[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
UNFUNDED MANDATES--A FIVE-YEAR REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
and the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND THE HOUSE
of the
COMMITTEE ON RULES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 24, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-19
__________
Printed for the use of the Committees on Government Reform and Rules
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
_______
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76-087 WASHINGTON : 2001
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs
DOUG OSE, California, Chairman
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
------ ------ ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
------ ------
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Dan Skopec, Staff Director
Barbara Kahlow, Deputy Staff Director
Regina McAllister, Clerk
Elizabeth Mundinger, Minority Counsel
COMMITTEE ON RULES
DAVID DREIER, California, Chairman
PORTER GOSS, Florida MARTIN FROST, Texas
JOHN LINDER, Georgia TONY P. HALL, Ohio
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New
LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida York
DOC HASTINGS, Washington ALCEE HASTINGS, Florida
SUE MYRICK, North Carolina
PETE SESSIONS, Texas
TOM REYNOLDS, New York
Matt Reynolds, Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology and the House
JOHN LINDER, Georgia, Chairman
LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida TONY P. HALL, Ohio
PETE SESSIONS, Texas ALCEE HASTINGS, Florida
TOM REYNOLDS, New York
DAVID DREIER, California
Don Green, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 24, 2001..................................... 1
Statement of:
Crippen, Dan L., Director, Congressional Budget Office; and
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., Director, Office of Management
and Budget................................................. 22
Holman, Steve, Sr., president and chief executive officer,
Bay Cast, Inc., chairman, Regulatory Affairs Committee,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and William L. Kovacs, vice
president, Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce................................... 79
Mannweiler, Paul S., Indiana State Representative and
immediate past president, National Conference of State
Legislatures; and Dr. Raymond C. Scheppach, executive
director, National Governors' Association.................. 49
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Crippen, Dan L., Director, Congressional Budget Office,
prepared statement of...................................... 25
Daniels, Mitchell E., Jr., Director, Office of Management and
Budget, prepared statement of.............................. 39
Holman, Steve, Sr., president and chief executive officer,
Bay Cast, Inc., chairman, Regulatory Affairs Committee,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, prepared statement of............ 82
Kovacs, William L., vice president, Environment, Technology &
Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, prepared
statement of............................................... 103
Linder, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Georgia, prepared statement of.................... 4
Mannweiler, Paul S., Indiana State Representative and
immediate past president, National Conference of State
Legislatures, prepared statement of........................ 51
Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement of....................... 10
Otter, Hon. C.L. ``Butch'', a Representative in Congress from
the State of Idaho, prepared statement of.................. 12
Portman, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio, prepared statement of....................... 19
Scheppach, Dr. Raymond C., executive director, National
Governors' Association:
Information concerning preemption........................ 67
Prepared statement of.................................... 60
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 15
UNFUNDED MANDATES--A FIVE-YEAR REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2001
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Energy
Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory
Affairs, Committee on Government Reform, joint
with the Subcommittee on Technology and the
House, Committee on Rules,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:36 a.m.,
in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose
(chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural
Resources and Regulatory Affairs) presiding.
Present from the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural
Resources and Regulatory Affairs: Representatives Ose, Otter,
and Tierney.
Present from the Subcommittee on Technology and the House:
Representatives Linder and Sessions.
Staff present from the Subcommittee on Energy Policy,
Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs: Dan Skopec, staff
director; Barbara Kahlow, deputy staff director; Regina
McAllister, clerk; Elizabeth Mundinger, minority counsel; and
Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Staff present from the Committee on Rules: Seth Webb,
professional staff member; Don Green, staff director of
Subcommittee on Technology and the House; and Adam Jarvis,
clerk.
Mr. Ose. I want to call this meeting to order. I want to
ask unanimous consent that the rules of the Rules Committee
apply to today's joint hearing. Without objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent, when he is able to join us,
that Mr. Portman be able to participate in today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
I want to call on the gentleman from Georgia for his
opening statement.
Mr. Linder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman
Ose, for calling the joint hearing of our two subcommittees to
order. I look forward to our hearing this morning for a couple
of reasons.
First, it is the inaugural hearing of the Rules
Subcommittee on Technology and the House for the 107th
Congress. At the start of this Congress, we slightly altered
the subcommittee's name to reflect the fact that we will
continue to be active in longstanding areas of the
subcommittee's original jurisdiction, such as unfunded
mandates, and we will also look into higher profile issues,
such as examining how the technological advances of recent
years affect the House as an institution and the legislative
process.
In this respect, I am pleased that the subcommittee's first
hearing in this Congress will take a look at the success story
that we have had with regard to unfunded mandates reform over
the past 5 years.
Second, I look forward to working with you, Chairman Ose,
in your capacity as the chairman of the Government Reform
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory
Affairs. Our subcommittees share jurisdiction over certain
portions of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
As such, I believe that we share the common goal of today's
hearing; namely, highlighting the success of UMRA over the last
5 years in reducing the number and scope of enacted laws that
contain unfunded mandates and raising the consciousness level
of our Members of the House and its standing committees, and
our staffs, about unfunded mandates earlier in the legislative
process so as to maximize our ability to either eliminate or
greatly reduce unfunded mandates before such measures come to
the House floor.
I believe that the key to our success over the last 5 years
in either eliminating unfunded mandates from being enacted into
law or greatly reducing their scope and cost has been the
change that UMRA made to the rules governing the consideration
of certain legislation on the House floor.
Specifically, Section 425 of the 1974 Congressional Budget
Act establishes a point of order that lies against authorizing
legislation contained in an unfunded intergovernmental mandate
exceeding $56 million.
Furthermore, Section 426 of the Congressional Budget Act
establishes a point of order that lies against a rule governing
consideration of a measure containing an unfunded
intergovernmental mandate exceeding this level, if the rule
waives the initial point of order with respect to the
underlying authorizing legislation.
In other words, with these two procedural safeguards, the
full House of Representatives is required to debate, consider
and ultimately pass judgment on either underlying legislation
seeking to enact an unfunded mandate exceeding $56 million, or
a rule that seeks to waive this point of order.
This represents a sharp break from the practices that were
in effect prior to UMRA's enactment; namely, routinely moving
legislation through the House of Representatives without even a
moment's consideration as to whether or not it contained an
unfunded intergovernmental mandate.
Given these difficult hurdles to overcome, is it any
surprise that the CBO found in an annual report submitted in
January 1997, February 1998, February 1999 and March 2000 that
the number of legislative measures with unfunded
intergovernmental mandates exceeding these levels were very,
very small, usually about 1 percent of the legislation that the
CBO reviewed under UMRA? And, the number of bills with such
unfunded intergovernmental mandates that were finally enacted
into law was an even smaller subset of these groupings.
Stated differently, in the years since UMRA was enacted,
more than 99 percent of the legislation that we the Congress
have enacted into law contained either no unfunded mandates at
all or unfunded mandates that did not exceed UMRA's threshold
levels.
I appreciate the fact that Dan Crippen is with us. Nice to
see you again. He will release the report and I look forward to
his remarks, as well as the testimony of OMB Director Mitchell
Daniels. I also look forward to the other witnesses we will
hear from this morning, including the National Governors'
Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all of which will talk about
their experience with UMRA and unfunded mandates over the last
5 years.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to make this
statement. Today's hearing will be insightful, and I look
forward to my subcommittee working with your subcommittee in
the future.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John Linder follows:]
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Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. I want to
explore a couple of things here. I know Mr. Tierney has an
opening statement. I have an opening statement. Mr. Otter, do
you have an opening statement?
Mr. Otter. Yes.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Sessions, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Ose. I am just trying to determine whether or not you
have one.
Mr. Sessions. The answer is, it would be brief.
Mr. Ose. OK. The question I have for the members is whether
or not--given the vote and the time value for our witnesses,
whether we ought to just submit our statements for the record
so when we come back from the vote, we can go straight to the
witness testimony.
Mr. Tierney. No objection on the minority side.
Mr. Ose. Would that be agreeable to the majority side?
All right, without objection we will submit our statements
for the record. I appreciate that.
[The prepared statements of Hon. Doug Ose, Hon. C.L.
``Butch'' Otter, Hon. John F. Tierney, and Hon. Rob Portman
follow:]
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Mr. Tierney. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Yes, Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. I am happy to submit my statement into the
record and only ask unanimous consent also to include the GAO
report in the record. I think there is confusion as to what
that report says, and I would like to make sure that it is in
there for that purpose----
Mr. Ose. Without objection.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. And also to include some
testimony and views by witnesses and members in opposition to
the legislation that would create a point of order against
legislation that imposes private-sector mandates and other
relevant materials.
Mr. Ose. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
[Note.--The GAO report entitled, ``Unfunded Mandates,
Reform Act Has Had Little Effect on Agencies' Rulemaking
Actions,'' GAO/GGD-98-30, may be found in subcommittee files.
