Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 367, the REINS Act.

Some of my Democrat friends want to characterize this bill as an antiregulation bill. But a vote for the REINS Act isn't a vote against regulations. It's a vote for better regulations. It's a vote in favor of a smarter regulatory system. It's a vote to balance broad economic interests against the narrow jurisdiction of individual Federal agencies. It's a vote to give the people most affected by regulations a louder voice in the democratic process.

Yesterday, the White House threatened to veto this bill if it passes. In their veto threat, they wrote:

Maintaining an appropriate allocation of responsibility between the two branches is essential to ensuring that the Nation's regulatory system effectively protects public health, welfare, safety, and our environment, while also promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.

I couldn't agree more. That's exactly why I introduced this bill in January. For those, like me, who are truly concerned about maintaining an appropriate allocation of responsibility between the two branches, regardless of who occupies the White House, it's worth noting the executive branch only derives its power and only invokes its responsibility to issue a given legislation when the legislative branches authorize it to do so, and only in accordance with legislation passed by Congress.

However, this ``allocation of responsibility'' has been thrown out of whack because Congress has taken to the habit of passing sweeping, ambiguous laws that leave it to Federal agencies to sort out the details. This is typically done for the purpose of rushing bills through Congress in order to meet a political timetable or because certain Members would prefer to avoid working through the controversial details. It's much easier to leave such decisions to unaccountable rulemakers, after all.

ObamaCare is a great example of this phenomenon. As the minority leader said when she served as Speaker:

We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.

It turns out that's exactly the case. They had to pass the bill so HHS, the IRS, and our veritable alphabet soup of Federal agencies could tell us how the law would actually work. In fact, we still don't know exactly what's in the bill because we're still waiting on more regulations.

If the REINS Act were in place, none of the major regulations that are issued for ObamaCare or other sweeping laws would take effect until Congress approved them. This would make our regulatory process smarter for a number of reasons--chiefly, because we currently regulate in silos.

Now, when HHS employees are drafting a regulation about health insurance, for instance, they narrowly focus only on insurance. They aren't too worried about economic growth. If the IRS is drafting a regulation on tax collection, they are likely to focus narrowly on taxes. They don't take much into account job losses and income effects.

We need a Congress that can comprehensively look at these things, a body that can, in the words of the White House, ``protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment, while also promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation,'' all at the same time.

So as we learn what's actually in ObamaCare and other laws, why is it such a bad idea to ensure that individual, rank-and-file Americans get to weigh in, through their elected representatives, on the important details that impact their pocketbooks, consume their time, and govern countless aspects of their daily lives?

The truth is it's not a bad idea. In fact, I predict Congress would take the time to more thoroughly and publicly deliberate about these large ambiguous bills if the regulators didn't get the final say. In the end, we would end up with better, clearer legislation in a diminished role for unelected rulemakers. More Americans could stay engaged in the entire lawmaking process and could voice their concerns in a meaningful way. And politicians would be unable to hide behind so-called ``unelected bureaucrats'' because the American people could ultimately hold Congress accountable for the rules coming out of Washington.

I implore my colleagues to join me in restoring a measure of accountability to the democratic process. Support this bill.

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