“Please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington.” That was the plea to President Obama from Rock Katschnig, an Atkinson, Ill.-based soybean farmer and small-businessman at an August town-hall meeting.
While Mr. Katschnig was specifically referencing his opposition to the Administration’s imposed Farm Dust rule, a rule that if implemented would affect America’s 1.8 million farmers, his sentiments have become an all too common refrain from American businesses of all sizes across countless sectors.
Appropriate and responsible regulations are important, helping to keep us safe and our environment clean. Yet Washington has become a red-tape factory stunting job creation with a dizzying amount of federally imposed regulations written by unaccountable bureaucrats with little or no regard for the jobs each will cost.
The sheer amount and breadth of the administration’s proposed regulations make it impossible to address each and every one. Yet we can take action to stop the most excessive and economically-devastating regulations. Right now, the Obama Administration has 4,257 new regulations in the works, 219 of which will cost over $100 million annually – 15 percent more than last year. At a time when job creators are fighting to survive in an already tough economy, thousands of additional regulations will only result in significantly fewer jobs – hitting small businesses particularly hard.
Fortunately there is a bipartisan solution to this regulatory madness. Later today, the House will vote on commonsense legislation requiring congressional approval for regulations that cost businesses over $100 million annually.
The REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) would ensure that regulations that make sense become the law of the land, while those that would devastate job growth are shelved. On top of ensuring that unelected bureaucrats do not impose these behind a cloak of darkness, the REINS Act would also bring transparency and accountability to an all-too-secretive policymaking arena.
All this fall, congressional Republicans have listened to job creators about the crushing effects of Washington regulations: as guests of Speaker Boehner during September’s joint session, in meetings with members, and in countless other venues at home and in Congress.
Spencer Weitman, a job creator from Alabama’s cement industry who attended President Obama’s joint-session address, told CNBC moments after the speech: “We were going to create jobs. We were going to have construction projects.” This was in reference to the devastating effects of the administration’s cement MACT rule, just one of the 219 regulations with a greater-than-$100 million effect on the economy.
Jeff Rose, of Vantage Data Centers, a California-based wholesale data-center provider, had this message for Washington on a recent visit: “In our experience it’s getting worse.” His colleague, Jennifer Fraser, explained how regulations can hinder their ability to deliver their product: “Part of our niche is speed to market . . . and the restrictions from a permitting perspective can put a project back nine months, ten months, 15 months.”
Even more disturbing, the 219 regulations that could each cost the economy over $100 million would have a disproportionate impact on small businesses. A recent Small Business Administration study showed the total cost to employers of federal regulations is $1.75 trillion. For businesses with fewer than 20 employees, the per-employee cost was $10,585 — 36 percent higher than larger businesses. Washington needs to be removing barriers to small-business job creation, not adding more roadblocks to recovery.
This is why House Republicans devoted much of the fall legislative calendar to regulations. Today’s REINS Act will be the 15th specific House-passed regulatory-relief bill. Not one has been voted on by the U.S. Senate, even though job creators tell Congress that Washington regulations are destroying their businesses and in turn their employees’ careers. It’s long past time that the Senate votes on these bipartisan bills that would immediately remove barriers to job creation. It’s what American job creators need.
— Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) is House majority whip and Rep. Pete Roskam (Ill.) is chief deputy whip.
The cement regulation's instructive. The EPA promulgated a regulation requiring cement manufacturers to reduce the pollution they cause when they make cement. The cement industry says the regulation's impossible to comply with. This is exactly where you should ask yourself, who should be making the final decision about this? Is the cement industry telling the truth, or is it just objecting because the regulation reduces profits?
Congress may not know as much as the EPA, but Congress has the right to Dare To Be Stupid, and I mean that seriously. How much pollution we agree to endure is a matter for us to vote on, experts be damned. If that's what the REIN Act really does, I'm all for it. In fact, if not passing the REIN Act sends a message to the EPA that it's ok to get unneccesarily medieval on industry, I'm doubly for it. Anyone have any insight on this?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh, I get it now.
