Last month, I offered legislation which I call the Clearing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens (CURB) Act to clear unnecessary regulatory burdens that are holding our job creators back.

Does OIRA look at whether there is a less expensive way of achieving the benefits that EPA or other agencies might propose?

I think we have a vote coming up momentarily.

Reforms like those in the CURB Act, introduced by Senator Collins, S. 602, and S. 1030 would be a great start in ensuring that agencies make public a reasonable estimate of a rule's indirect impact.

The fact is that this is still, if it goes forth, going to be an enormously expensive rule.

In fact, 41 Senators signed a letter that Senator Landrieu and I sent to the EPA.

I think we need to legislate in that area.

NFIB would like to thank Senator Collins for ensuring more small business owners had a chance to learn about and be certified under EPA's lead renovation and repair rule.

I am going to withhold any further questions for the record, but let me just thank all of the members of the panel.

What we are trying to do is to come up with balance.

I want to thank you for agreeing to hold this hearing today to allow our colleagues to describe their legislative proposals for regulatory reform.

The struggling economy has challenged our Nation's entrepreneurial spirit. We are recovering and that recovery will come from the innovative and bold job creators of America's small business community.

I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today and also for agreeing to schedule another hearing soon on the many legislative reform proposals that have been referred to our Committee.

I want to thank our witness for appearing today. I think this was an excellent exchange that sets the groundwork for the Committee's future work on regulatory reform proposals.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are beginning this review with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

I believe that regulatory reform requires three essential elements at a minimum.

Mr. Pulkkinen's experience is not unique or even unusual. Small businesses all over the country are facing the same kind of pressure from regulators and drawing the same conclusion.

Instead of helping these small businesses create jobs, too many agencies have issued a flood of rules that have swamped small business in red tape.

As Senator Collins indicated, the process of regulatory review was actually initiated by President Reagan in 1981.

I will concede up front, I am not a fan of the ethanol subsidy, but EPA recently increased the amount of ethanol that can be used in gasoline.

I will tell you that a small business or even a larger business that reads that regulation and looks at what EPA is doing assumes that EPA is saying that the fact that the company has to hire more people to comply with the new regulations…

The idea of using cost/benefit analysis is not new, of course.

Regulation has consistently come in third only to poor sales and taxes as the biggest issues that they are facing.

I would urge you to work with the Committee at least as a technical adviser as we begin to review all of these regulatory reform proposals.