The report may also be obtained from GAO by calling 202-512-
6000.]
Mr. Ose. We are going to go ahead and recess so we can go
vote. All our statements are going to be in the record. So when
we get back here, we are going to hear from the both of you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Ose. Again, welcome everybody. I appreciate your
joining us. We have three panels today testifying before us.
Our first panel is composed of the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office and Director of the Office of
Management and Budget. That would be Mr. Dan L. Crippen and Mr.
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., respectively, and we are very
grateful for your joining us. And, let's see, Mr. Crippen, you
are listed first, so we are going to give you the opportunity
to proceed first. If you could summarize your statement,
keeping it to 5 minutes, then we could get to our questions
quickly.
Mr. Crippen.
STATEMENTS OF DAN L. CRIPPEN, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET
OFFICE; AND MITCHELL E. DANIELS, JR., DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. Crippen. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, and members of the
subcommittees--I underline the plural nature of subcommittees.
It is rare to appear before two at a time--I am pleased to be
here today to discuss our report of the Unfunded Mandates
Reform Act's first 5 years. In our view, UMRA has achieved its
primary objective. It has informed the Congress about mandates
included in legislation. That information has prompted a number
of bills to be changed so as to reduce or eliminate the cost of
mandates, and a few mandates, albeit ones that were less
costly, were funded along the way.
Since 1996, CBO has provided mandate cost statements for
nearly all the bills reported by authorizing committees. It has
also given information about mandates to Members and
congressional staff at other stages in the legislative process.
Over the past half decade, several patterns about Federal
mandates and their costs have become clear, as these two
posters suggest, Mr. Chairmen. Most of the legislation that the
Congress considered between 1996 and 2000 did not contain
Federal mandates as defined by UMRA. Of the more than 3,000
bills and other legislative proposals we reviewed during that
period, 12 percent contained intergovernmental mandates and 14
percent contained private-sector mandates.
Most of those mandates would not have imposed costs greater
than the thresholds set by UMRA. Only 32 bills with
intergovernmental mandates over these 5 years had annual costs
of $50 million or more, and some 100 of the bills with private-
sector mandates had costs of more than $100 million. Few of the
bills with either kind of mandate, however, contained Federal
funding to offset the costs.
Although the percentage of bills containing a Federal
mandate stayed fairly constant over the past 5 years, the
percentage of bills with mandates over the statutory thresholds
declined. Bills with intergovernmental mandates above the
threshold decreased from 2 percent in 1996 to less than 1
percent in 2000, and bills with private-sector mandates above
the threshold dropped from 6 percent in 1996 to about 1 percent
in 2000.
Last observation, Mr. Chairmen: Few mandates with costs
over the UMRA thresholds were enacted in the past 5 years. Only
two intergovernmental mandates with annual costs of at least
$50 million became law. Sixteen private-sector mandates with
costs over the $100 million threshold were enacted.
Mr. Chairmen, before I conclude, I want to take this
opportunity to report on behalf of my colleagues here today and
the rest of CBO that this is not particularly easy stuff.
Determining what constitutes a mandate under the act can be
complicated. For example, the law defines a mandate as ``an
enforceable duty, except, . . . a duty arising from
participation in a voluntary Federal program.''
Very often, those distinctions between what is voluntary
and what is mandatory are far from clear. Even when we
determine that a legislative proposal contains a mandate, we
face numerous challenges in estimating the cost. In some cases,
accurately determining how many State and local government
entities or entities in the private sector would be affected by
a mandate is next to impossible. In other cases, the entities
that will be subject to a particular mandate are diverse and
would not be affected uniformly. In other instances, it may be
impossible to estimate the cost of a mandate at the legislative
stage, before regulations to implement it have been developed.
Fortunately, UMRA requires us to determine whether the cost
of complying with mandates would exceed specific thresholds.
If, however, it required us to provide more detailed estimates
for each mandate, we would have a much tougher time and expend
considerably more resources. Unlike our estimates of impacts on
the Federal budget, for which we have extensive models, data,
history, and experience, it takes a considerable amount of time
to put together just the relevant data in many of these cases.
Frankly, we probably couldn't do it without the help of the
affected governments and industries, who you will be hearing
from today.
Despite these mitigating factors, you can imagine the
effort required to examine every bill reported from every
committee, and some that are not, to determine whether a
mandate is included and then estimate its cost. As you can see
from the list in our report, there are at least 28 people, well
over 10 percent of our work force, who get involved in one way
or another in mandates assessment. In budgetary parlance, we
dedicate 16 full time equivalents and over $2 million a year to
mandates assessment.
It is a big effort and may well be worth it. Clearly the
law and its requirements have changed the way Congress thinks
about mandates, although it has not always altered the outcome
for those with large costs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairmen.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crippen follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Crippen. Joining us now is the
Director of Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Mitchell
Daniels.
Mr. Daniels. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, a
review of the experience to date suggests that the executive
branch's implementation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act has
been imperfect at best. Title II of the act has been regarded
by some agencies as a perfunctory exercise, not as an
opportunity to work in good faith with our non-Federal
partners. Just this week, White House staff attended a meeting
of the Governors' Washington representatives and asked which
agencies were doing a good job consulting with the States, and
the answer was none, that no Federal agency is consulting with
State and local governments in the methodical way intended when
the law was developed. States and localities report that many
agencies think simply informing them of a rulemaking action is
the equivalent of consultation, that consultation processes
lack uniformity, does not occur early enough in the rulemaking
process, and, on the rare occasions when consultation does
occur, agencies often contact State and local counterparts, not
the elected officials or chief appointed officials accountable
to the public for running their respective governments.
This will not be accepted practice in this administration.
We will require agencies to submit the dates at which
stakeholders were contacted, and prior to review by the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs of any new regulations,
if there has not been adequate consultation as called for by
the act, OMB will return regulations to the originating agency
for completion of this responsibility.
As OMB has noted in five annual reports to the Congress, 80
rules have required the preparation of a mandate's impact
statement in those 5 years. This number strains credulity. In
fact, it appears that agencies have attempted to limit
consultative processes and ignore potential remedies by
aggressively utilizing or interpreting exemptions outlined in
the act.
Let me cite one graphic example. Last June, the EPA issued
a new regulation known as the total maximum daily load. It
required States to develop and implement plans to clean up
impaired waters, a reasonable and appropriate goal. But the
agency estimated the incremental costs of compliance at $23
million per year, and, therefore, the regulation was not
considered an unfunded mandate under the act.
But EPA completely excluded from its analysis the cost of
pollution control measures that will clearly be imposed by the
new regulation. These compliance costs are expected to run into
the billions of dollars per year for the private sector and
local governments, but EPA moved forward without deference to
the requirements of the act. GAO, in reporting on the act's
first 2 years in 1998, noted that there was a limited direct
impact of the act on the agency's rulemaking, to say the least.
On behalf of the administration, I am prepared to make the
following commitments to address these shortcomings: We will do
more to involve State and local governments early in the
rulemaking process. We will bring more uniformity to the
consultation process. States and localities should have a clear
point of contact in each agency, and agencies must understand
that consultation means more than making a telephone call the
day before an action is published in the Federal Register.
Third, we will enforce the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to
ensure that agencies are complying with both the letter and the
spirit of the law. I will direct, through OIRA, to return a
rule not in compliance to the agency from whence it came. If an
agency is unsure whether a rule contains a significant mandate,
it should err on the side of caution and prepare a mandate's
impact statement prior to issuing a regulation.
Mr. Chairman, the administration is committed to securing
greater involvement with our intergovernmental partners in
Federal decisionmaking and, more fundamentally, strict
adherence to the letter of the statute you have passed.
President Bush has noted that federalism will be a priority
in this administration, and we look forward to developing this
partnership in concert with the Congress and making sure that
it is a successful one. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Daniels follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. I want to thank you for
your clear and unequivocal statements. I had read your
testimony last night. I am most appreciative of your efforts.
I am going to recognize the gentleman from Georgia for 5
minutes.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Crippen, it is nice to see you again. I am
pleased with your testimony and the success of UMRA. But one
thing that wasn't clear to me was how many of the unfunded
mandates, now that we have our eye focused on that, get caught
at the subcommittee level and committee level and never get
anywhere?
Mr. Crippen. There are a fair number, Mr. Linder. We find
that sometimes in consultation before legislation is introduced
or marked up, as you suggest, we give informal assessments and
advice about how we would look at things, as we do on the
Federal cost side, too. But in this case, particularly, it has
been quite notable that we have seen mandates disappear or be
reduced below the threshold levels before the bills are further
processed.
Mr. Linder. Is it further true that most of the unfunded
mandates that reach the floor against which a point of order is
asserted ultimately pass?
Mr. Crippen. Yes, they do, certainly in the House. The
Rules Committee has been diligent, I must say, in making sure
that if a point of order could lie, it is allowed to. That is
to say, these points of order are not waived.
