[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[February 21, 1995]
[Pages 235-239]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Regulatory Reform
February 21, 1995

    Thank you very much. I want to begin by thanking the Vice President 
for his leadership on this issue. When we formed our partnership back in 
1992, and we talked about all the things we wanted to do, and we had a 
series of long, fascinating conversations in which he talked to me about 
science and technology and the environment, and I talked to him about 
education and economic development and reinventing Government. And I 
told him that when I was a Governor, every couple of years we'd 
eliminate an agency just to see if anybody noticed. [Laughter] And 
normally, they didn't. And they never did complain when they did notice.
    And I asked him if he would--then after we actually won and came 
here, I asked him if he would get involved with this and really try to 
make it work for the American people, because I was convinced that there 
was so much justifiable anxiety out there among our people about the way 
Government operates, that unless we could change that we'd never be able 
to maintain the faith of the taxpayers and the integrity of the Federal 
Government.
    I also asked him to do it because he was the only person I could 
trust to read all 150,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. 
[Laughter] At this very moment, Tipper is being treated for insomnia at 
the Georgetown Hospital--[laughter]--but he's just about through.
    I also want to thank all of you who are here who represent really 
the future of the Federal Government and the future of its ability to 
maintain the confidence of the American people that we're protecting and 
promoting their interest and doing it in a way that reinforces instead 
of defies common sense.
    I believe very strongly in the cause of regulatory reform. And as 
the Vice President said, we've been working at it for about 2 years now. 
I also believe that we have to hold fast to certain standards. I believe 
we can bring back common sense and reduce hassle without stripping away 
safeguards for our children, our workers, our families.
    There are proposals pending in the Congress today which go beyond 
reform to roll back, arguably even to wrecking, and I oppose them. But I 
believe we have the burden of reform. And that means we have to change 
in fundamental ways the culture of regulation that has permeated this 
Government throughout administrations, from administration to 
administration, from Republicans to Democrats occupying the White House.
    The Federal Government to many people is not the President of the 
United States. It's the person who shows up on the doorstep to check out 
the bank records or the safety in the factory or the integrity of the 
workplace or how the nursing home is being run. I believe that we have a 
serious obligation in this administration to work with the Congress to 
reduce the burden of regulation and to increase the protection to the 
public. And we have an obligation on our own to do what we can to change 
the destructive elements of the culture of regulation that has built up 
over time and energize the legitimate and decent things that we should 
be doing here in Washington and, more importantly, that should be being 
done all across the country.
    I thank those who have come here today as examples of the progress 
which has been made. We do want to get rid of yesterday's Government so 
we can meet the demands of this new time. We do want results, not rules. 
We want leaner Government, not meaner Government. At a time when I have 
said our obligation should be to create more opportunity and also to 
provide more responsibility, our responsibility here is to expand 
opportunity, empower people to make the most of their own lives, enhance 
security, and to do it all while we are shrinking the Federal 
bureaucracy, to give the people a Government as effective as our finest 
private companies, to give our taxpayers their money's worth.
    Now, everybody has talked about this for years now, but in fact, we 
have taken steps in the right direction. Already, we have reduced 
Federal spending by over a quarter of a trillion dollars, reduced the 
size of the Federal payroll by over 100,000. We are on our way to a 
reduction in excess of 250,000 in the Federal work force, which will 
give us by the end of this decade the smallest Federal Government since 
the Kennedy administration.

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    Vice President Gore's leadership in the reinventing Government 
initiatives have already saved taxpayers $63 billion. Some of the more 
visible changes have been well-noted: the reduction of offices in the 
Agriculture Department by more than 1,200, throwing away the 
Government's 10,000-page personnel manual. I haven't heard a single soul 
complain about it. Nobody has said, ``You know, I never thought about 
the personnel manual, but I just can't bear to live without it now.'' 
[Laughter] I haven't heard it a single place.
