John Mica: “I thank the gentleman for yielding and would like to also commend the gentleman from Texas for his tremendous leadership…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding and would like to also commend the gentleman from Texas for his tremendous leadership in bringing before not only the Congress but also before the American people the cost and the effect of Government regulation and, in fact, how it is affecting business and in particular how it is affecting one small business, a mom-and-pop business, the dry cleaning business. Mr. Speaker, I come from a family of people who for 3 generations, going on almost the fourth generation, have been in the dry cleaning business still in Upstate New York, in Binghamton, NY, and our family always made a good living through this particular business activity, and I was stunned to find out as we heard yesterday in the press conference that we held the amount of regulation, the cost of doing business, the imposition on the Federal and State level of burdensome regulatory practices that are putting these folks out of business and really scaring folks. In that regard, we do not really pay attention to what government regulations are costing us, but just for example, I would like to point out that environmental regulations cost over $150 billion each year, and this translates into $1,500 cost per household, so this has a direct cost.…”