Regulatory Integrity Act of 2016
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5226, and I cannot support this bill as drafted. This legislation is another attempt by House Republicans to attack agency rulemakings with which they disagree. This attack is done under the guise of creating more transparency, but the bill will actually lead to less openness in the agency rulemaking process.
The bill we are considering today supposedly aims to prohibit improper communications by agencies, known as agency aggrandizement. What the bill actually does is muzzle agencies from talking about pending rules.
This bill would prohibit agencies from making public communications to solicit support for or to promote a pending agency regulatory action. Agencies currently are prohibited from grassroots lobbying for an agency rule or from engaging in publicity or propaganda.
The GAO has issued opinions that define what agencies can and cannot say. GAO says that three categories of communications are off limits: one, covert communications; two, self-aggrandizement; and three, purely partisan activities.
This bill goes far beyond that by prohibiting communications that are to promote a rule. Almost anything an agency says would be considered promotion of a rule. The practical impact of this legislation is that almost any action the agency made to communicate the benefits of a rule could be considered to be improperly promoting a pending action.
The bill defines public communication to include every oral, written, or electronic communication. This means that tweets as innocuous and as popular as the Department of the Interior's daily nature photo could even be considered improper promotion. I cannot believe that the sponsors of this bill would really intend to regulate nature photos on Twitter.
In addition to limiting communications between agencies and the public, this legislation contains a number of other unnecessarily burdensome requirements.
Yesterday, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy that said that, if this bill were presented to the President, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill. That statement said: ``The Regulatory Integrity Act would be duplicative and costly to the American taxpayer. The separate tracking and reporting of agency communications as prescribed by the bill is unnecessary, is extremely burdensome, and provides little to no value while diverting agency resources from important priorities.''
I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 5226.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I have a letter in my possession signed by numerous groups, public interest groups, stating their opposition to H.R. 5226. It is a very interesting combination of groups: the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Association of University Women, Americans for Financial Reform, Clean Water Action, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, Earthjustice, U.S. PIRG, United Steelworkers, Voices for Progress, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Prairie Rivers Network, and NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.
What they all agree on is that the Regulatory Integrity Act will significantly undermine a Federal agency's ability to engage and inform the public in a meaningful and transparent way regarding its work on important, science-based rulemakings that will greatly benefit the public.
As a result, the bill will lead to decreased public awareness and participation in the rulemaking process in direct contradiction of the Administrative Procedure Act and agencies' authorizing statutes which specifically provide for broad stakeholder engagement.
They point out that substantial ambiguities in the bill threaten to create uncertainty and confusion among agencies about what public communications are permissible and, thus, risk discouraging them from keeping the public apprised of the important work that they do on its behalf.
In an era when agencies should be increasingly embracing innovative 21st century communications technologies needed to reach the public, including social media, H.R. 5226 sends exactly the wrong message. So that means that all of these groups feel as though this legislation would dampen or chill the public's ability to be able to weigh in on a rule, to be able to even know what those agencies are doing. I just, for the life of me, cannot understand what the urgency is to pass this bill into law and to have the chilling effects that it would have on the public's ability to communicate with its government.
Mr. Chairman,
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, my friend from Michigan mentioned that he didn't hear in the list people that may be impacted by this legislation. The list includes 34 different groups, and some of them that I think that all of us represent that would be impacted by this arbitrary legislation are groups like Consumer Federation of America, Earthjustice, Environment America, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Prairie Rivers Network--I am not even sure where that is based, but I represent the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers right at St. Louis, so water is important to the people in my region--U.S. PIRG, Union of Concerned Scientists, United Steelworkers, and United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities. Those are some of the groups that are represented in this letter.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I want to close by reiterating a few of the problems with the Regulatory Integrity Act. This bill would require agencies to report every interaction with the public regardless of whether it is a phone call, email, tweet, or more formal statement. The bill would prove completely unworkable and would have the effect of chilling agencies' interactions with the public and leading to less transparency with the agency rulemaking process.
I would support a bill that actually improved transparency. This bill will not accomplish that, and I cannot support it. I, again, urge my colleagues to reject this legislation.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This amendment does not alleviate my concerns with the underlying bill. In fact, this amendment may lead to more confusion.
It would require an agency to publish a cost benefit analysis for all rules if such a study was conducted. Agencies are already required to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for major rules under Executive Order 12866. Agencies publish the results of those analyses in the rulemaking dockets for those rules.
This is an unnecessary amendment, and I oppose it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment does nothing to fix the unworkable reporting requirements in the underlying bill. This amendment would require an agency to report if a proposed rule duplicates or overlaps with an existing regulation.
Executive Order 13563, issued by President Obama in 2011, already requires agencies to review rules for duplication and overlap. This amendment, itself, is duplicative and adds an unnecessary requirement without fixing the underlying problem.
I oppose this amendment, along with the underlying bill, and urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source