Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Clearing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens Act of 2013, or the ``CURB Act.'' This legislation is designed to help relieve the onerous regulatory burden on our Nation's job creators.

When I ask employers in Maine what we need to do to help them add jobs, they tell me that Washington must reduce the cost and complexity of the regulations imposed on them. And this is not just a concern voiced by Maine businesses. Earlier this year, a Gallup poll of small business owners found that the vast majority are not hiring new workers right now, and more than half pointed to government regulations as one of the reasons why. The National Federation of Independent Business found the same when it polled its members last year.

No business owner I know questions the legitimate role of regulation in protecting the health, safety, and well-being of employees and the public. But the public is not well-served by regulations that bury small businesses under a mountain of paperwork, driving up costs unnecessarily, and impeding growth and job creation. Proper regulation should be as efficient and simple as possible. At the very least, the benefits of a regulation should exceed its costs.

Unfortunately, the burden of Federal regulations continues to grow. Right now, Federal agencies are at work on nearly 2,500 new rules, at least 229 of which affect small businesses. One hundred thirty-nine are major rules, costing more than $100 million each. These rules will go on top of a pile of regulations now measured in the millions of pages.

Year-by-year, this pile of pages gets ever deeper. In the 1970s, the Federal Register, the compilation of Federal regulations, added some 450,000 pages. In the first decade of the 21st Century, more than 730,000 pages were added--a rate of 73,000 pages per year. The pace continues to accelerate. On average since 2010, the Federal Government has added more than 80,000 pages to the Federal Register each year. This cannot continue.

We are not in the fifth year of an economic ``recovery'' that has produced tepid economic growth and stubbornly high unemployment. The red-tape that is strangling our job creators is one of the chief reasons our economy has not fully recovered, and why millions of Americans still cannot find jobs. If we want to get our economy moving again and get Americans back to work, we must get serious about streamlining and reforming our regulatory system.

The CURB Act is designed to do that by requiring Federal agencies to take into account the impacts to small businesses and job growth before imposing new rules and regulations. It does this in four ways: first, by requiring Federal agencies to analyze the indirect costs of regulations, such as the impact on job creation, the cost of energy, and consumer prices; second, by requiring agencies to follow ``good guidance'' practices; third, by helping small businesses avoid unnecessary penalties for first-time, non-harmful paperwork violations; and fourth, by implementing reforms to the Regulatory Flexibility Act proposed by our former colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe. Let me explain each of these provisions in further detail.

First, as a general rule, Federal agencies are not required by statute to analyze the indirect costs regulations can have on the public, such as higher energy costs, higher prices, and the impact on job creation. However, Executive Order 12866, issued by President Clinton in 1993, obligates agencies to provide the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, with an assessment of the indirect costs of proposed regulations. The CURB Act would essentially codify this provision of President Clinton's Executive Order.

Second, our bill obligates Federal agencies to comply with public notice and comment requirements and prohibits them from circumventing these requirements by issuing unofficial rules as ``guidance documents.'' Let me explain why this is necessary:

After President Clinton issued Executive Order 12866, Federal agencies found it easier to issue so-called ``guidance documents,'' rather than formal rules. Although these guidance documents are merely an agency's interpretation of how the public can comply with a particular rule, and are not enforceable in court, as a practical matter they operate as if they are legally binding. Thus, they have been used by agencies to circumvent OIRA regulatory review and public notice and comment requirements.

In 2007, OMB issued a Bulletin which contained a provision closing this loophole by imposing ``Good Guidance Practices'' on Federal agencies. This requires agencies to provide public notice and comment for significant guidance documents. The CURB Act would essentially codify this OMB Bulletin.

Third, the CURB Act helps out the ``little guy'' trying to navigate our incredibly complex and burdensome regulatory environment. So many small businesses do not have a lot of capital on hand. When a small business inadvertently runs afoul of a Federal regulation for the first time, that first penalty could sink the business and the jobs it supports. The CURB Act directs agencies to search their files to determine whether a small business is facing a paperwork violation for the first time, and to offer to waive the penalty for that violation if no harm has come of it. It simply does not make sense to me to punish small businesses the first time they accidently fail to comply with paperwork requirements, so long as no harm comes from that failure.

Fourth, as I mentioned, my bill also includes reforms to the Regulatory Flexibility Act, RFA. These reforms would build on the RFA by expanding its requirements to include guidance documents and indirect costs, in a manner consistent with what I have already described. In addition, the reforms to the RFA would allow small businesses to challenge burdensome rules when they are proposed, instead of when the rules have become final, which is often too late.

Finally, these proposed reforms would put teeth into the RFA's requirement that agencies review their rules for possible savings at least once a decade. The bill directs each agency's Inspector General to notify the head of the agency if a rule has not been reviewed in the time required. Once this notification is received, the agency has 6 months to conduct the required review. If it fails to do so, the bill directs the IG to notify Congress, triggering the recission of one percent of the offending agency's personnel budget unless Congress intervenes.

Before I close, I want to note that many Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, have offered serious regulatory reform proposals for our consideration in recent years. Indeed, even the President's own ``Jobs Council''--before it was disbanded--stressed the need for regulatory reform, and put forward ideas consistent with many of the proposals I and other Members of this body have submitted as legislation. Last session, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, under the leadership of then- Chairman Lieberman and myself, held a series of hearings on regulatory reform. But the Senate as a whole did not act on these proposals last session, or dedicate any time whatsoever to their consideration. I am hopeful this session will be different, and room will be made on the Senate's agenda to consider regulatory reform. As we do so, I would ask my colleagues to consider the approach I have proposed in the CURB Act.

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