Mr. Linder. That's right.
Mr. Crippen. And that even though the rule may provide for
waiving all other points of order, this point of order is not
waived. So I think it is due to the Rules Committee's diligence
in allowing the UMRA points of order to be raised that they
have been voted on. Ultimately, the legislation involved has
passed. But at a minimum, Members are made to confront the
mandate that is in the legislation.
Mr. Linder. And, while it is not perfect, it is a huge
improvement over what we did have in terms of just ignoring the
amount of dollars we are burdening States with or private
businesses with?
Mr. Crippen. Absolutely. It is much more information. And,
I am a great believer that the more information you have, the
better decision you can make. Clearly, mandates have been
included in legislation since the beginning of the republic,
but we are now only beginning to try to quantify them. Clearly,
representatives of the other governments have in the past tried
to promote this understanding but didn't have the rules behind
them to do so.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Daniels, you have said something this
morning that is the most encouraging thing I have heard in
years here, and that you are willing to look at even the EPA's
respecting its imposition of costs down the road and ask it to
pay attention to this rule. The TMDL is only a small part of
it. EPA is proposing to impose co-permitting on feedlots, for
example, and chicken growers, which will have huge costs, huge
costs.
In fact, I represent a lot of chicken growers where the
integrators bring the chicks to them, and they put up $500,000,
$2 million for the buildings and grow these chicks out and turn
them back to the integrators, and if the EPA forces the
integrators, such as Gold Kist, for example, to assume an equal
risk in respect of any pollution on the ground of that farmer,
that farmer's land, I believe the integrators are going to walk
away from that instantly, build their own chicken houses, and
those folks all through north Georgia are going to be without
any way to pay off their loans. These are a huge imposition of
costs.
In Georgia the EPD does a wonderful job working with--not
as an adversary but as a partner with businesses in cleaning up
our environment. We have done a great job and the EPA tends to
ignore that. If you are going to enforce the following of these
mandate rules by the EPA, it will be the most well-received
message Georgia can have.
Mr. Daniels. Thank you, Congressman. To me, the comments
and commitments that I have articulated this morning are not
remarkable or, you know, really particularly praiseworthy, and
I would just say two things. First of all, fundamentally they
stem from a simple respect for the law and obligation to
implement and enforce it faithfully. And that would be the case
whether or not we agreed with the thrust of this policy, which
the President, you know, clearly does as an advocate of
federalism.
Second, I selected an example from the EPA, but I don't
mean to single out any particular agency. I have an equally
graphic example drawn to our attention by State and local
information officers just in the last few days that has to do
with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility
Act, perhaps the most expensive rule, certainly one of them,
promulgated in recent--the rules attached to that act in recent
years. And, here too, we can find no evidence of sufficient
compliance. So I don't mean to pick on any one agency, but the
rule will be applied even-handedly and to all.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Daniels, I appreciate that. This is my 9th
year and to have someone from the administration tell me that
they are going to respect the rules of law is breathtaking, and
I am grateful.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Linder. I recognize the gentleman
from Idaho, Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Daniels, for
a person who spent 14 years as a lieutenant Governor of a
western State that has had all manner of agents come to harass
our citizens and then eat out their substance, it is indeed a
pleasure to hear that sort of directive from the office of the
executive.
I would perhaps ask that both of you participate in this.
So feel free to jump in wherever you see fit. But, you know, in
the private sector, I was chief executive officer and other
capacities in the private sector for 30 years, and, if I
disobeyed the IRS laws or the EPA laws or affirmative action or
the Labor Department or Health and Welfare, you name it, I went
to jail, and not only that, my company was held economically
responsible. In some cases, I was held personally economically
responsible.
It seems to me, as I have heard so many times on the floor
of legislative bodies, the only thing that is going to make
this work is to have teeth in it. Would there be some
satisfaction for your particular duties and responsibilities if
these agency heads that sought to purposely mislead could go to
jail or could be held personally and financially responsible?
The TMDL loading 80,000 streams and tributaries to what is
called navigable waters in a very loose sense of the U.S.
Government, would cost the State of Idaho well in excess of $50
million a year, let alone $23 billion a year for the entire
United States. That is drastically misleading. If I, as the
president of my company, had misled any government agency to
that extent, I could be--you know, they could be pumping
sunlight to me right now, and perhaps I should have voted the
other way on correctional institutions.
But, what I want to know is can we put some teeth into this
thing. You know, I could have at least gotten fired by my board
of directors if I would have subjected the company to that kind
of economic cost. What can we do?
Mr. Daniels. You or me?
Mr. Crippen. I will start and you can think about it.
Mr. Otter. Perhaps I should have asked this at another
venue.
Mr. Crippen. Probably, because we could both go to jail,
and we don't want to. In fact, we refer often to the
enforceability of the Budget Act, because it frustrates us
sometimes when Congress will do what Congress wants to do. We
say there are no go to jail provisions.
I am not sure how you would make it more enforceable in the
way you have described. One thing, though, that I think
Congress can do a better job of is simply oversight. You know,
that is the role that Congress is designed to play over the
executive branch, and clearly, when you don't have any
cooperation, it is very difficult to do, but----
Mr. Otter. Mr. Crippen, I would love that with the EPA. I
would love that. I would love that sort of attitude, but, if it
is so important for us to govern in that way, why isn't it
important, then, for us to be governed that way as well?
Mr. Crippen. Well, I would like to think that in your
encounters with Federal agencies, you would get some benefit of
the doubt. I am not sure that is always the case. But how to
make government officials follow your intent, whether it is the
letter of the law or not, has always been an issue and a
problem for many Congresses and administrations. I don't know
how to make people do what they would otherwise not do in that
context, but I do think that you can help the process by
thorough and extensive oversight. That is my only solution in
our constitutional framework.
Mr. Daniels. Congressman, first I move to say again, as I
did with Congressman Linder, that while I appreciate your
generous comments, I don't think they are particularly
warranted. You know, where I am from, you don't get a merit
badge for obeying the law. It is just expected behavior, and I
think that is the answer to your question. I believe it is a
matter of accountability, and it is principally, I think, the
responsibility of the executive branch to hold its officers
accountable for faithful, sincere compliance with this or any
other applicable statute. I think you can count on President
Bush, particularly in an area to which as a former Governor and
an advocate of federalism, to pay close attention and to hold
his officers accountable.
Mr. Otter. Well, I am glad to hear you say that, Mr.
Daniels, and I come to this question from a peculiar
perspective and a personal perspective, and I just had a 6-year
running battle with the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers on
a modification of a half acre of swamp on my property to a 2.9-
acre wetland, and the cost for that was $137,500 initially, and
we now got it down to $50,000 because I didn't break the law.
What I didn't do was fill out all the permit requests that I
didn't know I needed. But anyway, I make that point, because
the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA consorted to do the
very same thing in the State of Idaho in violation of State
laws and State values, and yet suffered no consequences. Nobody
went to jail. Nobody even got busted from sergeant to corporal,
and so it seems just a little bit arrogant, maybe even King
George the IIIrd-ish for us to be treating the citizens, the
governed, this way. I want to do all I can in my short time
here to make sure that if we are going to pass a law, then we
better be prepared to enforce it and obey it.
Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Is the gentleman finished? The gentleman has
finished the statement? Oh, you are looking for a response?
Mr. Otter. No. I was just making--well, you can respond to
that if you want. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Turn off your mic, if you would, please. There you
go. All right.
Mr. Daniels, I want to explore something. It is more of the
arcane area. Under section 205, UMRA requires an agency to
identify a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives, trying
to make sure that the least costly, most cost-effective or
least burdensome alternative is utilized. How is it that OMB is
going to enforce that particular requirement?
Mr. Daniels. I don't have a better answer than to say that
we will insist on sound and complete analysis that makes costs
and benefits as transparent and as credible as they can be and
then weighs them as the law and good common sense suggest that
they should be.
Mr. Ose. Which means that if they do not meet the standards
OMB sets, they get returned to the agency for further work?
Mr. Daniels. Yes. I think it will be our hope that this
will happen rarely, and I hope that by being clear about our
expectations and by working directly in advance with the
agencies, just as we will insist in appropriate cases they work
with States and localities, that the work will be done to
appropriate standards from the beginning. I would hope it would
be a rare instance in which the time at which OIRA is reviewing
the rule, that deficiencies only then show up.
Mr. Ose. One of the things that I have always been
intrigued by is that it is not always--or the preferred
alternative is not necessarily the least expensive in terms of
the long-term consequences. One of the requirements under UMRA
is to attach an explanation of how you got to a determination
of the best alternative, if you will.
Do you have any standards yet developed, or is that a case-
by-case consideration?
Mr. Daniels. Well, I certainly don't have an answer for you
this morning, Mr. Chairman. I think standards will probably
only take us so far in an area in which the variety of subject
matter is almost infinite. We hope for the prompt confirmation
of Dr. John Graham, who was approved yesterday in the Senate
committee, and clearly this will be among his very first tasks.
