National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2016 -- Conference Report

Floor Speech

Mr. President, last Friday the Obama administration released the latest numbers on unemployment and jobs, and once again, the numbers were grim. Experts predicted that our economy would create 200,000 new jobs in September. Instead, they fell woefully short. There were only 140,000 jobs, so they were about 60,000 jobs short. That is a big miss. It is nowhere near as many jobs as America's families need now.

Here is how Investor's Business Daily put it in a headline on Monday, October 5, ``Private Hiring Pace Is Worst In 3 Years; Labor Force Shrinks.'' Wages have gone almost nowhere for 6 years. They actually declined in September. We have had 74 straight months with wage growth below 2 and a 1/2 percent. Before the recession, we routinely had 3 percent growth month after month, but President Obama seems to be satisfied with this limping progress. Over the weekend, he bragged about how many jobs have been created while he has been President.

Is missing expectations good enough for President Obama? It is not good enough for me. It is not good enough to get the economic growth that we need in this country and that we should have coming out of a recession.

One of the very big reasons for this slow growth is due to all of the regulations that this administration has piled onto the backs of American families. Since 2009, this administration has come out with more than 2,500 new regulations. According to the American Action Forum, the total cost of all of these new regulations--this new red tape--is about $680 billion. That is more than $2,100 for every man, woman, and child in America right now.

According to the World Bank, the United States is 46th in the world in terms of how easy it is to start a business. Is 46th in the world good enough? Maybe it is good enough for President Obama, but I don't think it is good enough for the American people. All of these regulations make it very tough for someone to start a business right now. It is also tough for existing businesses to create new jobs.

Last week, the energy company Royal Dutch Shell announced that it was going to suspend drilling for oil off the coast of Alaska. They said one of the reasons was ``the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.'' Too much regulation is making it too difficult to produce the American energy and American jobs that we need.

Unelected, unaccountable Washington bureaucrats have been having a field day at the expense of our economy. As the Obama administration runs down, it is in a race to get even more rules on the books.

Just last week the administration announced three big new regulations. On Tuesday, the EPA finalized a rule on oil refineries. It is going to require refineries to install new equipment and spend more money on something other than creating jobs and paying higher wages to their workers. It is estimated that the rule could cost up to $1 billion and provide very little in the way of health benefits.

On Wednesday, the EPA finalized more limits on coal, gas, and nuclear powerplants. Just like Tuesday's rule, this one will cost another one-half billion dollars a year. The rule sets the unacceptable amounts of some emissions at zero.

Finally, on Thursday the EPA released a new limit on ozone in the air. The limit was 75 parts per billion, and they cut it to 70 parts per billion. This is a tiny change--we are talking about parts per billion--but that tiny change is going to cost more than $2 billion a year once the rule is in full effect. Huge chunks of the country are going to have to adjust to meet the new standard, and the benefit is minuscule.

Farms and small manufacturing companies will have to buy new equipment or change the way they do things. States and cities will have to change how they do local transportation projects. All of that adds up to lost jobs and even less economic growth than we have had in the past 6 years. These are huge effects, all to chase another few tiny parts per billion of ozone. Five parts per billion is the equivalent of 5 seconds over 32 years. That is how small it is, but the costs are enormous.

Over the course of three days last week, three new regulations have been added. They will cost our economy billions of dollars at a time when the private-hiring pace is at its worst in 3 years and the labor force shrinks.

We all agree that reasonable regulations make good sense. In the 1960s and 1970s, regulations helped to clean up pollution in our air, land, and water, but now Washington bureaucrats are chasing after smaller and smaller trace amounts of chemicals no matter what the cost, how high the cost, or how insignificant the benefits.

The EPA issued one rule that I found hard to believe. I thought it was a misprint, but it is not. They issued one rule that would cost $9.6 billion per year to administer.

What are the benefits? Only $4 million. I thought they had misspelled and misplaced the ``b'' and the ``m,'' but, no. It will cost $9.6 billion and will produce only $4 million in direct benefits. That is as much as $2,400 in costs for every $1 in benefits. How can they do this? I am talking about direct benefits.

The EPA tried to say: Well, there are all sorts of what they called ancillary benefits. Who gets to decide how much these are worth? Apparently the Obama administration says that it does. It is no surprise that this administration cooks up an imaginary number for those theoretical benefits--not direct benefits, but their ``ancillary'' benefits, and they say it is big enough to balance the very real costs that American families feel.

It is all a way to justify these ridiculous rules that destroy jobs, restrict freedom, and do very little good for Americans.

It is Washington and this administration run amok.

Is the Obama administration trying to make sure our economy continues to limp along as it has for the past 6 1/2 years? Is that what they want?

In 1972, the Clean Water Act was meant to protect navigable waters. It was reasonable. We want to protect our navigable waters. Today the administration has a new water rule called waters of the United States. It is going to give Washington bureaucrats control over everything from irrigation ditches to small natural ponds in someone's backyard. This is unreasonable. Where does it end? Bipartisan majorities in the Congress already say it needs to end now.

I have introduced a bill that would direct the Obama administration to come up with a new rule on waters of the United States--one that protects traditional navigable water from pollution, which we must do, but it also protects farmers, ranchers, and private landowners. We can do both.
This legislation has 46 cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans. We are telling the Obama administration that enough is enough.

Republicans are also ready to take on some of these other outrageous rules such as the extreme new restrictions on powerplants. That is what Congress is going to be doing to stop the insanity of these out-of-control regulations and out-of-control regulators. We need to cut through the redtape.

Americans want to get back to work. They want to get our economy going again. Congress needs to help them do it because this administration certainly is not. The Obama administration basically needs to get out of the way.

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