[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13167-13168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE REINS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House passed a measure I 
cosponsored, H.R. 427, known as the REINS Act, to end this 
administration's disregard for the separation of powers.
  The bill rightly reasserts Congress' proper role in writing our 
Nation's laws by requiring that any regulation written with a 
cumulative impact of over $100 million be reviewed and approved by 
Congress before going into effect, instead of the stifling of 
innovation that we have seen the effects of.
  Too often, we have seen this administration attempt to use creative 
interpretation of the law or aggressive rulemaking that have had a 
massive negative impact on our State's economy, resulting in higher 
prices, thousands of dollars per cost additionally per family per year, 
lower wages, fewer working

[[Page 13168]]

hours, or complete loss of job opportunities altogether.
  For example, the proposed waters of the United States regulation 
would insert the Environmental Protection Agency in local land use 
planning areas across the Nation.
  Do we really need the Federal Government telling us how to landscape 
our own backyards? Is that even proper? I think not.
  Do we really think the Federal Government should be regulating 
manmade ditches along country roads or fields or dry streambeds and 
puddles which hold water only during and immediately after rainstorms 
or irrigation and drainage ditches which wouldn't even exist if not 
created by water districts and the people involved?
  What a giant leap of grab of power by the Federal Government in 
asserting itself over these private properties via these regulations 
written by bureaucrats and not overseen by Congress directly.
  In my district, Federal bureaucrats are unilaterally deciding, with 
no evidence or science, that small depressions in fields are linked to 
distant waterways, placing vast areas of land out of production. 
Despite bipartisan congressional opposition, the administration is 
attempting to move forward with this aggressive regulation, waterways 
of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, the examples of this administration's aggressive and 
careless decisions, increasing costs, eliminating jobs are almost too 
numerous to count.
  In 2014, Federal regulations cost our economy $1.88 trillion in 
higher prices for food, energy, and goods, averaging about $14,000 per 
U.S. household. This price tag has spiked, thanks to the President 
Obama administration, which added nearly 500 new regulations, 184 of 
which have combined to raise costs to Americans of about $80 billion. 
The result is 81 new major regulations per year.
  Mr. Speaker, unelected bureaucrats shouldn't be imposing their will 
on the American people at a cost of billions of dollars each year. This 
is not the way to stop the difficult headwinds our economy faces. 
Indeed, this is causing more economic problems for us to recover from 
in this Nation.
  It is time for the Senate to join the House and send H.R. 427, the 
REINS Act, and help with our job economy, with the boost we all need--
that we have needed for so long during this last 6 years. The REINS Act 
is needed to indeed rein in an out-of-control government.
  Even the President himself said in his State of the Union Address in 
January 2011:

       To reduce barriers to growth and investment . . . when we 
     find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we 
     need to fix them.

  The REINS Act is that fix. Let's get it done. Let's get the Senate to 
get it done.

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