Richard B. Nugent: “I thank my good friend on the Rules Committee, a member that I have the pleasure of serving with. Today, I rise in…”

“I thank my good friend on the Rules Committee, a member that I have the pleasure of serving with. Today, I rise in support of House Resolution 322 and the underlying legislation, H.R. 367, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Security Act. I want to thank my friend for bringing this forward as the rule. But this is better known as the REINS Act. The underlying legislation would bring much-needed reform to our broken regulatory process. Now, my good friend from New York (Ms. Slaughter) talked about chickens--and she mentioned it last night. But the issue really, what she's talking about when you're talking about the number of chickens being observed by the USDA, this is the President. They want to increase the number. They want to go to a private system. So I agree that it's a bad idea. But maybe the REINS Act could actually help in that particular instance because you could bring it back to this House to talk about it because, as a valued member of the Rules Committee, she brought up a good idea. But somewhere along the line we have lost sight of what Congress' responsibility in the role of regulation is all about. Through the years, we have delegated away our responsibility. We gave it to unelected bureaucrats to make decisions that have far-ranging effects on the American people. I'm pretty sure that our Founding Fathers really didn't envision us doing that; that bureaucrats are going to decide the fates of small businesses and industries.…”