Freedom from Restrictive Excessive Executive Demands and Onerous Mandates Act of 2011

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise in support of the amendment that has been proposed by my colleagues from Maine and Oklahoma, Senators Snowe and Coburn, the Freedom from Restrictive Excessive Executive Demands and Onerous Mandates Act of 2011. This is a very commonsensical piece of legislation. It is something that certainly responds to a concern I hear from small businesses all across this country about the need for relief from burdensome, one-size-fits-all Federal regulations.

We hear a lot of discussion--in the Senate and around this town and around the country, for that matter, because that is where it truly matters--about creating jobs. Yet for all the rhetoric about job creation, it seems there is very little that is actually being done with regard to the substance of putting the right kind of policies in place that will make it cheaper and easier for small businesses to create jobs. It seems as if everything we do makes it harder, more difficult, and more expensive for our small businesses to create jobs.

As the Senator from Maine very correctly pointed out, 70 percent of the jobs in our economy are created by small businesses. I think there are a whole range of issues that impact small businesses in this country and their ability to create jobs.

My colleague from Ohio just talked about trade. I happen to have a view on trade that you ought to have trade agreements that are fair, that are enforceable, obviously, but that we are a country that benefits enormously from the opportunity to export the products we grow and make to other countries around the world.

To just give you an example of one particular country, one of the bilateral trade agreements that is under consideration--or at least I wish was under consideration; it has been negotiated and has not been submitted by the White House yet to the Congress for consideration--is the one with Colombia. I mentioned this earlier today in some remarks on the floor, if you look at it and its impact on agriculture in this country: In 2008, in the commodities of corn, wheat, and soybeans, our country had 81 percent of the Colombian market when it comes to those three agricultural commodities. In 2010, that was down to 27 percent. Why? Because a lot of other countries that had negotiated free-trade agreements with Colombia have stepped in to fill the void because we do not have that kind of agreement.

This has very direct and profound impacts on the American economy. Because when you lose that kind of market share--81 percent in 2008, down to 27 percent in 2010--that is a significant number of jobs that are impacted in industries in this country. The same would be true with Panama and South Korea, all of which would be trade agreements that are teed up that have been sitting and languishing for 3 or 4 years now without action in the Senate. It is absolutely insane for us not to be moving trade agreements that could benefit our economy and create jobs at a time when job creation--certainly, at least rhetorically around here--is stated to be the No. 1 priority we deal with.

When it comes to jobs and the economy--and I think there are a number of things, as I said, that impact that, trade being one--there are a number of policies coming out of Washington that impact small businesses and their ability to create jobs. Clearly, tax policy is one. Tax policy is something I think needs to be reviewed. We need tax reform. It is long overdue. It is making us noncompetitive with other countries around the world because our tax laws are outdated relative to other countries, our takes rates are higher relative to every other industrialized country in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of Japan. That is something we need to be looking at. If we are serious about being competitive and about growing our economy and in the global marketplace creating the kind of jobs we need here at home, we have to have trade policies, tax policies that are conducive to economic growth and job creation.

The other area, however, on which we can be impacted by what happens in Washington is regulation. That is what this particular amendment is all about. It is about making regulation coming out of Washington, DC, reasonable, making it based upon common sense, making it based upon science, making it where any objective bystander or person out there--an observer who looks at these regulations--would say: They are trying very hard not to make it more difficult for small businesses to create jobs in this country.

But I think what happens too often is the exact opposite. It looks like what is coming out of Washington are heavyhanded, burdensome requirements, mandates, and regulations which drive up the cost of doing business in this country. Frankly, I do not disagree with what some of my colleagues on the other side have said about regulations that are important to public health and safety. What I am talking about are excessive, overreaching regulations, which in some cases go beyond the congressional intent, the statutory purpose that Congress, when they enacted the laws, wanted to see take place. So you have regulatory agencies that go way beyond the congressional intent and the statutory purpose with regard to many of these policies that are being put in place.

I have to say that when I travel in my State of South Dakota--and, for that matter, outside the State of South Dakota--and I talk to small businesses, I talk to agricultural producers, the overriding theme, the consistent theme I hear over and over and over again is: You have to get these out-of-control regulatory agencies under control. They keep spinning and kicking out more and more regulations that are making it more difficult for us to grow our businesses and to create jobs.

Maybe that is a function of the fact that we have a government that has gotten too big and out of control. If you look at government today relative to historical standards, we are looking at government, as a percentage of our entire economy today, of being somewhere in the 24- to 25-percent range. I mentioned earlier this morning in some remarks on the floor that back in the year 1800, the government was actually 2 percent of our entire economy. For our entire economic output at that time, 2 percent represented what we spent on the Federal Government. Today we are spending one-quarter--one-quarter--of every dollar of our entire economic output in just the Federal Government. That does not include State and local governments. When you add those in, you get up over 40 percent. The trajectory we are on today will take us up to 40 percent of spending on the Federal Government to GDP in the not-too-distant future. If you look at 2035, 2040, that is where we are headed if we stay on our current path.

So it necessarily follows, I suppose, that when government keeps getting bigger and more expansive, more government regulations, more government redtape, more bureaucracy is a natural outgrowth of a growing government. What I think makes the most sense is for us to be creating jobs in the private economy. What we have seen here in just the last few years is that the government economy is growing relative to the total economy. The private economy, thereby, is shrinking. We have seen, over the last 40 years, the average of the Federal Government, as a percentage of our entire economy, being 20.6 percent. So 20.6 percent of our entire economy spending has been by the Federal Government. As I said, now it is 24 to 25 percent.

