Directing Commitees to Review Regulations from Federal Agencies
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the House Small Business Committee, I often see the impact that regulations have on small businesses. Harmful Federal regulations can put serious hurdles in the way of entrepreneurship, making it difficult to create jobs and expand businesses. As we try to encourage a lasting, stable economic recovery, it is critical we review and analyze the impact of proposed and existing regulations on small businesses. We must make sure regulators are not making irreversible decisions that could strain the competitive ability of small businesses, prevent expansion, reduce access to capital and harm the overall growth of the American economy.
Not only are regulations potentially harmful to small businesses, there are simply too many regulations for businesses to follow. In 2010, the Federal Register, the daily digest of the Federal agency regulatory announcements, contained about 82,000 pages, in comparison to the roughly 42,000 pages in 1980.
President Reagan and every President since ordered Federal bureaucrats to review regulations. Despite this, very few rules are ever repealed. President Reagan and every President since has ordered the Office of Management and Budget to review new regulations. And despite this review, Federal agencies continue to issue new regulations. President Reagan and every President since has issued an Executive Order mandating that agencies only promulgate rules in which benefits exceed the costs. Despite this, agencies continue to issue regulations imposing undue costs on small businesses. President Reagan and every President since has sought to strengthen the enforcement of the Paperwork Reduction Act. But despite this, reporting and record keeping requirements continue to bury small business owners.
Ultimately, what is at stake is whether small businesses will succeed in the free market or have their success determined by the whims and dictates of Federal bureaucrats. If the President and agencies are unable to stem this tide and allow small businesses to do what they do best--that is create jobs--then Congress has to act. The resolution before us today is just that, a call for Congress to act.
I strongly endorse this resolution and look forward to the Committee on Small Business reviewing agency regulations that are duplicative, unnecessary, or otherwise inhibit small business expansion.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I just want to say that this resolution before us, as has been said, it is not a Democratic or a Republican issue; rather, it is an issue of good government and it identifies those irrational rules that represent barriers to job growth.
Mr. Speaker, the last Congress and this administration passed bill after bill after bill that either taxed or regulated businesses and small firms right out of business, and it is going to take time to unravel that mess. With this bill, again, we are going to identify a lot of those irrational rules that represent those barriers.
With that, I would strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the pending resolution, particularly with respect to the effect on jobs and the economy.
My colleagues on the other side are going to oppose this effort, claiming we are seeking to strip basic public health and safety protections. No one is in favor of hurting those in those areas, but that is not the purpose of us being here today.
We have had numerous hearings over the last couple of days on rules and regulations and how they hurt job creation. This gives power back to the committees to then do that, fine-tooth comb through rules and regulations and address what the President talked about in his State of the Union; where there are rules and regulations that don't make sense, we need to eliminate them, because we need to focus on job creation. We can't regulate existing businesses into the ground on the hope that better ones will come later. We must protect the jobs currently we have and open the doors for new businesses as well.
As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, I am particularly interested in the activities of the EPA. I am going to talk about three examples, one we heard yesterday in testimony.
United States Steel came before us and said imagine a regulation where we have to decrease the heat in the preparation of steel to comply with NO
X, but as we move to EPA rules and regulations on greenhouse gasses we actually have to use the same process and heat that process up. So U.S. Steel will be caught in a catch-22. Under one reg, they have to keep the heat low to comply with nitrous oxide regulations; on the other hand, in the same process, they have to heat it up to meet the greenhouse gas rules.
Now, what is a steel company going to do? They are going to move to China. You can't develop rules and regulations that cannot be complied with by existing known technologies, and that was just a perfect example.
Another one that I find, and a lot of these things not only hurt jobs, but they are going to hurt the environment. The example is the redefinition of used oil as a solid waste. Now, this sounds like, what are they talking about?
Many of us, and there are times when many of us, when we were young, we changed our own oil. We would get underneath the car, pull the plug and drain the oil. Fortunately, in today's world, you can take it to an auto repair shop, you can take it to maybe a parts store, and you can then recycle that used oil.
Not if the EPA has its say, because what they do in the redefinition of this is the only way you can dispose of this off-brand, off-used oil is to burn it. Oh, that is real great for the environment, burning the used oil. And what will the home do-it-yourselfer do? They are probably going to pour it on the ground. So EPA regs not only hurt job creation, but they have a great effect in hurting and harming the economy.
The next one, one of the issues we will address next week in the committee is coal ash byproducts. This is another one that is curious in which the EPA is trying to meddle in. Despite EPA's own testing and admittance that these coal byproducts do not qualify as hazardous waste based on their toxicity, EPA wants to label them as toxic material.
What does that mean? Any byproducts used will then be required to be disposed of in special landfills or dumps and not recycled. Coal ash can't go into concrete. Gypsum can't go into wallboard. Wallboard that has to be disposed of or you are going to remodel your home, what happens to that wallboard? The cost of doing business increases, and these all are things that hurt job creation.
We applaud President Obama in his State of the Union when he says there's too many regulations and we need to ease the regulatory burden. That's the importance of what we're doing here--one of the few things we agree on with the administration. And this will allow us committee by committee to go through the process and identify those hindrances and start to move legislation to address those.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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