Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chair, the amendment carves out of the bill regulations on lead and copper in drinking water. In so doing, it would preserve unelected bureaucrats' broad discretion to impose on the public overarching statutory and regulatory interpretations in this policy area. This amendment would all but guarantee that these unaccountable bureaucrats won't have to worry any more than they do right now about courts checking on their self-serving interpretations. It would let agencies get away with just as much as they do right now in basing overreaching regulations on tortured interpretations of existing statutes instead of coming to Congress for new legislation because the plain terms of existing law really don't support what they want to do.

In short, the amendment seeks to perpetuate the Chevron and our doctrine's weakening of the separation of powers, a weakening that threatens liberty and that undermines the accountable government of, by, and for the people.

Mr. Chair, no one denies that drinking water regulation is important, but no area of regulation is so important that it should allow unelected bureaucrats to avoid a vigorous system of checks and balances that our Framers intended, a system that this bill would restore. Bureaucrats should know that they will face vigorous judicial checks and balances when they act so that they have the strongest incentives to offer the best possible statutory and regulatory grounds for their actions and to carry out the most responsible and fair enforcement possible.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chair, while I respect the gentlewoman's service and the spirit in which she offers this amendment, this amendment carves out of the bill national security regulations from the Department of Homeland Security. As we all know, Mr. Chair, the Department of Homeland Security is an agency that has a long record of significant, unconstitutional regulatory overreach. To that end, we should be strengthening the courts' ability to check that, not weakening it, as the gentlewoman's amendment would do.

Again, no area of regulation is so important that we should allow unelected bureaucrats to avoid the vigorous system of checks and balances that our Framers intended and that this bill would restore; so I urge opposition to this amendment.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chair, the Chevron doctrine is the primary driver of regulatory overreach. It should be overturned. This bill would do that; so I oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment. This is an amendment which carves out of the bill regulations issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mr. Chairman, there is no basis upon which to single out HUD as an agency to which courts should defer on questions of statutory and regulatory interpretation. To the contrary, HUD has proven that it can overreach just as egregiously, just as oppressively as any other agency, and, therefore, needs just as strong a check and balance from the courts like any other agency.

Mr. Chairman, like too many of its sister agencies, HUD is attempting to use Federal regulation to unconstitutionally assert control over wide swaths of American life. To see this, one need look no further than HUD's controversial regulation in 2015 that threatens to federalize local zoning authority. That regulation would withhold Federal funding if municipalities all across the land don't actively work to change residential patterns that don't conform to the desires of HUD bureaucrats.

The regulation is a major extension of HUD's authority. It challenges local, neutral zoning policies merely because they produce uneven effects across population groups. And the use of the withholding of Federal funds to make localities knuckle under to HUD's dictates is an attempt to extort local communities into giving up control of local zoning decisions that have traditionally been theirs under the Constitution.

A decision like HUD's is precisely the kind of decision in a democracy that should be made by accountable, elected representatives of the people, not by the fiat of bureaucrats emboldened by smug claims to Chevron deference from the courts.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. It is an amendment which carves out of my bill agency action based on statutes that expressly grant agency discretion.

As agencies seek to act within areas of statutory discretion, courts are more than able, more than qualified to determine responsibly whether the agencies have, in fact, acted within their discretion.

Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, it is imperative that courts no longer defer to agencies, in defining as a matter of statutory interpretation, precisely what the limits of that discretion are. Otherwise, self- serving, unelected, and unaccountable bureaucrats will continue to interpret statutes in such a way as to intentionally empower agency overreach, and the courts will continue to stand idly by and let them get away with it.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. I will again urge opposition to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, which carves out of the bill consumer safety regulations from the Food and Drug Administration. While this is an important area of regulation, unfortunately, it is yet another area which has been riddled with bureaucratic overreach by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and their erroneous whims and political agendas.

Mr. Chairman, we should strengthen the courts' ability to check these types of overreaching and erroneous statutory and regulatory interpretations, not weaken them, as this amendment would do.

I urge opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman,

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I again urge opposition to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

The motion was agreed to.

Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania) having assumed the chair, Mr. Moolenaar, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4768) to amend title 5, United States Code, with respect to the judicial review of agency interpretations of statutory and regulatory provisions, had come to no resolution thereon.

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