Mr. Ose. I do want to followup on that specific point,
because I know that OMB is really struggling with the lack of
confirmed appointees, and to the extent that I can help you
with any of that and recognize the problem, I would be happy to
lend what little weight my office has on this.
Another question that I want to ask has to do with--and I
presume your answer is going to be very similar--the changes
from, say, July 2000 to July 2001 in how you go about
determining what needs to be sent back or what is adequate. Do
you have any developed standards for that or agency regulatory
proposals or, again, is that a case-by-case basis?
Mr. Daniels. Well, none beyond the general guidance I tried
to offer this morning, that we will want interpretations made
fairly and where it is a close call, we will want to err on the
side of observing the requirements of the act. I don't see the
downside, you know. We have everything to gain in terms of
better informed rules, and, you know, only our own efforts to
expend against that gain. So that will be my guidance to Dr.
Graham, and he will have to fill in the details.
Mr. Ose. OK. Mr. Linder for 5 minutes.
Mr. Linder. I would like to get both of you to comment on
this. In the past year, we passed a similar unfunded mandates
bill with respect to mandates on private businesses with the
threshold being $100 million. It passed the House. It failed
in--it didn't move in the Senate.
Mr. Crippen, first, what is your comment? Do you think we
should pursue an unfunded mandates legislation on private
businesses as well as intergovernmental?
Mr. Crippen. We now, Mr. Linder, provide our estimate of
the private-sector impacts when a mandate is included. Perhaps
part of the difference in the effectiveness is that no points
of order lie. That has been considered in the House in the past
couple of years and certainly could not hurt to have a point of
order lie against a bill that exceeds the privte-sector
threshold, as much as it does with State and local mandates.
I expect, too, that part of the reason that the unfunded
intergovernmental mandate has been more effective in some
ways--that is, we see less of them and we talk about them
more--is the effectiveness of the governmental organizations,
in keeping everyone abreast and helping us in how we think
about the impact.
So it is a combination of things that have made the
intergovernmental impact statements better and more effective,
I think. Obviously, the private sector is bigger and it is
harder ti estimate impacts. And, there is a different
constitutional relationship that the Congress has with the
private sector. But certainly, expanding the point of order to
apply to such a mandate would be useful, particularly if the
diligence of the Rules Committee continues.
The Senate has never raised a point of order, even against
intergovernmental unfunded mandates. So most of the action is
in your body, but as I said, I can't imagine that allowing a
point of order to lie could hurt anything. I mean, it would
help enforce the intent.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Daniels, do you have a comment on that?
Mr. Daniels. I think it would be presumptuous of me to
advise the Congress on this point. I do think it is imperative
that, before our legislators vote, they have credible evidence
of the consequences, and it appears to me that, through Dan's
good offices and perhaps others, that information is available,
but I think I will confine my remarks to the area of
accountability in which I feel an acute responsibility.
Mr. Linder. Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Crippen, you said
during your testimony that you were many times unable at the
legislative stage to assess what the cost was going to be,
either local or State governments, and that it was probably
more at the promulgation of the rules and the regulation stage
that those should be assessed. Is there anything--is there any
mechanism that we have available to us that when the rules and
regulations--I understand the point of order on the floor at
the legislative stage, but is there anything available to us
other than just simple oversight to assess at the rules and
regulations stage what these are going to cost?
Mr. Crippen. That comment, Mr. Otter, applies mostly to the
private-sector impacts. But you have available an additional
authority, the regulatory review ability the Congress passed a
couple of years ago. In fact, you exercised that authority this
year for the first time, the ability to review and change or
revoke or revise a regulation. So you have that ability as
well.
It is simply a case where Congress needs to delegate to an
expert agency the implementation of legislation in the
regulatory process. It is impossible for us to say how this is
going to work, and that is precisely what Director Daniels has
committed to you today--to do a better job in the regulatory
process of analyzing the mandates, making sure that assessment
gets done when they make regulations.
Mr. Otter. Thank you.
Mr. Daniels, in a possible deterrent to misleading--
purposely misleading--underbidding, so to speak, we had a
tremendous example of that in the Coeur d'Alene mining region
of Idaho, where the EPA said in 3 years and for $28 million
they could clean up the Superfund site, and that was $280
million and 17 years ago. I know that was before the Unfunded
Mandates Reform Act, but that was an ability or perhaps an
example of their ability to estimate things.
Could we make the agencies live within a percentage of
their estimate? Let's say, OK, you have got 10 percent more
than what you say, and that is it. That is all you are going to
get. You are not going to get any more. Is there some way that
we can bring some truth, maybe even more important, some
integrity back into our system of government?
Mr. Daniels. I think the integrity that is important is in
the data. I am sure it is not in the people involved. Let's
postulate that everyone is behaving in good faith, but the data
must have integrity so that we all know--that all parties know
the real costs that are about to be imposed. To me this is a
mission of taxpayer protection, if we are talking in the
intergovernmental context. A rule, once promulgated by the
Federal Government, that mandates activity by a State has
imposed a tax, very directly on the citizens of that State, and
it ought to be--the amount of that and the fact of that ought
to be held up to scrutiny, just as it would be if you were
voting here on an explicit Federal tax increase.
The same is true, incidentally, on the private-sector side
in which I believe ours is a consumer protection mission,
because these rules, all of which pursue important goals, do so
at a real cost to consumers, and, therefore, I think it is the
integrity of the data on which a decision is finally made that
is most important to get it right and to hold it up in plain
view for the inspection of all stakeholders.
Mr. Otter. Do we have any exit interviewing on the rules
and regulations that we promulgated and how close we were to
assessing the actual value? Have we done any audits on--we
passed this rule 5 years ago, and here is what we estimated it
was going to cost and here is what it actually cost?
Mr. Daniels. I believe there have been a number of analyses
done by scholars and by independent actors. It is an
interesting question that I will have to reserve to find out
how recently, if at all, the Federal Government has sort of
audited the consequences of its own actions, but that is a
great suggestion and one we will take up.
Mr. Otter. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Otter.
Mr. Daniels, going back to section 204 on the meaningful
and timely input from local and State governments on any
proposed regulatory proposals, do you have any or have you
developed yet any standards by which OMB might respond to--I
think what your testimony characterized as inadequate
consultation with such levels of government, or are those under
development?
Mr. Daniels. Again, I hope we can operate mainly in a
preventative mode by being very, very clear with agencies that
this is expected, what is expected, and as I mentioned, putting
them on notice that we would like an accounting of their
observance of these rules to accompany the rule itself.
I would hope that if we are simply plain spoken enough
about that, that behavior will adapt where it needs to and that
we won't have to too often be in the position of marking
something incomplete or, even further, suggesting some
criticism or sanction of the accountable officers.
Mr. Ose. One of the things in your testimony they thought
was most appropriate--or most telling was the early and
frequent visits with local and State governments, and I would
heartily encourage that under UMRA just so that we can make
sure we have an adequate understanding of the impact of
anything we do here.
Mr. Daniels. I quite agree, although I want to add that I
think all parties need to use some common sense, and I have had
these conversations already, and, again, this morning with some
representatives of State and local governments. We want to find
the right balance point. We don't seek to introduce further
undue delay in the process of advancing public policy, and we
would not want to find, for whatever reason, people using this
quite appropriate procedural step to just simply slow down or
impede a rule that they opposed for substantive reasons. But it
ought to be possible to apply common sense and to--in the cases
where rules are significant--and here I think the eye of the
beholder rule ought to have some application, and where in the
eyes of Governors or other key officials a rule seems destined
to impose substantial costs, then we ought to engage on it and
do so early. And I have to believe that can be done without
being unduly burdensome or time-consuming on anybody.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Linder, Mr. Otter, anything further?
I want to thank both of you for appearing today. I
appreciate your taking the time to come down, and I know, Mr.
Daniels, you are very humble in terms of your remarks, but I
must say, speaking for the others, it is a pleasure to have an
unequivocal commitment to complying with UMRA. And, I thank you
for that.
Mr. Daniels. Yes.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Crippen.
We are going to now call up our next panel of witnesses.
Joining us in the second panel is the Honorable Paul S.
Mannweiler. He is an Indiana State Representative and immediate
past president of the National Conference of State
Legislatures; and Dr. Raymond C. Scheppach, who is the
executive director of the National Governors' Association.
Gentlemen, if you would summarize your testimony in 5
minutes each, then we will be able to get to questions. The
gentleman from Indiana.