    We've worked hard to solve problems that had been long ignored: 
reforming the pension benefit guarantee system to secure the pensions of 
8\1/2\ million working Americans whose pensions and retirement were at 
risk, reforming Government procurement so that the days of the $500 
hammer and the $10 glass ashtray are over, turning FEMA from a disaster 
into a disaster relief agency, breaking gridlock on bills that hung 
around in Congress for years, 6 or 7 years, like the family leave law, 
the motor voter law, the Brady bill, and the crime bill.
    But maybe the most stubborn problem we face is this problem of 
regulation. How do we do what we're supposed to do here? How do we help 
to reinforce the social contract and do our part to work with the 
private sector to protect the legitimate interests of the American 
people without literally taking leave of our senses and doing things 
that drive people up the wall but don't make them safer?
    We all want the benefits of regulation. We all want clean air and 
clean water and safe food and toys that our children can play with. But 
let's face it, we all know the regulatory system needs repair. Too often 
the rule writers here in Washington have such detailed lists of do's and 
don'ts that the do's and don'ts undermine the very objectives they seek 
to achieve, when clear goals and operation for cooperation would work 
better. Too often, especially, small businesses face a profusion of 
overlapping and sometimes conflicting rules. We've tried to set up an 
effective procedure here for resolving those conflicts, but it drives 
people crazy. I had somebody just yesterday mention being subject to two 
directly conflicting rules from two Federal agencies.
    We have to move beyond the point where Washington is, to use the 
Vice President's phrase, the sort of national nanny that can always tell 
businesses, consumers, and workers not only what to do but exactly how 
to do it, when, and with a 100-page guideline. And as has already been 
said, we have begun to take the first steps in doing this.
    You've heard about what the Comptroller of the Currency has done. I 
can tell you one thing: When I was out in New Hampshire in 1992, I heard 
more grief about the regulation of the private sector by the Comptroller 
of the Currency than any other single thing. And now every time I go to 
New England, they say, ``We're making money. We're making loans, and we 
can function, because we finally got somebody down there in Washington 
who understands how to have responsible and safe banking regulations and 
still promote economic growth.'' I hear it every time I go up there, and 
I thank you, sir, for what you've done on that.
    We've got industry and environmentalists alike supporting Carol 
Browner and the EPA's Common Sense Initiative and our proposed overhauls 
of the Superfund and the safe drinking water laws which I pray will pass 
in this session of Congress, and I believe they will, would increase 
both flexibility and improve results for consumers. We've slashed the 
small business loan form from an inch thick to a single page.
    We haven't had to wait for legislation to streamline all 
regulations. We've asked regulators and instructed them to use market 
mechanisms whenever possible and to open up the regulatory process to 
more public scrutiny and involvement.
    HHS has cut its block grant application form in half for maternal 
and child health programs. EPA is exploring using enforceable contracts 
instead of regulation to eliminate potential risk. The FAA is reviewing 
all of its rules to identify those that are out of sync with state-of-
the-art technology practices. And there's nothing more maddening to a 
businessman than being told one thing on Monday by one governmental 
agency and another thing on Tuesday by another.
    Our Labor Department did something unusual about that as it relates 
to regulations that affect both labor and the environment. They talked 
to EPA before issuing their asbestos rules, a stunning departure from 
past practices. So that at least there, there are now no contradictory 
instructions.
    We're also trying to bring common sense in other ways, targeting 
high-risk areas, focusing, for example, on lead in day care centers 
rather

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than aircraft hangars. We're making school lunches more nutritious but 
reducing the forms the local schools have to fill out to qualify for the 
program.
    Today we're attempting to work with Members of both parties in 
Congress to further reform regulation. Soon the Congress will pass 
legislation so that Washington won't order States to solve problems 
without giving them the resources to do it. We're working together to 
pass legislation that ensures that regulation is especially sensitive to 
the needs of small businesses and to reduce paperwork. But we must 
clearly do more. We must ask ourselves some questions that are very, 
very important. And I want to emphasize those here.