The REIN Act assumes that the EPA is overdoing it. It effectively reverses the presumption that regulations are appropriate.
That's dumb.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy is that dumb? Why should it be presumed that the bureaucrats have the appropriate, best, most reasonable, etc. answer to an issue? The courts have deferred to agencies because they're the "experts" in terms of the legislation in question and are likely to know far more about it than a judge, but the same logic doesn't necessarily apply when talking Congressional-agency relations.
While I would love to see Congress provide less discretion to these agencies, I know that there will always be far more details to be worked out than can be worked out by Congress as a body. So agencies will have to make regulations. But I think it is perfectly legitimate for Congress to reserve powers over those regulations to insure that they conform with what Congress was intending when it passed the law in the first place. I have no problem with Congress saying, "before a regulation goes into effect we want to confirm that it was something we intended."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCongress does reserve power. In all situations.
We're talking about what happens if Congress is too busy to review and consider $100 million regulations. That's small potatoes, you must admit. Congress has bigger things to do than determine whether every $100 million regulation works or doesn't. So it delegates that duty to bureaucrats. If the bureaucrats do a lousy job, there's Congress, and ultimately there are elections. But really, our country is now too big for Congress to be involving itself in every >$100 million regulation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's not the country that is too big, just the government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow about we lower the threshhold to 25-million and totally gum up Congress. Pass that law with an amendment that states if they can't get a budget done there is a 5% cut in spending for the continuing resolution. Make the defense budget the first priority every year (it is mandated in the Constitution).
We need to keep congress very busy approving regulations. "Idle hands are the devils workshop"!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhich means that you have just admitted that individual citizens and businesses are living in a regulatory tyranny, because there can be no effective oversight by their elected officials, especially those in the legislative body set up by the Constitution, i.e., Congress.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike actually believes that regulators are always right.
No wonder he's a liberal.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere in Los Angeles, there is now a "green inspection" for every facet of a construction project, and the "green inspectors" acknowledge that they themselves aren't sure exactly what they should be looking out for. Starting with disposal of demolition debris and on through to final, they have the power but not the specific knowledge of what needs to be covered. Yeah, this is going to do us all a world of good.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYep, red tape disposal will be job #1 for the 113th Congress. Just as hazardous tent disposal is becoming job #1 for police departments across the nation.
d(^_^)b
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“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
Here's a thought - Congress should stop passing enormous bills with hundreds of vaguely-written provisions and then shuffle off the messy details to executive agencies that then find themselves empowered to create such toxic regulations. If Congress spent even just a little more time worrying about the details, there would be less latitude for these agencies to engage in this "cloak of darkness" economy-destroying regulation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIMO, progressives/liberals/most Democrats can't do what's helpful for business and for job creation because they literally don't understand how either of those things functions/works without a mommy.
The only way to get relief is to retake the Senate and White House, and replace these clueless, business-wisdom-less bureaucrats with some "people with business-understanding/business-wisdom/business-experience" in decision making positions.
I've run my own small business for 30+ years, and the regs reach a tipping point that hurts in two ways: 1) the time and effort to comply with all the mounting regs is at the margin of my energy pool, so that I have no energy reserves left over to apply to new business/plant/employee generation, and 2) it creates a mindset of worsening expectation so that I no longer seriously look for ways to expand, as my tolerance (both timewise and temperament-wise) is exceeded.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf you think a mere law will have any effect at all on a bureaucrat, you're hopelessly naive. Bureaucrats are above and beyond the power of legislation. They don't need trivialities like constitutions and laws. Total removal is the only way to change the habits of a bureaucrat.
