Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for yielding and for shepherding this bill through the committee.

I am especially grateful to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford) for his tireless efforts on behalf of this legislation; not only I, but the people of this country owe him a great debt of gratitude.

I also want to commend him for employing such a wonderful staff. They have been a real pleasure to work with and have been devoted to getting this legislation passed.

I want to recognize the efforts of Chairman Issa and his staff at the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, including his eloquent comments today. They have provided my office with five-star service.

Finally, I want to recognize my esteemed Democrat colleagues, Loretta Sanchez, Mike McIntyre, and Collin Peterson. I am very grateful for their support and wise counsel. They realize that this legislation does not stop the Federal Government from adopting regulations.

And I am, frankly, shocked at the allegations by some of our colleagues on the other side who say this is going to stop the Federal Government from regulating and putting in commonsense rules and regulations.

If you look up the definition of ``straw dog'' in the dictionary, the arguments against this legislation this morning would fit the bill.

Every year, Mr. Chairman, Washington imposes thousands of pages of rules and regulations on America's small businesses and local governments. Hidden in those pages are costly mandates that make it harder for companies to hire and for cash-strapped States, counties, and cities to keep streets safe and parks clean.

Republicans and Democrats alike agree that each regulation the Federal Government hands down should be deliberative and economically defensible. This bill, H.R. 899, will ensure public and bureaucratic awareness about the cost in dollars and in jobs that Federal dictates pose to the economy and local governments.

There is precedent for bipartisanship on this issue. In 1995, Members from both parties supported and President Clinton signed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, UMRA, which sought to expose Washington's abuse of unfunded Federal mandates.

The 1995 bill was designed to force the Federal Government to estimate how much its mandates would cost local governments and employers, not to prevent it from regulating, but to make sure its regulations were fair and efficient.

For the most part, the 1995 law has worked very well; but over the years, weaknesses in that law have been revealed--weaknesses that some government agencies and independent regulatory bodies have exploited.

My bill, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, will correct these oversights and put some weight behind UMRA to ensure no government body purposefully or accidentally skirts public scrutiny when jobs and scarce resources are at stake.

H.R. 899, Mr. Chairman, has bipartisan DNA. It codifies administrative fixes championed by Presidents Clinton and Obama and promotes good government, accountability, and transparency, something we all believe in. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense bipartisan bill.

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