    Would you take the card down? This is why I asked all of you here, 
not just to be between me and the press corps. [Laughter]
    Today, this is what we are now going to do. I am instructing all 
regulators to go over every single regulation and cut those regulations 
which are obsolete, to work to reward results, not redtape, to get out 
of Washington and go out into the country to create grassroots 
partnerships with the people who are subject to these regulations and to 
negotiate rather than dictate wherever possible.
    We should ask ourselves--let me go through each one--on the 
regulations, we should ask ourselves: Do we really need this regulation? 
Could private businesses do this just as well with some accountability 
to us? Could State or local government do the job better, making Federal 
regulation not necessary? I want to really work through these things, 
and I want you, all of you, to review all these regulations and make a 
report to me by June 1st, along with any legislative recommendations you 
need to implement the changes that would be necessary to reduce the 
regulatory burden on the American people.
    Second, I want every one of you to change the way we measure the 
performance of your agencies and the front-line regulators. I love the 
comment the Vice President had about people in Customs being evaluated 
about how many boxes they detain. I believe safety inspections should be 
judged, for example, by how many companies on their watch comply, not by 
how many citations our regulators write. We ought to be interested in 
results, not process.
    Third, I want you to convene immediately groups consisting of the 
frontline regulators and the people affected by their regulations, not 
lawyers talking to lawyers in Washington or even the rest of us talking 
to each other in Washington but a conversation that actually takes place 
around the country, at our cleanup sites, our factories, and our ports. 
Where this has been done, as we saw here, we have seen stunning results. 
Most people in business in this country know that there is a reason for 
these regulations, for these areas of regulations. And most people would 
be more than happy to work to find a way that would reduce hassle and 
still achieve the public interest we seek to achieve.
    Fourth, I want to move from a process where lawyers write volumes to 
one where people create partnerships based on common objectives and 
common sense. I want each regulatory agency head to submit to the White 
House a list of pending procedures that can be converted into consensual 
negotiations.
    Now, I want to say this again. This is very important. By June 1st, 
I want to know which obsolete regulations we can cut and which ones you 
can't cut without help from Congress. We want a system that will reward 
results, not redtape. We want to get out of Washington and talk to 
people who are doing the regulating and who are being regulated on the 
frontline. That is the only way we will ever change the culture that 
bothers people. We could stay here from now to kingdom come in this 
room, and we would never get that done.
    And finally, we need to look for the areas in which we can honestly 
negotiate to produce the desired results rather than dictate.
    Finally, the Vice President has been conducting a serious review of 
regulation in the areas of greatest concern. In the coming months, he 
will present to me a series of recommendations for regulatory reform on 
the environment, on health, on food, on financial institutions, on 
worker safety. And when appropriate and necessary, I will present them 
to the Congress.
    This is what we are going to do, and it is high time. But let me 
also emphasize what we are not going to do. We have to recognize that, 
done right, regulation gives our children safer toys and food, protects 
our workers from injury, protects families from pollution, and that when 
we fail, it can have disastrous consequences.
    The American economy is the envy of the world, in part because of 
the public health protections put in place over the last 30 years. Toxic 
emissions by factories have dropped by

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more than 50 percent, and lead levels in children's blood have dropped 
by 70 percent in three decades. Lake Erie, once declared dead, is now 
teeming with fish. One hundred and twelve thousand people survived car 
crashes because of auto safety rules. Workplace deaths are down by 50 
percent since OSHA was created. Our food is safer, and we know its true 
nutritional content because the Government stood up for public 
interests.
    These protections are still needed. There's not too little consumer 
fraud. Toys are not too safe. The environment is still not able to 
protect itself. Some would use the need for reform as a pretext to gut 
vital consumer, worker, environmental protections, even things that 
protect business itself. They don't want reform; they really want rigor 
mortis.
