    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [March 22, 1995]
    [Pages 381-383]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995
    March 22, 1995

        I thank Governor Winter for his introduction and for the fine work
    he has done as head of the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental
    Relations. I want to welcome all of you here, especially the Members of
    the Congress. The Senate's been involved in business, and I think the
    House may still be voting. Representative Towns, I'm glad you made it.
    And I thank Senator Dole for coming. I want to say a special word of
    thanks to Senator Kempthorne, who picked a great first bill to pass in
    the United States Senate; to Senator John Glenn, who was the Democratic
    floor manager of this bill; Congressman Bill Clinger, the House sponsor;
    Congresswoman Cardiss Collins, the Democratic floor manager; Congressman
    Gary Condit and Jim Moran, who both pushed this bill. And I welcome
    Governor Voinovich from Ohio here, who drew State and local governments
    together on this matter. We have many mayors here. I see Mayor Abramson
    and Mayor Daley and Mayor Lashutka. And there are representatives of the
    counties and the State legislatures here, other Members of Congress. I
    thank all of you for your work on this important piece of legislation.
        I had the privilege in 1989--he may not remember this--of having
    dinner in Chicago with Mayor Daley just a couple of weeks after he took
    office. I learned that night, somewhere be-

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    tween salad and the main course, just how much Mayor Daley hated
    unfunded mandates. [Laughter] For those of you who would have been nice
    enough to let me get all the way to dessert, I welcome you here, too.
    [Laughter]
        I share these concerns, having served as a Governor for a dozen
    years and witnessed the growth of many of the unfair burdens that
    unfunded mandates impose. Shortly after I became President, I signed an
    Executive order to prohibit Federal agencies from imposing nonstatutory
    unfunded mandates on State and local governments without full
    consultations first.
        We have a few more Members coming. Come on in. Representatives
    Peterson and Tauzin, we're glad to see you.
        This bill today extends that discipline to Congress. And I applaud
    Congress for passing it. It for the first time limits the ability of
    Congress to pass laws which impose unfunded mandates on State, county,
    local governments and tribal governments. Having been there as a
    Governor, I know this bill will make a big difference in the lives of
    our people.
        We've made important progress this year in reforming Government
    already. The Congress passed a bill which I was proud to sign which
    requires Congress to live by the laws it imposes on the private sector.
        Now this unfunded mandates law will be another model for how we have
    to continue to change the way Washington does business. The best ideas
    and the most important work that affect the public interest are often
    done a long way away from Washington. This bill is another
    acknowledgement that Washington doesn't necessarily have all the
    answers, that we have to continue to push decisionmaking down to the
    local level, and we shouldn't make the work of governing at the local
    level any harder than the circumstances of the time already ensure that
    it will be.
        The other thing that this bill shows is that Republicans and
    Democrats can come together and break gridlock and do what the American
    people expect us to do. For all of you who are part of that cooperative
    effort and especially for the Members of the Congress, I thank you.
        This is spring, and the roses are about to bloom here in the Rose
    Garden. This is a new beginning and a time for a new spirit of
    cooperation. I hope the Congress will move on from this to first pass
    the line-item veto, so we can bring more real discipline to our spending
    process, and then to pass welfare reform that promotes work and
    responsible parenting and tough child support enforcement.
        We have got to build a true partnership with the American people,
    with a Government that gets rid of what's unnecessary for today and
    tomorrow and does what we have to do in a limited but effective way.
    We're trying to do that in reducing the deficit, the size of the Federal
    Government, reducing the burden of unnecessary regulation. This bill
    will make a real start.
        Listen to this: Before 1964, the number of explicit mandates from
    the Congress on State and local governments was zero. But according to
    the National Performance Review, on the day I took office there were at
    least 172 separate pieces of legislation that impose requirements on
    State and local government. The Congressional Budget Office estimates
    the cost to States and localities of all the regulations imposed just
    between 1983 and 1990 is between $8.9 billion and $12.7 billion. After
    today, this should stop.
        This bill requires Congress to show how much mandates over $50
    million per year will cost State and local governments, to require
    Congress to identify a specific funding source for these mandates, and
    if it does not meet these criteria, Congress must explicitly waive the
    requirement that there be no unfunded mandate, something which I think
    will become increasingly rare with the passage of this law.
        You know, our Founders gave us strong, guiding principles about how
    our governments ought to work, and they trusted us in every generation
    to reinvigorate the partnership they created with such wisdom so long
    ago. For 200 years, we've had to do that over and over and over, and
    about once a generation, we had to make some really big changes in the
    way we work together as a people, citizens in their private lives, local
    governments, State governments, and our Government here in Washington.
        Today we are making history. We are working to find the right
    balance for the 21st century. We are recognizing that the pendulum had
    swung too far and that we have to rely on the initiative, the
    creativity, the determination, and the decisionmaking of people at the
    State and local level to carry much of the load for America as we move
    into the 21st century.
        This bill will help to keep the American dream alive and help to
    keep our country strong. Every Member of Congress here who voted for

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    it and every one who is not here deserves the thanks of the American
    people. And all of you from all over America who are here, from the
    cities, from the county operations, from the State legislatures and
    State Governments, we are all in your debt. I thank you, and I am
    honored to sign this bill.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:45 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to William Winter, former Governor of
    Mississippi; Gov. George V. Voinovich of Ohio; Mayor Jerry Abramson of
    Louisville, KY; Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, IL; and Mayor Greg
    Lashutka of Columbus, OH. S. 1, approved March 22, was assigned Public
    Law No. 104-4.