[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11988]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  REGULATORY REFORM: FINDING A BALANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Walberg) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Speaker, for the record, America's businesses and 
innovators do not need the administration mandating how they run their 
companies--yet it regularly does and in the form of burdensome and 
costly regulations. We all share in the responsibility to find the 
balance of making sure employees have the safest working conditions 
possible while allowing them to have a job to come back to every day. 
Burdensome, onerous regulations place such a heavy toll on businesses 
that hiring slows and they are forced to start cutting from their 
workforces.

                              {time}  1010

  Part of protecting employees' jobs is making sure that the business 
they work for is still able to grow and create more good-paying jobs 
for those in Michigan and across the country.
  Over the course of this Congress, I have had the opportunity to speak 
with numerous small businesses, owners, and workers who state 
unequivocally that they'd rather Washington hand out less regulations 
and more certainty. According to a Chamber of Commerce small business 
outlook survey from earlier this year, nearly 80 percent of small 
businesses say taxes, regulations, and legislation make it harder for 
them to hire. That's because small businesses are forced to pay on 
average $10,000 per employee per year in order to comply with excessive 
regulations. The Small Business Administration has reported that when 
added up, those costs amount to $1.75 trillion annually, which is 
enough money for businesses to provide 35 million private sector jobs 
with an average salary of $50,000 per year.
  Mr. Speaker, truly, the price of red tape is the loss of American 
jobs. Because of these regulations, the United States is also losing 
its competitive edge. According to the ``Global Competitiveness 
Report'' for 2011-2012, the U.S. fell to the fifth most competitive 
economy in the world. It is down from second place when President Obama 
took office in 2009. The reason stated by the report: more burdensome 
regulations.
  I ask my Big Government colleagues: What's wrong with being number 
one? Regulations are important, and businesses should be held 
accountable for the safety of their employees. But how much is too 
much? So far this year, the Federal Register has run more than 40,000 
pages of regulations that range from burdensome to downright 
ridiculous. It contains such provisions as multiple hospital claim 
reimbursement codes for injuries caused by parrots and burns from 
flaming water skis. We need regulatory reform that cleans up the 
system, removes duplicative regs, and wipes out burdensome and 
excessive rules.
  My Republican colleagues and I in the House have passed dozens of 
bills to pull back the government's regulatory arm. We passed the 
Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS, Act which 
would require both Congress and the President approve all major rulings 
created by Federal agencies. We also have passed rules that would 
discourage any regulation that will have an annual impact of more than 
$100 million, resulting in major increases in costs and prices, or 
impose a significant negative effect on competition and jobs.
  This week, we'll vote on H.R. 4078, the Red Tape Reduction and Small 
Business Job Creation Act, which would prevent any Federal agency from 
taking a significant regulatory action until employment has reached 6 
percent or less. House Republicans remain committed to growing the 
economy and requiring congressional approval for any regulation that 
has significant impact on the economy or burdens small businesses and 
costs jobs.
  We must stop allowing unelected bureaucrats to enact job-killing 
rules with no checks or balances. By preventing these kinds of job-
hindering proposals, we can give job creators more certainty about what 
rules they can expect. Small businesses are our country's real job 
creators, creating seven out of every 10 jobs.
  To protect these jobs and our country and Michigan, I'll continue to 
fight for less red tape here and in Washington, and more jobs in our 
homeland.

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