STATEMENTS OF PAUL S. MANNWEILER, INDIANA STATE REPRESENTATIVE
AND IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE
LEGISLATURES; AND DR. RAYMOND C. SCHEPPACH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION
Mr. Mannweiler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished
members of the subcommittees. I appreciate this opportunity to
appear before you and speak on UMRA. Having been a member of
the General Assembly in Indiana for 20 years and either been
the speaker, co-speaker or the minority leader over a 14-year
period, I have to comment that when I first came to the
legislature, it seemed like every time Indiana would come into
session we had to figure out how to pay for some program which
the Federal Government had passed in a previous session, and
during that period of time, the State legislatures, NCSL, would
publish a mandate, monitor on a monthly basis and send it out
to State legislators, and sometimes that would be 15 to 30
pages long just informing State legislators about mandates that
were pending in Congress. And during that period, people became
very upset to the point where they talked about a
Constitutional Convention to try to bring some balance back
into the Federal system.
I would have to say all that has subsided because of UMRA.
I think particularly my executive summary of my testimony would
be Title I has worked very well, mainly and partly because of
the Congressional Budget Office being the gatekeeper and the
enforcer. And, Title II has not worked very well, and having
heard Director Daniels' comments this morning, I was very
pleased by his comments. I also have to say that I am not
surprised, because Mitch and I worked together in Mayor Lugar's
office in 1970 or 1968 when we were in college. I have known
him a long time and was not surprised by his comments.
Just quickly on Title I, I think the predictions when this
bill was passed that this would end Western Civilization as we
knew it, that it would tie up legislation, that it would impede
legislation expeditiously moving through Congress has not
occurred. I think it has been used sparingly, and someone said
this morning that I believe there have been 11 occurrences
where the point of order has been utilized in the House. It has
never been utilized in the Senate. But I think that the point
of order has served as a deterrent to legislators. Once they
receive that intergovernmental cost estimate, they then work
with State and local officials to try to reduce the effect of
the legislation which they are proposing.
I think Mr. Crippen made the comment and also Director
Daniels, that as long as you have the essential information,
you are going to make a much better decision. That has been my
experience at the State level. I think that has been the
experience under UMRA, that when you have this important
information, you then will make a better decision, and I think
that compels the Members to look at those intergovernmental
cost estimates.
One suggestion we would have in this area would be timely
access, and I just give you the example last month on H.R. 1,
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there was less than
24 hours for local and State governments to come up and help
with that cost estimate. So we think that this is a very good
program and have been very, very much in favor of it.
Under Title II, we do have a new administration. We have
had three primary concerns. The enforcement has really been
nonexistent over the first 5 years. Agency consultation, many
times they send us notice of regulatory changes, and they
consider that to be equal to consultation. And, as I said, if
OMB would act--or excuse me, if Director Daniels' agency would
act as sort of the gatekeeper in the White House on this
regulation, as he has indicated this morning, we think that has
gone a long way to solving some of the problems which we have
had.
The agencies sometimes--for example, on TANF's last
implementation of regulations under TANF, we had a great deal
of participation and consultation with State and local
governments. Other times we get almost absolutely no
consultation. So we think with the support or the efforts very
much of Congress, what they have done, this Intergovernmental
Working Group on federalism which the President has announced
is something we are very encouraged by, and I would just like
to thank you for this opportunity to share our experiences at
the State level with you this morning. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mannweiler follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Thank you. Is it Representative Mannweiler? Is
that how you are addressed?
Mr. Mannweiler. Correct.
Mr. Ose. Dr. Scheppach for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scheppach. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for
the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the Nation's
Governors on the 5-year review of the Unfunded Mandates Reform
Act. Essentially we are very pleased, particularly with what
has happened around Title I. Much credit is due, not only to
the two committees, but also to the superb work of CBO. The
very threat of a CBO report has engendered committees to reach
out to us before the fact instead of after. It has essentially
changed the nature of the intergovernmental discussions in a
very positive way.
However, we must also admit that the scope of UMRA is
relatively restricted. Let me give you three examples of
legislation that would have had a major impact on State and
local governments but are exempted from the definition. The
first is in the Senate tax bill that was recently passed, there
is a provision that takes the State estate tax credit and
accelerates it and phases it out, much more quickly than the
Federal estate tax. This cost States $75 billion over 10 years.
Provisions like this swamp the impacts on the expenditure
side of mandates if it were ever to end up in the final bill.
It was exempt from any kind of CBO estimate.
Second, Medicaid, which is our Nation's primary health and
long-term care program for the elderly and low-income
individuals, currently serves 40 million people at a cost to
both the State and Federal Government of over $200 billion.
Yet, Medicaid is exempt from UMRA. The problem is, is that
about 50 to 60 percent of the benefits are considered optional
benefits. Technically that is true, and so, if you have an
unfunded mandate, the view of CBO, and I think it is consistent
with the legislation, says that you can go back and adjust some
of those voluntary or optional benefits.
That may be true technically, but politically it is very
hard to go back, for example, in Medicaid, and cut the
pharmaceutical benefit of a particular program. So in reality,
those are not really optional benefits. They are mandatory.
I would argue if you look over time in dollar impacts, most
of mandates of the last 15 to 20 years have, in fact, been in
Medicaid.
The third example was one that was mentioned previously,
and that is the whole question of HIPPA. There, again, I think
the intent of the legislation was very positive, which was to
develop forms that were consistent in the health care area.
However, we now feel that it is probably the largest unfunded
mandate out there, and yet because it is a modification, again,
to Medicaid and to some extent, SCHIP, it also is exempt from
the legislation.
So in these three areas that have been exempted, they all
have huge impacts. So, again, if you look at Title I, we would
argue that the intent of the law has worked very, very
effectively, but we have to remember that it is a relatively
narrow definition.
Potential modifications to Title I: From a federalism
standpoint, the world has shifted considerably over the last 5
years. Essentially the nature of mandates has changed, and
preemption of State regulatory authority has now superseded
mandates as a major problem.
Specific changes are as follows that you may want to
consider: First, recent legislative proposals such as the
Internet tax moratorium and the Senate proposed accelerated
repeal of State credit on a State tax indicate that the Federal
Government will increasingly intrude or restrict State tax
sources. For well over 200 years, Congress has respected the
sovereign right of States to enact their own revenue systems.
Recent tax initiatives in Congress are changing this critical
precedent.
Second, Medicaid-related programs are becoming an
increasing proportion of both State and Federal funding. To
continue to exempt this program substantially reduces the
effectiveness of UMRA.
Third, the Federal Government is increasingly preempting
State and regulatory authority when no costs are involved. From
health care to banking to telecommunications, State regulatory
power is being widely preempted in the name of interstate
commerce. This is a scary trend for our federalism form of
government. So I think, if you are going to look at this
legislation in terms of Title 1, those are three broad areas
that you may want to consider for modification.
I pretty much agree with other comments about Title II.
This section of the law has been ineffective at best and a
failure at worst. There has been relatively no consultation
with State and local governments with respect to agency rules
and regulations. However, we are hopeful. President Bush has
created a task force on federalism. We will be working with him
closely. He has indicated that he will be having a new
Executive order released prior to August 26th.
So our hope is to work with the President in terms of some
overall guidelines that we might provide to the administration,
I think there is three areas. First, enforcement is the key.
Executive orders by the last three administrations have never
been enforced. They sounded good on paper, but agencies rarely
complied with the directives.
Second, there needs to be several staff members within
either the Office of Management and Budget or the White House
who will meet on a regular basis with State and local
governments and enforce any Executive order. The CBO model has
worked quite effectively, but I think the key is that there is
a small staff whose responsibility is to coordinate and make
sure the reports are submitted.
Third, the activity must be highly focused or targeted. For
example, we are most interested in the top 20 to 40 legislative
initiatives. The seven State and local groups will be willing
to sit down with the new administration and agree on which ones
where consultation is necessary. We do not want to impede their
work. We really want to have it highly focused on those areas,
with significant costs to State and local governments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Dr. Scheppach.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scheppach follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Mr. Linder.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Mannweiler, you talked about the lack of
any formal consultation, and then there was recently formed,
you said an intergovernmental working group on federalism.
Would you recommend a formalized consultation group, and who
would do it? How would you arrange that?
Mr. Mannweiler. Well, our recommendation under Title II
with administrative regulations has been that the Office of
Management and Budget act as a gatekeeper, and I think with the
comments which Director Daniels made this morning, I think that
would be sufficient enforcement. Obviously that did not occur
over the past 4 or 5 years, and so if you wanted something in
States, that may be necessary to have that consultation maybe
continue.
Mr. Linder. Isn't it a fact that within the last 5 years,
Title II was just ignored.
Mr. Mannweiler. Excuse me?
Mr. Linder. Isn't it a fact that in the last 5 years Title
II was just ignored?
Mr. Mannweiler. Sometimes it has been. It is been a very
checkered record. As I mentioned, we had a very good record on
reauthorization of some TANF regulations in which they issued
the regulations. The State and local government disagreed
vehemently. They consulted with us and eventually it was
changed, but on the whole, it has not been very effective.
Mr. Linder. Dr. Scheppach, give me an example of the
preemption of State regulatory authority that you are referring
to.