    Some in Congress are pushing a collection of proposals that, taken 
together, would bring Federal protection of public health and safety to 
a halt. Later this week, the House will vote on an across-the-board 
freeze on all Federal regulations. It sounds good, but this stops in its 
tracks Federal action that protects the environment, protects consumers, 
and protects workers. For example, it would stop the Government from 
allocating rights to commercial fishermen. A person who's worked with 
those folks in Louisiana is here today. It would stop the Government 
from authorizing burials at Arlington Cemetery. It would stop good 
regulations, bad regulations, in-between regulations, all regulations. 
No judgment--sounds good but no judgment. It would even cancel the duck 
hunting season. That gives me some hope that it will not prevail. 
[Laughter] It would stop new protection from deadly bacteria in our 
drinking water, stop safer meat and poultry, stop safer cars, stop final 
implementation of the law that lets parents take a leave to care for a 
sick child. It would undermine what we're trying to do to promote safety 
in commuter airlines. If a moratorium takes effect, all these benefits 
will be on hold for the foreseeable future. Therefore, to me, a 
moratorium is not acceptable.
    I agree with the Republicans in Congress on many things. We do need 
to change this system. We have been working for 2 years to change it, 
and believe you me, I know we've got a long way to go. But there is a 
right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. We can agree on many 
things, but I am convinced that a moratorium would hurt the broad 
interests of the American people and would benefit only certain narrow 
interests who, in the moment, think they would be undermined by having 
this or that particular regulation pass.
    The best thing to do is to change the culture of regulation, to do 
the four things that I have outlined, not to put these things on hold 
but to put these things in high gear. That is the right way to do this. 
I still believe that, working together with Congress, we can achieve 
real and balanced regulatory reform. But we shouldn't go too far. For 
example, we want all agencies to carefully compare the cost and benefits 
of regulations so that we don't impose any unnecessary burdens on 
business.
    But the Contract With America, literally read, could pile so many 
new requirements on Government that nothing would ever get done. It 
would add to the very things that people have been complaining about for 
years--too many lawsuits, everything winds up in court. The contract, 
literally read, would override every single health and safety law in the 
books; distort the process by giving industry-paid scientists undue 
influence over rules that govern their employers; in the name of private 
property, could literally bust the budget by requiring the Government to 
pay polluters every time an environmental law puts limits on profits.
    These are extreme proposals. They go too far. They would cost lives 
and dollars. A small army of special interest lobbyists knows they can 
never get away with an outright repeal of consumer or environmental 
protection. But why bother if you can paralyze the Government by 
process? Surely, after years and years and years of people screaming 
about excessive governmental process, we won't just go to an even bigger 
round of process to tilt the process itself in another direction. We 
cannot strip away safeguards for families in this country.
    Here in our audience today are real people on whose behalf we act or 
we might have acted. There's a father in this audience whose son died 
from E. coli bacteria in food that might have been discovered if our 
proposed rule had been in effect when his son ate the contaminated food. 
There are people here whose lives were saved by air bags. Let's not 
forget these people as we cut redtape and bureaucracy. There's a woman 
here who is a breast cancer survivor who lost a child to cancer, who 
lives in an area unusually high in the density of people

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who suffer from cancer. Let's not forget the kind of work that still 
needs to be done.
    At every stage in the history of this country, our Government has 
always had to change to meet the needs of changing times. And we need to 
change now. We need a Government that's smaller and more 
entrepreneurial, that provides a lot less hassle, that realizes that 
there are an awful lot of people out there in the private sector who 
have enlightened views and they want to do the right thing and they need 
to be helped instead of hindered in that.
    I would never defend the culture of this community when it is wrong. 
But let us also not forget that as we strive for a Government that is 
costing less and is more flexible, that is producing better results and 
not more rules, that we have a job to do for the American people and 
that people are entitled to protection. So I echo again what the Vice 
President said earlier: Reform, yes. Bring it on. Roll back, no. There 
is too much good to do to turn this noble enterprise into something that 
we would live to regret. Let us instead work to do what must be done.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 12:40 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building.