On the recordDecember 7, 2011
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 10 because greater congressional scrutiny of major regulations ensures that the Federal Government is more accountable to the American people. Poll after poll of small business owners and of medium-sized business owners will show you that major regulations are holding back their expansions and the ability for them to hire more workers. Yet you don't have to rely on polls. You can just go down and talk to the local businesses in your districts. I had a job forum the other week. Time and time again, the constant refrain we heard from these business leaders was that the overly burdensome regulatory environment is holding back their expansions. Several months ago, in the beginning of the 112th Congress, I had some hope because President Obama issued an Executive order that required agencies to review their regulations to see if we could have a less burdensome regulatory environment. Unfortunately, what happened was that those were just words, and were not followed up by actual action, for, since then, the administration has continued to introduce new regulations at a rapid rate. In this year alone, over 73,000 pages of new regulations have been added to the Federal Register at a cost of $67.4 billion. Mr. Chairman, I have right here the amount of paper that has been added to the Federal Register in one week. This is last week's regulations. It's pretty hefty.…
