On the recordFebruary 10, 2011
I want to rise also in support of this resolution which directs committees to review Federal agency rules and regulations which indeed may unfairly harm the ability to create jobs and grow our economy. I continue to hear on a pretty regular basis from my small businesses in my community in Minnesota about new rules and new proposed regulations that absolutely could hamper their operations and opportunity for growth. I'm just going to give a couple of examples real quickly. I've heard from financial service companies in my district about a rule that the Department of Labor is proposing now that fundamentally changes a 35-year-old definition of 'fiduciary' under ERISA. Now, if implemented, this new rule would cause a major disruption to the marketplace and directly result in higher costs and severely limited access to much-needed products and services to consumers. I've also heard from some of my medical device companies in my district that are leading the world in developing these new lifesaving technologies. And there's a new rule now that's been proposed by the Department of Transportation which would require finished medical devices and other products that contain lithium batteries to now be shipped as hazardous cargo. Now, this is going to have a devastating impact on the production of pacemakers, defibrillators, and neurostimulators. This is a new requirement that would severely disrupt the medical industry's just-in-time delivery system.
