Congress' Constitutional Role
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, this week, Congress is going to take up one of the most consequential pieces of legislation that this body has considered in years.
Despite the lack of fanfare from the national media, the REINS Act is a very important piece of legislation and has the potential to overhaul the Federal bureaucracy, overhaul what many of us and many of my constituents back in Louisiana refer to as part of the deep state. It also has the potential to restore Congress' constitutional role as the chief rulemaking body in America.
However, to understand the necessity of this bill, it is important that we take a step back for just a moment and examine how Congress has ceded our lawmaking authority to nameless, faceless bureaucrats that aren't accountable to anyone: not to voters and really, largely, not even to those of us in Congress.
Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution itself declares that: ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. . . . '' All. All legislative powers.
The Founders intended that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, of course--a radical idea that suggests that laws are unjust unless they come from the people. The way that is done in our system, in our unmatched constitutional Republic, is that it comes from the people through their duly elected Representatives in Congress. This idea, of course, was espoused originally by principles originated in the Nation's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence.
The Founders, having signaled their intent to break free from the world's most powerful nation were fearful of the undue power and influence of an absolute monarch, but of course, tyranny in any of its forms is an evil. Therefore, they created this system, this system that we have, with separation of powers, checks and balances, one that provides elected Representatives with the authority to make the laws, an executive to implement them, and a judiciary to call the balls and strikes about disputes over that.
However, through the decades of congressional disinterest in lawmaking and an ever-growing Federal bureaucracy, the executive branch has usurped Congress' role as the rulemaking authority in America.
It is important to note that this development has been somewhat of a slow creep, and it is not a sinister plan to upend Congress' authority. You can mostly blame the Congress itself for this having happened.
Here is what has occurred: For decades, Congress has really willfully delegated its authority to Federal agencies, through passage of a patchwork of spending bills and the ``vote now, read later'' mindset. It also allows some of the duly elected Representatives of the people to evade their responsibilities because they don't have to take tough votes. If you can just make bureaucrats do it, it is a lot easier.
However, think of the results of this. Just consider this one statistic: In 2021 alone, Congress here passed 143 laws, that is bills that passed both Chambers and were signed into law by the President. In that same year, by comparison, Federal agencies enacted 3,257 rules. That is 23 times the number of laws actually duly passed by the Congress.
Unfortunately, these rules often serve the interests of liberal and progressive causes. That is the effect of it. They cater to the desires of environmental groups, unions, LGBTQ activists, and those who want to abolish the Second Amendment. We have example after example after example.
Progressives have realized that congressional inaction has opened a window to usher in this agenda outside of the legislative or electoral framework. Their ideas aren't popular at the ballot box, so they entrust Federal agencies to do all that bidding behind closed doors. It is not American.
Frankly, my concerns with the growth of the administrative state are viewpoint neutral. I don't somehow quietly hope for a similarly sized Federal Government that serves conservative political interests. No, we are intellectually consistent in this.
Reining in the administrative state is not about retribution. It is about restoration; restoration of our founding principles, the things that made our great Nation in the first place. That is why passing the REINS Act is a critical first step in achieving these goals.
This bill would reassert the Article I legislative authority of Congress and prevent excessive overreach by the executive branch in the Federal rulemaking process. What it means is that every new major rule proposed by Federal agencies would be subject to congressional scrutiny before going into effect. We define ``major rule'' as any regulation with an annual effect on the economy of over $100 million, any major increase in cost or prices for consumers, or any significant adverse impact on competition, employment, investment, or productivity of U.S.- based enterprises.
By quick way of example, if Congress would have passed this bill in the last session, President Biden's student loan bailout, his ban on oil and gas lease sales, his plan to allow retirement funds to consider ESG, and even the mandated climate risk disclosures would all have been subject to an up-or-down vote by the people's duly elected Representatives in this body.
Instead, in President Biden's first year, he finalized 69 regulations that carried over a $100 million price tag or significantly impacted the economy. Those regulations add up to more than $200 billion-- billion with a b--in regulatory costs, and Congress wasn't even consulted to approve one dime of it.
The REINS Act represents a long overdue first step in restoring accountability and reducing government overreach. I am really grateful that House Republicans have prioritized this bill this week. We will pass it off this floor. We will send it to the Senate, and hopefully we can rein in the bloated government that is controlling all of our lives.
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