Hank Johnson: “The Goodlatte amendment clarifies that a major rule is any rule with an annual cost on the economy of $100 million or…”

“The Goodlatte amendment clarifies that a major rule is any rule with an annual cost on the economy of $100 million or more adjusted for inflation. This amendment revises the bill's definition for a major rule to include any rule with an annual cost of $100 million or more as determined by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, also known as OIRA. I oppose this amendment because it focuses only on the cost of regulatory protections while completely overlooking the monetary benefits of these critical rules. It also strips OIRA's ability to consider the benefits of a rule in connection with a rule's cost. I don't understand the logic of that. In 2015, The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog criticized cost-only regulatory estimates as misleading, unbalanced, and having serious methodological problems. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, likewise observed in 2015 that ignoring the benefits of regulation is akin to grocery shoppers deciding to buy no groceries simply because groceries cost money. That doesn't make any sense to me. Even Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has stated that ``many of these rules we need, they're important for the economy, and we support them,'' conceding that the benefits of regulatory protections must be considered hand in hand with their costs.…”