Goodlatte Floor Statement on H.R. 3438, the REVIEW Act

Chairman Goodlatte: Washington’s regulatory system one that virtually every day places new obstacles in the path of American jobs and economic growth. The biggest obstacles of all are new regulations that impose more than $1 billion per year in costs on the American economy. Struggling workers, families and small business owners have every right to ask why regulations that cost this much are ever promulgated at all.  Surely there are less costly measures that are effective and should be adopted instead. Those less costly measures would allow many more resources to be devoted to job creation and productive investment. But billion-dollar rules are promulgated, and there are more and more as the Obama Administration grinds to an end.  This is one of the reasons our economy has faced so much difficulty achieving full recovery under the Obama Administration's misguided policies. Making matters worse, when billion-dollar rules are challenged in court, regulated entities must often sink billions of dollars into compliance while litigation is pending, even if that litigation ultimately will be successful. Such was the case in Michigan v. EPA, for example, in which an Environmental Protection Agency rule for utilities imposed about $10 billion in costs to achieve just four to six million dollars in benefits. That is, at best, about $1,600 in costs for every one dollar of benefit. This is money for job creation and economic recovery we simply cannot afford to waste. But EPA and the courts allowed it to be wasted for years during successful litigation challenging the rule, because neither EPA nor the courts stayed the rule. The REVIEW Act, introduced by Regulatory Reform Subcommittee Chairman Marino, is a common-sense measure that responds to this problem with a simple, bright-line test.  Under the bill, if a new regulation imposes $1 billion or more in annual costs, it will not go into effect until after litigation challenging it is resolved.  Of course, if the regulation is not challenged, it may go into effect as normal. This is a balanced approach. And it provides a healthy incentive for agencies to promulgate effective but lower-cost regulations that are more legally sound to begin with. I thank Regulatory Reform Subcommittee Chairman Marino for his work on this important legislation. I urge all of my colleagues to support the bill and reserve the balance of my time. ###