Delete the Federal government entirely and let the states handle things.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseyou think the bureaucrats cant figure out a way around REINS?? they'll just split the regs up into more pieces to keep the cost of compliance to anyone on reg below the line and issue tons more regs is all.
how about every 3 or 5 years all regulations sunset unless congress votes to extend them? that would make congress directly accountable and on the record.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRequire that every regulation be voted on individually, otherwise you will get an omnibus bill that simply states that all regulations are re-approved without any debate on the merits of individual regulations.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInstead of all these "dust" regulations that only help a very small minority with breathing disorders perhaps we should just buy them dust masks? The reality is the ADM's of the world are the only folks that would be able to comply with the farming dust rules and the intent is to destroy the small independent farmer. This and rules about children working on farms and who can drive farming equipment and ethanol subsidies. These are all assaults on small farmers or silly ideas that just raise the price of food.
Another small request for the Distinguished Gentlemen who authored the article. Could we please refrain from using the term "commonsense legislation"? That animal doesn't exist! I try to be a nice guy. I believe MikeB is a nice guy, I think that Oilwatcher is probably a pretty good fellow also. I bet we can't agree on "commonsense legislation". It's a fluff term with no meaning. It belongs on the scrap heap with such words as "sustainable", "affordable", "disenfranchised", "marginalized", etc. These are "liberal" words. As Conservatives, we should speak English and stick to Webster's for the meaning!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI recently dropped out of nursing due to an over-abundance of rules, regs, requirements. These made it impossible to give adequate care to my patients. I worked in a skilled care facility serving medicare and medicaid guests....had to call them guests and not patients. If you did not follow and chart the overwhelming regs...your facility could be fined...indefinitely...until the inspectors "felt" like returning. These could be thousands of dollars per day...requiring the down-sizing of staff and less care for our guests. The only solution was to lie if you wanted to protect the patients...which I did not want to do or work over-time and then be fired...so just quit. I am sure this is not unique in just healthcare but rather a direct result of too much gov. regulation in many areas. Not opposed to laws that protect...just over-regulation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseQuestion for Mike B. What makes an ideologue (EPA bureaucrat) an "expert?"
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse(re-posted from 'Reining in the Feds')
Fighting the EPA one regulation at a time via REINS will never cut it... the problems are structural, and can only be addressed at their most basic level which involves the foundation of the EPA itself. The EPA has always been a b#st@rd spawn of both Congress and the Executive branch (Nixon executive order 1970). Although ostensibly part of the Executive branch, it is an “independent agency”, and as such, it is by design subject to minimal review by either Congress or the President, and therefore essentially uncontrollable. Its charter is to create environmental regulations which are effectively the same as laws; thus every time the EPA regulates, it is the same as if Congress is not only bypassed, but is allowed to be utterly lazy and irresponsible by ignoring its Constitutional duties as a legislative body. Even assuming that Congress decided to review each and every regulation, the task would be realistically impossible, as the rate of generation of regulations by a body such as the EPA far outstrips the rate of the review process itself, including any attempts to actually reign in specific aspects.
This monster should never have been allowed to see the light of day. The reach of EPA regulations are far from trivial, and in fact controls every member and organization of our society. But none of that control can be effectively shaped or counteracted by citizens. There is only the most byzantine of bureaucratic processes for review after the fact, and there is an unrepentantly progressive court system by which to fight only the most egregious regulations, with the system stacked tremendously against anyone but the largest corporations. The deck is further stacked when so-called private environmental groups are indirectly funneled government money via grants or endowments from other groups feeding on tax-free corporate welfare and associated lobbyists. This whole setup effectively amounts to a tyranny imposed on small-to-medium sized businesses, organizations, and individual citizens.
The only solution is to abolish the unConstitutional EPA immediately, with the intent of placing such lawmaking authority back where the Constitution intended, i.e., Congress. In addition, all regulations from the EPA for the past ten years should be suspended and rolled back until subject to review and approval by Congress. After that, every so-called environmental law passed by Congress should have an 11-year sunshine limitation automatically placed upon it, in order to come up for review to gage its actual effects as opposed to its pristine fantasyland intentions. Without this approach, the EPA will continue every year to further encroach upon liberty, to strangle private businesses, destroy jobs, and to place a blanket of fear upon each and every one of us, in that we are all now in violation of some environmental regulation somewhere, and only government inefficiency prevents it from coming down on our heads and turning us into political prisoners.
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