
influences.
  A Sunset Commission would put us on the road to solving this. It 
would force every Federal agency to its usefulness, review its own 
mission, justify its own existence, or face some kind of elimination. 
It would also allow a review of regulations and standards to make sure 
they are logical, legitimate, and within the scope of the legislative 
empowerment that created them in the first place.
  I appreciate the opportunity being here on the same evening when Mr. 
Brady, the gentleman from Texas, reintroduced his bill to the American 
people of having a Sunset Commission. I appreciate also being here when 
the gentleman from New Jersey Mr. Garrett talks about the 
Constitutional Caucus and the effort it is to try to reestablish the 
right and proper balance between government; for indeed the purpose of 
that is to ensure that the power belongs to people to rule their own 
lives, to States to be in their sphere of government, and the Federal 
Government to maintain its balance and its purpose where it was 
constitutionally designed to be.

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