Approving the Renewal of Import Restrictions Contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, last week the President addressed a joint session of Congress. He said he wanted to eliminate regulations--regulations, he said, that put ``unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it.'' We have heard this same message from the White House time and time again. The rhetoric coming out of this White House simply has not matched the reality. In fact, Washington continues to roll out redtape each day, and the redtape makes it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs in this country.

The President also said that his administration has identified over 500 reforms to our regulatory system that would save ``billions of dollars over the next few years.'' I appreciate that the White House has identified wasteful regulations, but it will not really help our economy unless the White House repeals them. Since January, this White House has only repealed one single regulation, and it has to do, actually, with spilt milk. The President's new plan does nothing to fix the regulatory burdens faced by our job creators. It actually adds to the burdens of the job creators of this country.

The President has tried to justify this increasing avalanche of redtape. He said he doesn't want to ``choose between jobs and safety.'' In today's regulatory climate, that choice is a false choice. Washington's wasteful regulations are not keeping Americans safe from dangerous jobs. The American people cannot find jobs because no one is safe from the regulations coming out of Washington. For every step our economy tries to take forward, Washington's regulations continue to stand in the way.

Federal agencies' funding has increased 16 percent over the past 3 years while our economy has only grown 5 percent over these same 3 years. Washington's regulatory burden is literally growing three times faster than our own economy. This massive increase in Washington's power has only made the economy worse.

Americans know that regulating our economy makes it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs. The combined cost of the new regulations being imposed by this administration just last month was over $9 billion. Much of this cost has been borne by America's energy producers and has cost American workers thousands of red, white, and blue jobs.

Those who try to justify these policies claim they will help us create green jobs at some unknown time in the future. Our economy, our job market, is not a seesaw. Pushing one part down doesn't make the other side pop up.

This administration's out-of-control regulation is persistently dragging down large portions of our economy. The President has promised to stop this kind of overreach. Remember, he issued an Executive order at the start of this year that was supposed to slow down Washington's regulation. So what has this administration done about it? In the 7 months since the President issued his Executive order, hundreds of new rules have been either enacted or proposed. For every day that goes by, our job creators face at least one new Washington rule to follow.

When the President announced his Executive order, he said he wanted to promote predictability and reduce uncertainty. These are laudable goals, but a new rule every day does nothing to promote predictability and is the very definition of uncertainty.

The President talked about uncertainty just recently. The main source of uncertainty in the economy right now is Washington's regulations. Yet there was not a single sentence about regulations in the President's address just this week.

To make things worse, the people most victimized by this uncertainty are the very people the President claims he wants to help. The President said last year that when it comes to job creation, he wants to, as he said, ``start where most new jobs do--with small businesses.'' The sentiment is right, but, again, what has he done about it? According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, businesses with fewer than 20 employees incur regulatory costs that are 42 percent higher than larger businesses with up to 500 employees, and that is not counting the avalanche of new regulations that will come down the road. This year, over 50,000 pages of regulations have been added to the Federal Register already, and the chamber of commerce has said that the President's new health care law alone will produce ``30,000 pages of new health care regulations, many aimed at small employers.''

The President has said he will keep trying every new idea that works and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it. I have a pretty simple idea. If the President wants to know which proposals will work to create jobs, maybe he should require his regulatory agencies to tell him how their own actions will affect the job market.

Congressman Lee Terry of Nebraska and I have a bill that will do just that. It is called the Employment Impact Act, S. 1219. This bill will force Washington to look before it leaps when it comes to regulation that could hurt America's jobs. Under our bill, every regulatory agency would be required to prepare what is called a jobs impact statement, and this jobs impact statement would need to be prepared with every new rule that is proposed. The statement would include a detailed assessment of the jobs that would be lost or gained or sent overseas by any given rule coming out of Washington. It would consider whether new rules would have a bad impact on our job market in general. This jobs impact statement would also include an analysis of any alternative plans that might be better for the economy. Most importantly, it would require regulatory agencies to look at how new rules might interact with other proposals coming down the road.

The problem with our regulations is not only that they are too sweeping, it is also that there are too many of them, so it makes no sense to look at an individual rule in a vacuum and enacting hundreds of them without knowing their cumulative effect. The effect of all of these together could spell death by a thousand cuts for hard-working Americans who are trying to work and support their families.

Also in keeping with the principles of transparency, this bill would require every jobs impact statement prepared by a Federal agency to be made available to the public. The American people deserve to know what their government is actually doing, and Federal agencies in Washington need to learn to think before they act.

Requiring statements from these agencies on what their regulations will do is nothing new. For 40 years, the Federal Government has always required its bureaucrats to ask the question of whether their actions will impact America's environment. They have to file environmental impact statements. What I am asking for here is a jobs impact statement.

Past generations of legislators rightly recognized the importance of America's land, air, and water, but it is important that we recognize the importance of America's working families as well. America's greatest natural resource is the American people. We are talking about people who want to work, are willing to work, are looking for work, and yet cannot find a job. The Employment Impact Act will force Washington bureaucrats to realize Americans are much more interested in growing our Nation's economy than they are in growing our government.

I am going to continue to fight to see that the Employment Impact Act is passed and signed into law to help get Americans working again.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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