Directing Committees to Review Regulations from Federal Agencies

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeGETTE. I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, Congress needs to get going. We were sworn in over a month ago now, when the highest priority in this country, everybody agrees, is creating jobs. And, frankly, with unemployment still hovering around 9 percent, we have no time to waste dithering around arguing about what we should do.

This resolution does not do one thing to create one job. So, once again, what are we doing? We're standing on the House floor debating for 9 1/2 hours, wasting the American people's time, which is time we could be using to sit down on a bipartisan basis and bring jobs, investment, and growth to this country. What we're doing here is time-consuming, but it really means nothing in the end. It's a resolution. It's a resolution that directs certain standing committees to look at regulations and to decide if they think that it has some impact on jobs. It lists a number of matters for consideration. It gives no deadline by which the committees have to investigate these issues. It gives no standards for the various matters for consideration, including impede private sector job creation, et cetera. So you can bet we'll have long debates over each one of those criteria.

But, then, what is most unbelievable about this resolution, it really doesn't say what we should do about it. Let's say all the committees meet month after month determining day after day, hearing after hearing that there's some impeding on business. Then what do they do? And that's what's so frustrating, because the American people don't want more review, inventory, or compilation of regulations. They want their families to have jobs. And so that's why we really need to sit down and talk about how will we create jobs.

This resolution won't save one home from foreclosure, it won't help repair one crumbling bridge or potholed road, it won't extend a mile of broadband. It wouldn't ensure one school lunch for our children or provide a patient greater access to hospitals or doctors. It won't do any of that.

What's worse, Mr. Speaker, is that, as we take this debate on today, we need to remember the committees are already bound by the rules of the House to provide proper oversight. We don't need 2 days to debate a resolution that tells the committees what they already have a constitutional duty to do.

Frankly, I am concerned, too, because there is nothing this Congress has done today to give us any indication that the majority intends to spend any time creating jobs. We had 7 hours of debate on a bill to repeal health care, which everybody knows is not going anywhere in the other body and which doesn't create one job. This week, today--it's Thursday--we passed exactly one piece of legislation, and we are done voting for the day.

While this resolution does nothing to create jobs and nothing, frankly, to make Congress expeditiously use its already existing regulatory oversight, at the same time it neglects the fact that laws and regulations can be important to protect our constituents' health.

For example, when we had insufficient laws and regulations to deal with outbreaks of foodborne illness, we acted on a bipartisan basis to reduce 76 million foodborne illnesses, 300,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths a year in the United States. This type of regulation and oversight is important. It keeps Americans safe. It reduces the cost to our economy, and it ultimately helps save jobs. There are billions of dollars of lost productivity for workers, damage to our economy, and lost profits due to foodborne illnesses, which this Congress acted on a bipartisan basis to reduce.

Mr. Speaker, I've also introduced legislation to foster the development of a clear and predictable regulatory pathway that enables better approval of safe and effective products and the support of regulatory research to promote the understanding of regenerative medicine. These types of regulatory initiatives can actually help create jobs in the future and are a critical part of our work in this body.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.

Ms. DeGETTE. I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Look, there is nobody on either side of this aisle who thinks we should have an unnecessary or overly burdensome regulation, but that's not what this is about. We have a long history of regulatory review, and we can do that without spending 9 hours debating a resolution like this. A few hours ago, we all stood here and read the Constitution aloud together. I am sure everybody remembers that the authority for committees in this Congress to review and inventory regulations is already provided.

So I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that what we do is bring this debate to an end, that we focus on the regulations that we can repeal, and that we really focus on what the American people want us to talk about, which is creating jobs for the American public.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeGETTE. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it has now been 36 days since we were sworn in in the 112th Congress. Yet, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, which I know Mr. Shimkus and I will both agree is the most illustrious and powerful committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, the committee with broad-ranging jurisdiction, everything from energy policy to food safety to health care, even to national league sports, we have not passed one legislative bill in those 36 days. We haven't passed one bill to repeal an onerous regulation. We haven't passed one bill to create one new job.

In fact, the first subcommittee markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee is tomorrow. This markup is of an extreme bill which will restrict a woman's right to choose. This is a divisive bill that has nothing to do with repealing one onerous regulation, and, in fact, it doesn't create one job, except maybe a job for lawyers who, if this actually became law, would have a field day litigating the legislation.

Look, Mr. Speaker, we all agree that if there are burdensome regulations, they should be repealed. But let's not let this discussion devolve into a partisan debate under the guise of regulatory reform.

So we know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't like the new EPA greenhouse gas regulations. We know that they don't like the new health care bill. But just because those bills have been passed and are being implemented does not mean that the regulations, per se, cause a loss of jobs.

So what I would suggest the American people would like us to see, what they told us in the election, what they've told us since the election, what all of my constituents told me when I was home last week is, when are you going to stop the partisan bickering? When are you going to create jobs?

I believe that if my colleague from Illinois and I, and all of the rest of us got together, we could identify a number of regulations, regulations passed under Democratic and Republican administrations that are burdensome, that are outdated, and that we could repeal. But in the meantime, let's just call it what it is. Let's have the debate if we're going to have it. But let's not call it a debate about burdensome regulations. Let's create jobs.

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

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