Mr. Scheppach. Oh, well, in the whole telecommunications
area, there has been preemption. We did a report, which I can
make available to you, that really traces the preemption. We
did it last year, and it is pretty comprehensive. I would be
glad to make it available to you.
Mr. Linder. Please do. You referred to the Congress passing
a bill----
Mr. Otter [presiding]. My apologies. Mr. Linder, did you
want that put in the record?
Mr. Linder. Good idea. Put it in the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Otter. Would you provide that to the committee?
Mr. Scheppach. I would be happy to.
Mr. Otter. Thank you.
Mr. Linder. You made a reference to Congress passing a bill
prohibiting Internet taxation, but all we passed, as I recall,
was a bill prohibiting Internet taxation on a per--access to
the Internet. For example, today, you can still provide--you
can still impose sales taxes on Internet sales per county, per
State, just as you can catalog sales. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Scheppach. No, we can't, because the Supreme Court
basically said that we could not force out-of-state sellers to,
in fact, collect the tax. So even though residents have a State
obligation, you cannot compell sellers----
Mr. Linder. To pay the tax.
Mr. Scheppach. You cannot enforce it. So you can't do it on
mail order or Internet. You are right.
Mr. Linder. It is just on access, though, to the Internet.
Mr. Scheppach. That's right. The law that you passed a few
years ago was just on access. The States actually had about $50
million taxes on that, which were grandfathered in the
legislation, but the legislation that was passed by the House
last year--that was not accepted by the Senate--attempted to
get rid of the grandfathering. So that is an issue. Plus, the
problem on the Internet access now is that this is a very big
issue, because it is not just access. Under the current
definition, most content that is sold over the Internet would
in fact be exempt. We have got telephone calls going over the
Internet now. So it is not a very simple issue, because you
can't really define access.
Mr. Linder. Thank you both very much.
Mr. Otter. I guess the chairman is not back yet, so I guess
I will go ahead and proceed.
Mr. Mannweiler, Mr. Speaker, did your State ever bring suit
against the Federal Government either through Title I or Title
II to enforce the unfunded mandates?
Mr. Mannweiler. No. I don't believe that any State, to the
best of my knowledge, has brought suit under Title I or Title
II.
Mr. Otter. Mr. Scheppach, has any State in your
organization brought----
Mr. Scheppach. Not to my knowledge. I think the only place
you can do it is on the procedure of judicial review, which is
very limited.
Mr. Otter. It probably would have been ineffective then.
Mr. Scheppach. That's right. Again, you would be doing it
after the fact.
Mr. Otter. See. That is the problem that I have. Being a
country of laws, rather than individuals, and when the chief
executive and his department heads ignore a law, absent a clear
definition of a law in place that says this is the punishment
for it, what do you do? So, I am perplexed here a little bit,
because there seems to be--or at least with the last panel,
there was some reluctance to suggest that perhaps we ought to
put some teeth in the law for disobeying the law. And would the
Governors' Association have an opinion on that, Mr. Scheppach?
Mr. Scheppach. I don't think we have a policy, but that was
considered the last time, this whole issue of judicial or court
enforcement. Most administrations of course have opposed it
because they are afraid it will tie up their decisionmaking
process, but it is something that we discussed with previous
administrations.
Mr. Otter. Mr. Mannweiler, what about State legislatures?
Mr. Mannweiler. Well, I do not believe we have a policy
currently on that, but certainly that would be a good way to
enforce Title II. I mean, we have--as we have said, we have
seen very good compliance from Title I, particularly because of
Congressional Budget Office consultation with the national
organizations such as ours. If there was something to--even if
you statutorily require consultation, how meaningful is that
going to be if the spirit is not there to try to resolve some
differences?
Mr. Otter. I know what confuses me--or continues to confuse
me about the entire process is that we have found ways to make
those in the private sector be responsible for those areas that
we think, whether it is the environment or whether it is how
they handled employees or how they treat labor unions and that
sort of thing. And with great dispatch and tremendous
enthusiasm, we have been able to go forward and create all
manner of rule and regulation that has every board room in the
United States shaking in their boots. Yet we find it impossible
to make those who we would send out with the integrity of this
government to be deserving of that integrity.
That is the thing that I keep driving at. One of the
reasons is because--I am extremely proud that it was now
Governor Kempthorne, then Senator Kempthorne that brought the
whole idea of unfunded mandates to the Congress, and he worked
at it very hard and was finally successful and it was signed by
the previous administration as the first Senate bill passed
that year. He arrived at those conclusions and the necessity
for that kind of limitation, having served as the mayor of the
largest--the capital city of Idaho and seeing all the unfunded
mandates that came at his level of government, and then later
on, of course, at the State level of government. Now he is
suffering under the unfunded mandates as Governor of the entire
State instead of just a single city.
So I think it is--in some small and modest way, that there
is something that the Congressman from the First Congressional
District of Idaho can do to put some teeth into this thing and
make it workable. I don't think Congress, in all of its wisdom,
would dare throw out a piece of legislation like this without
our ability to enforce it. Yet, we have done just that, with a
false promise, a false floor here to the taxpayers and to the
local units--those governments we seek as being subservient to
us as being protected in some way. We need some protection. I
would appreciate it very much, Mr. Speaker, if the Council of
State Governments would go to work and put together some
boilerplate legislation that we could then introduce and
provide for somebody being held responsible. And generally it
has got to be the enforcers, so with that, I would now
recognize Mr. Portman.
Mr. Portman.
Mr. Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to
sit at the dais.
Mr. Otter. Mr. Portman, Mr. Linder and I have just finished
our 5 minutes with these witnesses. Mr. Mannweiler represents
sort of the local units of government, the legislative process,
and Mr. Scheppach represents the National Governors
Association, or pretty close to that.
Mr. Scheppach. Pretty close to that.
Mr. Otter. Not having been a Governor yet, I am not sure
what I would have belonged to.
So Mr. Portman.
Mr. Portman. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing
me to be here today. I have had the pleasure of working with
our panelists, particularly Mr. Scheppach, over the years on
this issue, and also worked, Mr. Chairman, with your colleague,
former Senator, now Governor of Idaho on this issue, who was
the House sponsor of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. I was
the House sponsor, and I think this is a wonderful opportunity
for us to look back and see what has worked and what hasn't
with regard to legislation on this, also to have an opportunity
to talk about Title II and what has worked and not worked in
the administration, and I think we will have a chance here to
redouble our efforts to be sure that the cost-benefit analyses
and the other element of the legislation can be fully
implemented.
But, I am very pleased with the fact that when you look
back over the 5 years or 10 years or 15 years prior to
enactment and then look over the past 5 years, that you see a
distinctly different approach to legislating here on the Hill.
It is not just the fact that we have had fewer mandates come to
the floor and that we have been able to have fewer mandates,
therefore, enacted into laws. But more importantly, Mr.
Chairman, is the fact that every committee now is going through
this process, providing information to members, and as CBO has
testified, they get lots of calls from staffers from
committees, important committees of this Congress, saying how
can we rewrite this legislation to avoid imposing an unfunded
Federal mandate as defined under UMRA? And that to me is
important, as any aspect of this legislation, that it is acting
to prevent committees from enacting additional unfunded
mandates through the legislative process.
So, again, I appreciate your allowing me to be here today.
I have no further questions for the witnesses, but I really
want to tell you that this is legislation that I think will--
won't go as far, Mr. Chairman, as perhaps many would like in
terms of stopping every unfunded mandate, is a good example of
what we can do up here that really does make a difference in
our State and local governments. Thank you.
Mr. Otter. Thank you very much, Mr. Portman, for those
comments. I, as a State official then and operating for 2 years
as Governor Kempthorne's lieutenant Governor, I appreciate your
efforts on behalf of the House. But I also probably would put
us all on notice in this committee, as Members of Congress,
that perhaps we should look to more points of order on the
floor, and the opportunity to bring them up so as to sort of
offer notice to anybody else that would bring unfunded mandates
to the floor of the House, that that could happen on a regular,
and probably more-often basis.
If there is no further questions of the second panel, Mr.
Mannweiler, Mr. Scheppach, I thank you very much for being here
today, and we look forward to receiving the information that we
requested. Thank you.
Mr. Mannweiler. Thank you.
Mr. Scheppach. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Otter. Our third panel today is going to be Mr. Scott
Holman, Senior, who is the chief executive officer for Bay
Cast, Inc., from Michigan, and chairman of the Regulatory
Affairs Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
With him will be Mr. William L. Kovacs, vice president,
Environmental and Regulatory Affairs of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.
Gentlemen, could we get somebody to change the name cards?
We will momentarily be changing that name card, Mr. Holman,
so we know who you are. We thank you both very much for being
here today. Mr. Holman, you have the floor.
