Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which is offered in conjunction with the primary sponsor of H.R. 50, Representative Virginia Foxx, who I know has worked very hard on this legislation. I am glad that Ms. Foxx has embraced the amendment because it does improve the legislation. The amendment would require the website post within 5 days of any consultations that an agency has with non-Federal parties during the development of regulatory proposals containing a significant Federal unfunded mandate, as well as the website posting of any comments submitted by non-Federal parties on such proposals within 5 days of their submission. I am delighted that we have converged around this question of transparency in the regulatory process. Public rules should serve the public, so the public should know what the ingredients are, what the discussions are that are going into the preparation and the development of public regulations. This is a consensus amendment, which is all about sunlight and scrutiny. The idea of agency interaction with interested parties on Federal mandates is a good one. In this case, I only wish that the bill required far broader and more inclusive consultation. As it stands in the legislation, early consultation is only required with affected ``parties within the private sector including small businesses'' and ``State, local, and Tribal governments,'' which are already covered under the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act.…”