WASHINGTON, DC -- H.R. 450, the Regulatory Transition Act, passed the U.S. House today by a vote of 276 to 146. The measure was cosponsored by Congressman Collin Peterson (DFL-7th District).
As ranking minority member for the Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, Peterson has been working on this legislation from the beginning. He was one of those responsible for seeing that the regulatory moratorium would be in force either until 12-31-95, or until legislation dealing with risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis has been passed and signed into law.
In speaking on the House floor during debate on the bill, Peterson talked about his reasons for working so hard to get this legislation passed.
"Last year, the Federal government published over 64,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register compared to nearly 44,000 pages 10 years ago," Peterson said. "Our government also employs nearly 130,000 bureaucrats to write, interpret, and enforce those regulations. The bureaucrats responsible for issuing regulations to solve our nation's problems have sometimes become the problems themselves. The American public is fed up with silly rules and regulations that cost us time and money and don't accomplish anything. Something needs to be done to change the process.
"When I first read H.R. 450, my reaction was that this bill was unworkable and frankly unnecessary. But the more I read and heard about the bill and the regulatory process, the more convinced I became that H.R. 450 was a good idea.
"I worked with Chairman McIntosh on improving this bill and making it workable. One of my main concerns about the original bill was the retroactive provisions. That was until I obtained a copy of the 615 regulations issued between November 9th and December 31st of last year. The more I read, the more I believed this bill was necessary.
"If every member of Congress were required to read every federal regulation, I am convinced they would have a different view of the federal regulatory process. The longer I worked on this bill, the more convinced I was that a wholesale attitude change was necessary in the regulatory process.
"I am convinced that what we need is a 2 x 4 between the eyes of the federal regulatory bureaucracy, and this bill is just that -- a 2 x 4 which serves as a wake up call, putting the bureaucracy on notice that business as usual is over."
H.R. 450 exempts regulations which reduce or streamline the regulatory process; it gives the Administration full authority to exempt regulations that are a threat to health and human safety; and it is limited to those regulations that need to be looked at and re-assessed. H.R. 450 places a temporary hold on regulations until common sense risk assessment and cost/benefit analysis is passed and signed into law. H.R. 450 also gives the committees of jurisdiction time to look at regulations and determine if they really make sense.
"The American people want a change in our inflexible and over burdensome regulatory rulemaking process. I'm tired of going home and hearing yet another regulatory horror story," Peterson continued. "For example, Moorhead, Minnesota in my district is being forced to pay $10 million to change their municipal water system, when engineering experts and health officials admit it is a waste of money. The regulations mandating this are not sensible but typical of well meaning but over intrusive federal bureaucrats.
"While this bill is not perfect, it is workable and serves as a wake up call to the bureaucracy telling them things have changed. This bill puts us on course for a regulatory change in attitude which involves risk assessment, cost/benefit analysis, and hopefully, keeps the federal government out of the people's lives except when it is absolutely necessary."