Congressman Jeff Miller's Newsletter December 11, 2011

Throughout the year, House Republicans have strived to pass bills that will provide jobs by lowering the cost of doing business in America.  Specifically, we have passed five bills to increase domestic energy production, seven bills to encourage entrepreneurship and business growth, four bills to increase the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, and two bills to eliminate expensive tax provisions for small businesses.  Additionally, a major part of our Plan for America’s Job Creators is to empower small business owners by reducing the costly burden of government regulations.  To date, we have passed fifteen bills to eliminate, to delay, or to provide additional oversight of executive branch agency regulations.  This week, the House passed one of our signature bills on this initiative – the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011, or the REINS Act.

Led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a number of federal agencies have spent the last three years advancing an extreme regulatory agenda.  These agencies have been given broad discretion by the White House to implement expansive federal rules that have the force of law.  Onerous regulations act as an implicit tax on businesses, one which companies must either pass on to their consumers or reduce their workforce in order to comply.  Moreover, rules are constantly changing, limiting the ability of companies, especially small businesses, to plan for their future. 

The Small Business Administration recently estimated that federal regulations cost the United States economy $1.75 trillion every year.  To put that in perspective, federal regulations cost our economy annually more than 10 percent of our Gross Domestic Product.  The Obama Administration counted 410 new major rules in its regulatory agenda for 2010 and 2011 – four times the number of major rules than during the first two years of the previous Presidency, and regulatory burdens from new regulations just this year will cost $67.4 billion.  All of this is done by unelected bureaucrats who face little or no scrutiny from the voting public. 

The REINS Act would limit the federal rulemaking powers of unaccountable bureaucrats by requiring Congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to the economy of more than $100 million.  In other words, any proposed federal rule that would cost the U.S. economy $100 million or more would be voted on by Congress.  The bill would ensure that each of these rules receives an up-or-down vote in a timely manner, returning the power to legislate to elected legislators.  This increases transparency and accountability in the regulatory process, and gives American taxpayers and American companies more say in the regulations that will impact their lives and their businesses.  Of the 4,225 regulations currently under proposal, 224 are would qualify as major rules under the REINS Act.  Even if each of these only cost the economy exactly $100 million, they would add another $22 billion in negative economic impact annually.  The REINS Act would reverse the trend of unrestrained rulemaking and allow an elected Congress to review and approve these damaging regulations before being foisted on our country’s job creators.

I am a proud co-sponsor of the REINS Act and was pleased to see the bill pass the House of Representatives on Wednesday by a vote of 241-184.  Small businesses and the American people need relief from over-burdensome regulations that are crushing our economy, limiting its growth, and preventing the job creation that we desperately need.  I urge my colleagues in the Senate to take up and pass this bill immediately, along with the roughly two dozen other jobs bills still pending on the Senate floor.