STATEMENTS OF STEVE HOLMAN, SR., PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, BAY CAST, INC., CHAIRMAN, REGULATORY AFFAIRS
COMMITTEE, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE; AND WILLIAM L. KOVACS,
VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY & REGULATORY AFFAIRS,
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Mr. Holman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members
of the two committees, my name is Scott Holman, and I am owner
and president and chief executive officer of Bay Cast, Inc. of
Bay City, MI. My company is a manufacturer of large custom
steel castings for the automotive tooling, machining, steel
mill and construction industries. I am also regional vice chair
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chair of the Chamber's
Regulatory Affairs Policy Committee. My testimony will focus on
the private-sector mandate requirements of UMRA.
UMRA is successful at the congressional level. Rather than
restating much of what is in my written testimony, let me go
directly to the U.S. Chamber's suggestions for changes to UMRA.
Title I of UMRA has been generally successful. However, the
U.S. Chamber has one recommendation for amending Title I,
specifically in the 106th Congress by a large margin, the House
passed the Mandates Information Act sponsored by Representative
Gary Condit. This legislation would treat private-sector
mandates the same as intergovernmental mandates. The U.S.
Chamber supported this bill last year and would once again
strongly support similar legislation this session.
Agencies are not held to the same high standards that the
Congress has set for itself. Under Title II, agencies must
prepare an UMRA statement for all rules that would impose
Federal mandates exceeding 100 million to State, local and
trilateral governments or to the private sector. Moreover,
section 205 requires that agencies consider several
alternatives when proposing regulations and select the least
costly, the most cost-effective or the least burdensome
alternative.
Congress clearly intended that regulatory agencies
comprehensively identify and quantify regulatory mandates in a
manner similar to CBO analysis of potential legislative
mandates. In certain instances, however, agency actions have
prevented the policy of Congress from being achieved, unlike
Title I, which requires independent CBO statement describing
potential legislative mandates. Title II does not require an
independent review of potential regulatory mandates.
Due to lack of independent review, an agency may
deliberately underestimate the cost of a proposed rule or
conclude that UMRA does not apply because of other statutory
provisions. In these instances, the agency controls both the
information and the debate and its determination is virtually
unreviewable. Federal regulatory agencies should not be allowed
to avoid congressional mandates by mischaracterizing the cost
of a rulemaking. New provisions should be enacted to address
this deficiency. To this end, the U.S. Chamber provides the
following two recommendations for revising Title II of UMRA.
First, Title II should be amended to establish independent
analysis of UMRA statements conducted by agencies when
considering mandates and independent bodies, such as the Office
of Management and Budget or GAO, should be charged with
reviewing the agency's mandate analysis.
The second recommendation is to permit early judicial
challenges to an agency's failure to prepare UMRA statements
that accurately estimate costs and benefits. In my written
testimony, I provide two examples of agency abuse of the UMRA
process. The first example involves the TMDL water quality
rule, in which EPA estimated the cost about $23 million a year
and the cost asserted by the State environmental profession was
$1.2 billion annually, $1.2 billion, with a B, annually.
My second example involves EPA's national ambient air
quality standards. Estimates of annual compliance costs range
from $45 billion to $150 billion, despite the significant
mandates, EPA claimed, because the Clean Air Act prohibits EPA
when setting the NOx from considering the types of estimates
and assessments described in Section 202. UMRA does not require
EPA to prepare a written statement under 202. However, nothing
in the Clean Air Act, UMRA or the Supreme Court decision
prohibits EPA from fully describing the costs and benefits of
its regulations for the public debate in this issue. Therefore,
a multibillion dollar regulation went into effect without
significant information about the costs, the benefits or the
alternatives to the proposal.
Requiring better information through UMRA will have a
tremendous impact on how agencies develop regulations. For
example, UMRA section 205 requires that agencies consider many
alternatives when proposing regulations. From these
alternatives, section 205 also requires agencies to select the
least costly, most cost-effective or least burdensome
alternatives that achieve the objectives of the rule or explain
why more burdensome options are necessary.
However, 205 is not operative unless an UMRA analysis, as
specified in section 202, is required. Therefore, when the
agencies circumvent section 205 by concluding an UMRA analysis
is not required or by grossly underestimating the cost of UMRA,
the agency thwarts the intent of Congress. It is for these
reasons that the Chamber recognizes that, No. 1, the Mandates
Information Act be enacted to prevent so that private-sector
mandates are treated the same as intergovernmental mandates.
No. 2, that OMB or GAO be authorized to undertake a role in
Title II of UMRA similar to the CBO rule in Title I of UMRA
and, No. 3, that agency abuse of UMRA requirements be subject
to early judicial review.
Finally, Members of Congress, especially the members of
these committees, deserve great credit for their leadership and
generally bipartisan support for several other measures to
improve the regulatory process. These measures include the
Truth in Regulating Act, the Congressional Review Act, the
measures on data access and data quality, and these measures
require rulemaking to contain a minimum standard of integrity.
But, the foundation to all of these efforts would be a strong
UMRA, one that treats mandates in the private sector with the
same attention and analysis as mandates in the public sector
are.
I thank you for letting me testify. I am certainly happy to
answer any questions, bearing in mind that my expertise is in
running a foundry and complying with regulations and I may
defer to Bill on some of the details of which he deals with on
a daily basis and in the language that he deals with on a daily
basis.
Mr. Otter. Thank you very much, Mr. Holman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Holman follows:]
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Mr. Otter. Mr. Kovacs.
Mr. Kovacs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the two
subcommittees. My name is Bill Kovacs, and I am the vice
president for Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs at
the U.S. Chamber. In that role, I am the primary officer for
developing Chamber policy in the areas of environment, energy,
natural resources, agriculture, food safety, regulatory affairs
and technology. So I see a lot of rulemaking.
I would like to say I fully concur with both our--the very
extensive written statement that we have filed--filed by Scott,
as well as this oral testimony. And I have very little to add.
However, I would like to say just a few things, just a few
points, and then I would be willing to take questions along
with Scott. One is, there were a few statements that were made
by Director Daniels that, you know, he made fleeting that were
very, very important. One is the data must have integrity and
quality.
We now have the Data Quality Act that was put into the last
appropriations bill, and that does require integrity in all the
data that are used and disseminated by the government. That is
the first time in the history that we have ever had anything
that requires data quality. And, that includes statistical and
economic information.
The second is, he made a point of saying a lot of these
costs are known very early on in the regulatory process. You
know, the second the rule comes out, we know what it is going
to cost. We have committees. We have a very good handle on the
rule and the agencies do, too, and that information is
communicated to the agency. So when the agency decides that it
is not going to present the economic data in a way in which
might be--might have integrity, they know what they are doing.
And, third--and we have it as part of our--of our written
statement, the TMDL example is the case--the case law for this
issue, because there you can go right from the preliminary rule
that was filed. You can go into the thousands of pages of
comments that were filed on the economics of the issue, both by
the private sector and by the States. You then go into the GAO
report, the comments by EPA to the GAO report. And, then the
comments by GAO to the EPA report and then to a final rule, and
nothing changed in between from the preliminary UMRA assessment
to the final UMRA assessment, nothing changed. That is the
textbook example of what it is.
Mr. Otter, Congress did do something. They at least put in
a rider on the VA, HUD and military construction
appropriations, and they did cutoff EPA's ability to fund the
project, and that may in the end be the ultimate. So thank you
very much, and I will answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kovacs follows:]
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Mr. Otter [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. Kovacs, for
your testimony, and I would ask Chairman Linder to begin his
questioning.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Kovacs, did you work through the Chamber
with the Senate? Trying to get them to take the bill up on the
calendar when we passed it last year?
Mr. Kovacs. The truth in regulating?
Mr. Linder. H.R. 350.
Mr. Kovacs. Oh, yes.
Mr. Linder. Did you work with the Senate?
Mr. Kovacs. I didn't personally, no, but our lobbyists did,
yes.
Mr. Linder. And, their response was?
Mr. Kovacs. We weren't having much luck. Thanks to the help
of your counsel, at the end of the last session, we were able
to negotiate getting the Truth in Regulating Act to the Senate.
But, we had the same difficulties there that we had with UMRA.
Mr. Linder. When you talk about the integrity of
information and data quality and, Mr. Holman, you talk about
agencies deliberately underestimating and their estimates were
unreviewable. What my ears heard is that you think that we have
some agencies that are deliberately lying to us. Care to
comment?
Mr. Holman. I think not to characterize the intent, but
certainly at best, they have not taken the care to review all
of the information available from the agencies, from the public
sector and even pay attention to it. And proceeded----
Mr. Linder. Excuse me for interrupting, but I think Mr.
Kovacs said they had the opportunity to review all that in the
TMDL rule and they ignored it.
Mr. Holman. Then the answer to your question is maybe yes.
Mr. Linder. Has anybody done a real estimate of the costs
of the new clean air rules? Is there any private-sector cost of
that?
