Bob Dole: “now that we have begun consideration of regulatory reform, the defenders of the status quo have settled on the weapon of…”

“now that we have begun consideration of regulatory reform, the defenders of the status quo have settled on the weapon of last resort: fear. Thus, we have reporters and pundits pronouncing in strident tones ``the rollback of 25 years of environmental protection,'' the likelihood of increased outbreaks of E. coli food poisoning, and the horror of placing a pricetag on human life. The sky is falling is undoubtedly next. The only problem with all these arguments is that they are absolutely false, not just false in some small way, but false in every way. Apparently, the Chicken Littles who have engaged in these scare tactics did not even bother to read the legislation. Had they done so, they would realize that most of the bill merely codifies Executive orders issued by every President since the Ford administration. Had they done so, they would realize this is a bipartisan piece of legislation that balances commonsense reform with the need to protect health, safety, and the environment. So here are a few facts--although I am not certain from some of the reports I read, the Ralph Naders, and the Bob Herberts of the New York Times, and others, even care about facts--but just in case somebody might care about facts, let me state some facts, and I quote directly from the legislation conveniently ignored by these liberal distortions: Our regulatory reform legislation protects existing environmental health and safety laws.…”