Rob Portman: “today this House will pass the conference report on S. 1, the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995. We addressed some…”

“today this House will pass the conference report on S. 1, the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995. We addressed some complicated and important issues in the House-Senate conference. I, therefore, wanted to take a moment to discuss in some detail two of the more significant issues. First, judicial review. The House-passed version of the bill had almost full judicial review of agency compliance with all title II requirements. The Senate-passed version precluded judicial review entirely. Going into the conference, then, we had diametrically opposed positions on this issue and much work to do if an agreement was going to be reached. Many of the House conferees, and some in the Senate, were very concerned that agencies would not comply with the requirements of title II if there was no enforcement mechanism. The history of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which specifically precluded court review of agency action, in part prompted our concern that, without judicial review, factors that Congress made relevant to the rulemaking process would be totally ignored by agencies. And, in fact, that is what has happened under regulatory flexibility. To address this concern, I insisted, together with other House conferees, that the conference agreement had to maintain some court review of agency action to ensure compliance with the requirements of title II.”