Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2023
Floor Speech
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Madam Chair, today I rise in support of my amendment which would simply require Congress to approve by vote any regulation with an economic impact over $1 billion rather than $100 million as the current underlying bill is written.
Congress does have a responsibility to ensure that Federal dollars are spent appropriately with congressional intent and oversight in mind. Yet all of us in this Chamber know just how challenging it can be to come to a consensus despite all of our best efforts, let alone to find the time and the space on the calendar to do so.
Requiring a vote in both the House and the Senate on any regulation with a price tag of $100 million will put in jeopardy consumer protection, healthcare access, and environmental safety. We simply cannot afford in good faith to have this threshold this low. The American people cannot afford for the implementation of these items to be stalled.
The rulemaking process is designed to implement laws that have already passed Congress. However, the laws that we write and the dollars we spend do, of course, have tangible impacts, which is why my amendment would ensure that only the rules that are over $1 billion would see a vote.
As a point of reference, during the Trump administration only 26 out of 1,327 rules had a price tag of over $1 billion. Again, less than 2 percent of the Trump administration's 1,300 rules would, therefore, require a vote under the new threshold. To drill down on the math, that would mean less than 30 votes rather than 1,321 votes.
A little bit of back-of-the-envelope math for us: we here in the House are in session between 27 and 30 weeks a year. I would say we do 20 votes a week which is generously around 600 votes a year; not nearly close to the 1,321 votes that we would have had to have taken during the Trump administration.
Again, I cannot stress enough that regulations do have an impact on real people and American lives. They do ensure aircraft safety and food quality, and they do prevent hazardous material from entering our air and water. As a consequence and because of that, we cannot take unnecessary risks by delaying these quantity of votes.
So, Madam Chair, for all of these reasons, I do urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to please vote ``yes'' on this, my commonsense amendment.
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Madam Chair,
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Madam Chair, I cannot stress enough that regulations do, of course, have an impact on real American people and real American lives. Once again, I will emphasize that they ensure aircraft safety and food quality and prevent hazardous materials from entering our air and our water. We cannot take unnecessary risks.
If there is one thing the last several months have taught us about this body and the way that we move, is that we cannot move with expedience and that we definitely take an enormous amount of time to vote on any one piece of legislation.
The idea that we would be standing here week after week month after month voting on thousands of bills in this way is really a demonstration of the fact that we don't simply understand how this body works.
So for that reason, I very much urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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