Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 3438 would stay the enforcement of any rule imposing an annual cost to the economy in excess of $1 billion, pending judicial review. Now, do you suspect what that might do? It would have a pernicious impact on rulemaking and the ability of agencies to respond to critical health and safety issues. In essence, the bill would encourage anyone who wants to delay a significant rule from going into effect to simply seek a judicial review of the rule. Please, we all know that the judicial review process can take months--sometimes years--to finalize, especially if the appellate process reaches the United States Supreme Court. So rather than ensuring predictability and streamlining the rulemaking process, this bill would have the completely opposite impact by making the process less predictable and more time-consuming. Equally important, H.R. 3438 has absolutely no health or safety emergency exceptions. If anything, this bill would empower the very entities that caused a serious health or safety risk to delay and maybe even derail legitimate efforts by regulatory agencies to respond to such threats. As with other bills proposed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, this legislation myopically focuses only on the cost of a proposed rule while ignoring the rule's benefits, which often exceed its costs by many multiples.…”