On the recordNovember 17, 2016
On this en bloc pair of amendments, I have two very different reasons for objecting. In the case of the portion that is the Director of Office of Management and Budget, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) and I spent an amazing amount of time over the years looking at times in which OMB makes an estimate and then the reality is dramatically different. So to carve out based on the Office of Management and Budget, which is a Cabinet-level, partisan appointment of the President, would have one believe that it is perfect. The reality is not only is it not perfect, but its track record tends to be very self-serving. Just the amount of times in which CBO scores very differently would cause all of us to know that this is not a good enough reason for a carve-out. Having said that, I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia on both CBO and OMB scoring reform in the next Congress because I think we have a long way to go to get numbers right. If we get numbers right on both regulations and proposed laws, we can all do a better job. In the case of the second portion of these two, I have to say that climate change has been unfairly made a political issue. The world is getting warmer; we know that. How much of it is caused by various things, we need to know, and I would hope that regulations would not be a source of that.…
