Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2023

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. POSEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for yielding today.

Today, the issue is rules reform. Let's answer some commonly asked questions about agency rules.

Question number one: What is a rule? To be clear, rules were made by unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats.

Question number two: Why do agencies write rules? It has been said on the floor, and even by an expert commentator on C-SPAN, that Congress created agencies to write rules. Wrong. Congress created agencies to implement laws passed by elected people, not create new laws outside of their delegated authority.

Question number three: Most people back home think Congress makes all the Federal laws. Is that true? Wrong. For every law elected representatives make, unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats can make 1,000 or more new rules enforceable as laws. Last time I checked, there were 170-some volumes of Federal code that were actually passed by elected representatives. The laws known as rules made by unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats could fill this Chamber.

Question number four: Can an American citizen end up in court or in prison for violating a rule made by an unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrat? The answer is yes. It is estimated that if a citizen is called into Federal court, it is 100 to 1,000 times more likely to be a result of violating a rule made by an unelected person than a law.

Question number five: Are there any further restrictions on unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats' ability to write rules enforceable as laws that can end up putting American citizens in court or in prison? Yes. Currently, unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats who write a rule with an impact of over $100 million, as you heard earlier, have to write a cost-benefit analysis.

Question number six: Does that mean that they can write a rule with an impact of less than $100 million without doing one? Sure. It seems like it is okay to write rules as enforceable as laws that negatively affect Americans if the cost is estimated to be only $99,999,999.

Question number seven: Do agencies always perform cost-benefit analyses as required if the proposed rule has a $100 million or greater impact? The answer is no. Some unelected, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats, unfortunately, are also arrogant, petulant, and defiant. One study revealed one rule had an $80 billion negative impact, but the agency had refused to do the required study saying, you, meaning Congress, can't make me, and we couldn't.

Not all Federal rules writers are guilty of bad behavior, for sure. We have many employees who add great value to the process, but we must establish needed guidelines for those who exceed and abuse legislative intent and authority.

I could go on for hours, but my time is limited, so I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to regain authority for lawmaking back from unelected, unaccountable, unrecallable bureaucrats by supporting this much-needed legislation reform.

Before I yield, I would like to say that I collected Federal Registers for the last 4 years of the last administration. Instead of throwing them in the trash like most people do because we can't act on them, I started building a stack in the corner. My office became a tourist attraction. I had people from almost every State come into my office and want to have their picture taken before the stack of rules implemented by unelectable, unrecallable, unaccountable bureaucrats.

How big do you think that stack got to be after 4 years? A lot of people say probably over my head. Actually, it was seven stacks over 10 feet high, over 70 linear feet of rules, longer than the entire amount of laws passed in this country since its founding.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman again for yielding.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source