Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. This is a critical amendment. If not now, then when? If not on this bill, then when are we going to get to looking at American job creators in a positive way? There is no question if this amendment is held to a point of order that it will be seen again and again by those of us who care about jobs in America.

The Web site that my committee launched, AmericanJobCreators.com, has already seen countless examples, in the thousands now, of different ways in which regulatory excesses have in fact cost jobs. Moreover, what we're seeing is a pattern of no cost-benefit analysis being done in any way, shape, or form on new regulations.

Promulgating regulations if they don't cost jobs, if they are a net benefit to the economy, wouldn't be a problem, at least not overall. But in fact, we have had the EPA administrator, the former Minerals Management Service, now Ocean Energy, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, and countless more before our committee, each of whom seems to be muddled about cost-benefit on the regulations they create. They often say, of course we do cost-benefit. Then if you say, well, what do the cost-benefits show on a particular regulation, they are never familiar with it.

It is in fact very clear that we know that we're costing jobs. The estimate by the Small Business Administration, I repeat the estimate by the U.S. Small Business Administration is that regulations cost $1.75 trillion, or about $8,000 per employee, perhaps as much as $10,000 per employee.

Not every regulation that costs money needs to in fact not happen. But it certainly should be a decision of the Congress, and not an unelected individual somewhere in a well-windowed office with beautiful carpeting deciding on their own to have guidance or rulemaking that costs American jobs.

The Department of Homeland Security is in fact one of the most insular organizations. They have proven not to know or care what America needs, only that they must do what they choose to do. This is an agency that is so, so, so excessive that they even found that sending FOIA requests to political appointees who redacted or simply didn't send them out was okay. That's the kind of thing that we need to deal with here in appropriations, and if not in appropriations, in broader legislation.

My amendment simply seeks to force back to Congress the responsibility for regulations that cost jobs. If a study is done and it doesn't cost jobs, it would go forward. The fact is that most of our laws require some cost-benefit analysis. But since they're able to do it without ever formalizing it, or waive it because they say they don't believe it would happen, we don't have that kind of fact. An amendment like this simply says if you're going to cost American jobs, come back to Congress.

With that, I urge passage of this amendment. I strongly believe that with 9 percent unemployment, and in California 11 percent, and more in other areas, it's time for us to say don't pass a new regulation that costs jobs unless you're willing to bring it back to Congress.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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