So we are on a path where we are rapidly ramping up, we are rapidly growing the size of government relative to our entire economy. That is not where we want to go if we are serious about creating good-paying, permanent jobs for people in this country. Those jobs originate and come from the private sector. They come from small businesses. That is where we want to create the jobs.

So I would say the amendment that is being proposed by the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Oklahoma is a very reasonable one because all it is simply saying is, before these new regulations go into place, the small businesses ought to have access to some review and perhaps even, if necessary, to the court system, to make sure those regulations are consistent with the legislative intent and not overly burdensome and putting an unnecessary and excessive burden on our small businesses.

I think it is common sense. If we are serious about job creation, if we are serious about economic growth, getting the economy back on track, this is the very type of legislation we ought to be supporting. Too often around here we end up off on these tangents, working on things that do not have an impact on job creation. I will say that one of the things we should be working on--and that we are not--it has now been 771 days since Congress passed a budget. Think about that: $3.8 trillion, $3.7 trillion, $3.8 trillion in annual spending, and it has been 771 days now since Congress passed a budget.

It strikes me, at least, that if we are serious about getting our fiscal house in order and sending signals to the economy and to the market that we want to create jobs, the first thing we could do is get the fiscal house in Washington, DC, in order. Yet we have had 771 days now without a budget.

If you are really serious about getting the economy back on track, you have to also restrain spending. You have to grow the economy, you have to restrain Federal spending, because when you have a government that is growing at the rate ours is, it does crowd out private investment. It makes it more difficult for small businesses to get access to capital and create jobs because they are competing with the government.

Back to the issue at hand here--that is regulations--I think that whether it is a farmer or rancher in South Dakota--by the way, I spoke yesterday with someone who is in town representing a livestock organization in my State--the No. 1 issue is overreaching government regulation driving up the cost of doing business.

You look at some of the proposals and suggestions that are out there, and sometimes they fall into the category of ``you can't make this kind of stuff up.''

There was a proposal under consideration here recently at the EPA--which they have not, to be fair, promulgated regulations on yet or proposed regulations on yet--that would regulate fugitive dust. I mean, imagine and think about what that means in an agricultural. What it essentially means is you could not have dust from your property drift over onto someone else's property.

Some of this stuff borders on insanity. I think that is the point that is being made by the amendment of the Senator from Maine. Let's use some common sense. Let's use some reason. If we are going to have these regulations, let's at least put them forward in a way that does not disproportionately adversely affect small businesses and make it more difficult for them to create jobs.

Here is another example. Just last month, the DOT started seeking comment on the need for commercial driver's licenses for individuals who are driving off-road farm equipment such as tractors. Well, where I come from, that is a pretty important part of our economy. You have a lot of young people working in farm operations, a lot of people, period, who are out there who grow up learning or knowing how to drive tractors, how to handle farm equipment, and this particular requirement would force them to get a commercial driver's license.

I mean, some of this stuff, as I said, falls into the category of ``you can't make these kinds of things up.''

The EPA recently threatened ranchers in the Flint Hills region of Kansas to stop or limit the controlled burn of their prairie pastures, which is a practice that allows for the new growth of grass to feed cattle, or to be faced with EPA-mandated regulations.

The list goes on and on.

It strikes me again that when you have as many of these studies that are out there, and a lot of data supports these arguments, we ought to be responding in a way that recognizes that science, data, and input from people who are impacted by these regulations ought to have more of an influence on the regulations that are imposed by these agencies. What this does is it simply puts in place a way in which small businesses can get access to that kind of a review.

I hope my colleagues in the Senate will support the Snowe-Coburn amendment and move us in a direction where we are dealing fundamentally with the issues that are important to our economy right now because, for all of the rhetoric, as I said earlier, about wanting to grow the economy and create jobs, it seems as though every policy coming out of Washington, DC, is contrary to that objective, whether that is tax policy, trade policy, energy policy, but perhaps more important now than ever, regulatory action coming out of the executive branch of the government and running amok by creating all kinds of roadblocks and hurdles and impediments to job creation in this country.

Again, when you are at 9.1 percent unemployment, when you have as many people out of work as we have and who have been out of work for as long as they have, you would think that, first and foremost, we would be looking at policies that make it easier and less expensive to create jobs in this country. And what is happening is we are making it more difficult and more expensive to create jobs by these excessive, overreaching, runaway regulations that are coming out of Federal agencies every single day.

It is hands down the thing I hear more than anything else from people in my State of South Dakota. As I said, whether that is the Farm Bureau or a livestock group or a small business organization, right now government regulation is the thing they state most often as the biggest impediment to them going out there and creating jobs.

So this is a very commonsense amendment. It is something our small businesses are all supporting. We saw the list of small business organizations the Senator from Maine put up earlier. This is something this Senate ought to act on and act on today. I hope we will get a strong affirmative vote.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Would the Senator yield for a question? Is the Senator aware that there are at least four other bills--Senator Vitter, Senator Roberts, Senator Collins, and Senator Portman--and, in addition, that Senator Lieberman is developing a comprehensive bill on reg reform? Is the Senator aware of those other bills?

Mr. THUNE. Well, I would say through the Chair that there may be many efforts, as there typically are here in the Senate, to address some of the issues, and a lot of our Members have different ideas about how best to do that. I happen to believe the proposal put forward by the Senator from Maine is, as I said, a very reasonable, commonsense approach to this.

The Regulatory Flexibility Act is something that is in need of some revisions, particularly in light of the fact that we have so many regulations coming out of these agencies that are so costly, so difficult, and so burdensome for small businesses in this country. I think we ought to be, at every opportunity, looking for ways to lessen the cost and the difficulty for our small businesses to create jobs.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source