Hank Johnson: “I thank the ranking member and the chairman. I rise in opposition to H.R. 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017.…”

“I thank the ranking member and the chairman. I rise in opposition to H.R. 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017. I have a number of concerns with many provisions of this voluminous page, this 82-page bill. It has not gone through regular order, not one committee meeting. Congress just came into session last week. So we have got 50-plus new Members in this body who have not had one single day of an opportunity to pay any attention to learn what is in this bill. Yet, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to force their folks to vote ``yes'' on this bill. I urge them to vote ``no'' and think about it. The reason they should think about it is because H.R. 5 is a destructive revision of the Administrative Procedure Act which fiendishly convolutes the agency rulemaking process through numerous analytical requirements. We call that gumming up the works. These requirements, which are largely opposed by the Nation's leading administrative law experts, would cause years of delays in the rulemaking process and deregulate entire industries through rulemaking avoidance by agencies. In addition to imposing over 60 new procedural requirements on regulatory protections, title I of H.R. 5 imposes a new super-mandate requiring that agencies adopt the least costly rule considered during the rulemaking that meets relevant statutory objectives and permits agencies to choose a more expensive option only if the additional benefits justify its additional costs.…”