Joel Hefley: “when the Clinton administration proposed to reinvent government, it sounded good, but I had no idea that this meant that…”

“when the Clinton administration proposed to reinvent government, it sounded good, but I had no idea that this meant that the Federal Government would be made larger, more expensive and more burdensome on Americans. However, this is precisely what will happen if a new Department of Environmental Protection is established in accordance with H.R. 3425. In a nutshell, H.R. 3425 takes what has historically been an important but inept Federal Government agency, elevates it to cabinet level, creates various new offices and bureaus that essentially do nothing new, and increases the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on this by $10 million per year. To add insult to injury, the Democrat leadership refuses to allow an amendment to be considered that would require cost benefit analyses to be done on environmental regulations that already cost Americans more than $140 billion per year. Mr. Speaker, the American people have sent a clear message to Washington. They want less bureaucracy, less spending and less regulation. I urge my colleagues to act on this message and reject H.R. 3425 in its present form.”