Mr. Kovacs. There are--you know, when you talk about
economic studies, it depends what your assumptions are and I am
not an economist. But the numbers seem to range from about $45
billion, which is EPA's number, and they started out at about
$5 billion and it worked its way up. The Reason Foundation
estimates that it could go as high as $150 or $160 billion
annually. These are annual costs.
Mr. Linder. Per year. Just to make one final point that is
entirely parochial, we have a--we cannot build any more
highways because we are under a court order in Atlanta, and so
we have millions of cars sitting at 15 miles an hour instead of
going through town and that is probably worse for the
environment than if they were to move through town. But, we
have cleaner air than we had 10 years ago, and 10 years ago we
had cleaner air than we had 20 years ago. But, it seems to me
that the EPA has discovered a new piece of equipment that
measures smaller particles, and that becomes a new standard.
Has anybody taken issue with them on these issue--on that clear
air rules?
Mr. Holman. Well, we, too--we in my business as the foundry
manager, have paid close attention to the particulate matter,
and where you go from 0.10 to 0.02 particulate matter, you can
hardly walk through the shop without having that enter the air.
So that is a very serious problem for us, and I think we became
involved at the U.S. Chamber with this because of the impact.
It was--as I understand it--deferred for a while, but it is
still standing out there waiting for us to deal with that down
the road. So I still have a concern about that.
Mr. Kovacs. Congressman, as you very well know, the U.S.
Chamber was one of the plaintiffs in the litigation, and we
took the case to the Supreme Court. We won at the U.S. Court of
Appeals and lost at the U.S. Supreme Court. They reversed and
indicated that there was no cost-benefit requirement in the
Clean Air Act. As you know, we worked with you on the amendment
at the end, which--and this is a perfect example of how you
have to deal with an agency.
Congressman Linder is very familiar, but when this case was
at the Supreme Court and this was it literally a stay in the
proceedings and the case had not been argued, EPA had decided
very early on in the--when the case had just been accepted that
they were going to actually, at that time, designate the
nonattainment areas prior to a Supreme Court review, and
Congressman Linder then got another amendment to the EPA's
budget, which prohibited them from designating until the
Supreme Court ruled. But the significance of that is, on
highway funds, for example, the agency could cutoff the funds.
But, it is far more than highway funds. When you are in
nonattainment, you also have to live within certain emission
budgets and tradeoffs, and a lot of times you are not able to
expand your business if you are in a particular area. Or if you
do, you are going to have to have a tradeoff with some other
business. So it has tremendous economic consequences and we
have been involved in that and we will be involved in the next
rulemaking, which is going to have to go on very fairly soon.
Mr. Linder. Thank you both very much.
Mr. Otter. Mr. Portman.
Mr. Portman. Thank you, Mr. Otter. I want to thank you,
gentlemen, for being here today and for the Chamber's work over
the years on this. Having been cosponsor of the Condit bill--
the Condit/Portman and having testified in the Senate on this
bill in the efforts to try to move the Senate, I would agree
with Mr. Linder's analysis, which is, we did not have the
enthusiasm over there that we had hoped for, and despite some
hearings, we were never able to move it to the floor. I don't
know that, with the changes over the last several hours in the
Senate, we are going to have any more luck. So keep the
pressure on.
I am more optimistic and pleased that the administration is
interested in actually implementing Title II in a way many of
us hoped it would have been implemented over the last 5 years.
And sorry, Mr. Chairman, I couldn't be here this morning for
Mr. Daniels' testimony, but I understand that he made a
commitment, not only to ensure that Title II is enforced and
that 205 is followed, but that he would actually require that
there be a statement even in cases where the threshold might
not be deemed to be met by the agencies and that he was going
to insist that the agencies err on the side of more rather than
less information, which I think is a huge step forward. And I
just wonder, given your recommendation today of independent
analysis by OMB or GAO or some other body.
Then your second point about judicial review, your
recommendation in those regards, do you think it is necessary
for us to pursue legislation in those two areas at this point,
or would you like to wait and see how the new administration,
in fact, is going to implement Title II to see whether that,
particularly with regard to your first recommendation, might be
sufficient?
Mr. Holman. Do you want me to take that? Personally, I was
delighted to hear that, and I think that in the short run, that
is, you know, very, very encouraging. I am anxious to see that
put into place. It falls in the category of Executive order.
These things can change. If we were able to put into
legislation a fair and honest and informed debate, that is in
there for the long haul, and--but we certainly are delighted to
hear that the administration is moving in this direction.
Mr. Portman. Mr. Kovacs.
Mr. Kovacs. Well, I would certainly concur with Scott's
comments.
Mr. Portman. Well, I appreciate that, and I think in the
past we have always worked with OMB and that was sometimes a
challenge and this OMB is going to be more interested in
pursuing this issue with vigor and may even push us a little
bit as a Congress, which I like. I think, Mr. Chairman, this is
an issue that the subcommittee might want to take up, and
having CBO have that independent analysis of our committee
statements of impact on the public sector side and private-
sector side has been very helpful, and I want to commend CBO
for the work they've done. They had to staff up. As you can
imagine, there is a lot of gnashing teeth and nervousness about
whether CBO would be able to do this. In fact, on the floor we
had a big debate about whether it was even possible for CBO to
do it. They indicated they thought they could with some more
resources. They had done a stellar job in the Rules Committee.
Mr. Linder has been a champion of this rule and despite the
fact that the Rules Committee also had many concerns about how
this would tie up the legislative process and turned out Mr.
Linder was right. This would work and could work, and I just
think it might be appropriate to go back now and see whether an
independent third party could also review any agency actions.
Judicial review is a very tough issue on the floor. We got into
some judicial review as you know. It is more of the process
than merits and that is something that I would certainly be
vested in taking a look at, trying to expand that judicial
review to the actual merits of the analysis. But, again, having
an administration to work would you say is going to make a
tremendous difference there as well and we look forward to
their input also.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Portman, for those final
comments, and I certainly would agree, and I appreciate both of
you gentlemen for the work that you have done prior to my
arrival here, but you can expect an enthusiastic champion at
your side from now on, another one from Idaho, I might say.
Gentlemen, you were here during the two previous panels,
and I am concerned and still befuddled by the fact that we
should be a Nation of laws, and so even though we might enjoy a
certain familiarity and a camaraderie and philosophical
attunement with the President and Chief Executive, I would be
reticent to--as the Founding Fathers told us not to be, to
depend on that.
We can't always expect our champion as--of the Chief
Executive order to be in the executive mansion, and so I am
more of an enthusiast of being a government of laws as we were
intended and not a government of Executive orders. I think we
can see in the previous administration how that cannot always
serve, although perhaps their best intents, not the Nation as a
whole, to the benefit of the Nation as a whole. So I would be
more interested in the Chamber with your assets, with your
talents and abilities. And the fact that you have had to suffer
under a lot of these things, it seems to me that there is no
better disciple for reform than one that has had to suffer
under and labor under those kinds of rules and regulations.
So, I am in hopes that both of you gentlemen will go back
to your organization and the other organizations that you
belong to and make no mistake about it. Butch Otter from Idaho
and the First Congressional District wants clean air, wants
clean water just like everybody else, but when no assessment
has been made on what the cost was going to be for arsenic.
When there was no assessment made of that, to go from 50 parts
per billion to 10 and a comment was made, well, all we want is
clean water by one of my colleagues, my freshman colleague. And
I believe that as well.
All I am asking is that they understand what that does to
us in Idaho. I don't want to affect the clean water that is
being turned on by that tap. In fact, I want that for my
children and my grandchildren. But, when they voted for that
bill, they affected 87,000 miles of streams and stream bank in
my district. 119 water districts, the same amount of sewer
districts, and they affected lives--the economic and social
lives. And I say both economic and social, and perhaps
spiritual, of 700,000 people in my district. How did they do
that? Because we shut down 23 log mills, and because of that
lots of lives were lost. Entire cities were closed down, and
people will have to move away. That affected their social life
and certainly their spiritual life.
The horror stories go on and on, and I am concerned that
unless we actually put something in the law, similar to Mr.
Holman, if your machinery--if your pollution abatement
equipment wasn't up and operating, you would shut down that
entire plant, and until you were given a permit to open that
plant back up by some government agent, you wouldn't get to do
it.
Quite frankly, I think we need that same kind of
responsible deterrent for the government, and the reason for
that, I believe, is because it is not Butch Otter who has to go
and face the people of the State of Idaho every 2 years who
enforce those laws. It is unelected bureaucrats who do not have
to stand election, who do not have to go back and ask for their
job every 2 years.
I think we need something in the law, and I would certainly
appreciate it. I appreciate your testimony here today. But, I
would certainly appreciate it if we could get some kind of
boilerplate legislation, maybe not this year and maybe not next
year, but eventually we will see the wisdom of passing and
restraining the government as much as we want to restrain the
private property holder.
So with that, unless you gentlemen have further comments,
further questions, Mr. Portman, Mr. Linder? Then the committee
stands adjourned, and I thank you very much for being here.
[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
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