Regulatory Reform and Regulatory Relief

Floor Speech

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Mrs. WAGNER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) for putting this Special Order together.

Mr. Speaker, in his time served in office thus far, President Obama has said he's for the reduction of government red tape that places an unnecessary burden on government people. Again and again, he has extolled the virtues of transparency and bipartisanship in an effort to put people back to work; but if we look at his track record, this has simply turned out to be yet another string of broken promises and a failure of leadership.

In his first term alone, President Obama has finalized 130 major rules, a shocking 160 percent increase over the previous term under President George W. Bush. This alarming growth in government is an assault on our free enterprise system and on our individual liberties. Either the President is not interested in keeping the America's people's trust, or he simply does not have a handle on his own Federal agencies. Given recent events, either of these could very well be true.

The truth, however, Mr. Speaker, is that cost from new regulatory burdens on Americans increased by nearly $70 billion during President Obama's first term in office, which is based on his own agency's estimates. It is very possible that the real costs far exceed this number. With major regulations in Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare still yet to be implemented, these burdens on small businesses and the American people will only skyrocket.

Dodd-Frank alone required government bureaucrats to write nearly 400 new rules, and yet 3 years later we have barely completed a third of them. Most of the laws' provisions have little or no connection to the financial crisis that prompted their creation in the first place. As a member of the Financial Services Committee, I have witnessed firsthand how arbitrary and irrelevant these rules can be, and how they cost the American people jobs and their hard-earned savings.

We can and must do more to hold these agencies accountable and stop this governance by fiat and the bypassing of Congress--we the people. This is why we must have the REINS Act, which I am proud to cosponsor. This legislation would rein in the Federal agencies and would require Congress to approve every new major rule proposed by the executive branch having an annual economic impact of $100 million or more. It would allow Congress to regain our constitutional authority by limiting the size and scope of the rulemaking powers of government bureaucrats who were not elected.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are fed up with this Big Government agenda. It's time to hold this administration accountable for the gross overreach of their power, whether it's regulation from the EPA or regulations implementing Dodd-Frank or ObamaCare. Enough is enough. The American people are tired of this government overstepping their constitutional authority.

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