On the recordFebruary 11, 2011
I want to clear up something that the chairman of the committee just said that is not completely accurate. Yesterday, in our committee hearing, we had Dr. Shapiro to testify. And the thing that he said was that when regulations are created, they are created in favor of protecting the health, welfare, and safety of American people. And basically, what he was saying is that we want to make sure that while you look at the cost-benefit analysis, you've got to understand that sometimes it's kind of hard to quantify the benefit of not seeing a baby strangled in a crib, the benefit of making sure that people have clean water, the benefit of making sure that when we eat food that that food is healthy and that it's not poison, the benefit of seeing that if we eat a piece of fish that it's not filled with pfiesteria. Those are the kinds of things that he was talking about. And so he wasn't saying that we should not look at it. What basically he was saying is that you've got to understand that when we came to this Congress and we put our hands up and we swore, we swore that we would protect Americans. And that's what this is all about.
