Jerry Moran: “I certainly support that. I think it is terribly important, with all of these issues that come before us, that we not…”

“I certainly support that. I think it is terribly important, with all of these issues that come before us, that we not operate in a vacuum, that we in fact be guided by State and local leaders to tell us what is working and what is not and how we might make some of these programs work better. The real motivating force behind this whole unfunded mandate legislation is existing law and existing regulations. So we could accomplish the most by communicating with the people who are most adversely impacted, working with the executive branch to figure out how to most efficiently carry out the original intent of the legislation, not to apply a cookie-cutter approach, not to be unreasonable, not to be unilateral in our decisionmaking up here in Washington without communicating to States and localities. If we can do that, and I think the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations is the ideal group to do that because it is bipartisan, it is fully representative of States and localities, then I think we will have accomplished the principal objective of this legislation, which is that kind of communication within the context of federalism.”