House Committee on the Judiciary

Mr Bishop:

0:00

First of all, the non delegation doctrine is a constitutional provision indicating that the legislative branch does not have the authority to delegate our legislative authority to administrative agencies.

0:12

So what the ranking member is suggesting is unconstitutional in and of itself.

0:17

With that said, I'd just like to provide some very specific statistics from the 10,000 commandments from 2022 published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

0:27

Federal spending surged to 6.8 to $2 trillion in 2021.

0:32

These federal outlays are projected to reach 5.872 trillion in fiscal year 2022.

0:38

The burden of regulatory regulatory regulation is equivalent to 33% of these projected federal outlays regulatory costs of $1.927 trillion amounts to 8% of the US gross domestic product, which is estimated at 23.99 trillion for 2021.

0:57

When regulatory costs are combined with federal outlays of 6.822 trillion in 2021.

1:03

The federal government's share of the entire economy reached at least 36%.

1:08

If we, if it were a country US regulation would be the world's eighth largest economy, not counting the US but ranking behind France and ahead of Italy, the regulatory or hidden tax associated with the regulatory burden, a individual income taxes by several billion dollars.

1:29

If one assumed that all costs of federal regulation flowed all the way down to households.

1:34

US households would pay $14,684 annually.

1:39

On average in a hidden regulatory tax, that amounts to 17% of the average pretax income of $84,000.

1:48

The regulatory tax exceeds every item in the household budget except housing.

1:52

That means a typical American household spends more on embedded regulation costs than on health care, food, transportation, entertainment, apparel, services or savings.

2:02

Trump's total of 2964.

2:05

Final rules in 2019 was the lowest count since records began being kept in the 19 seventies and is the only tally below 3000 during calendar year 2021.

2:17

While agencies issued 3257 rules.

2:22

Congress enacted only 143 laws.

2:26

Thus agencies issued 23 rules for every law enacted by Congress.

2:30

This unconstitutionality index which is the ratio of regulations issued by agencies to laws passed by Congress and signed by the president highlights the entrenched delegation of lawmaking power to unelected agency officials.

2:46

President Biden had the largest or highest number of pages in the federal register of over 95,894 pages.

2:55

In 2021 the federal register contained 74,532 pages of regulations.

3:01

Since 1993 when the first edition of 10,000 Commandments was published, agencies have issued 114,821 final rules of the 95% 1008 148 final rules issued since the congressional review act passed in 1996.

3:19

Under President Bill Clinton, there's been a revocation of just 20 rules.

3:24

The Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in ST Louis and the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center in Washington DC.

3:32

Jointly estimate that agencies spent $78 billion in fiscal year 2020 just to administer and police the federal administrative apparatus.

3:45

At the end of the calendar year, 2021 2094 proposed rules had been published in the federal register 272 of them deemed significant which the federal government defines as those rules having an annual economic effect of $100 million or more.

4:02

The reality is that we are not being governed by the legislative branch by the people who are accountable to the American citizens, to the those who are elected pursuant to our constitution and our laws.

4:16

It is the unelected bureaucrats that are dictating the laws in this country.

4:20

I support the reins Act, I support the amendment.

4:23

It is time that Congress took back its rightful constitutional authority to legislate and we need to take it away from unelected bureaucrats who are abusing the power that this body has illegally granted to them.

4:37

And with that, please, to me, madam MS Hageman, General Lady yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

4:43

Yeah, I just wanna point out something on pages nine and 10, of the underlying bill.

4:49

It, it negates the argument.

4:52

Oh, that, oh my gosh, we're not gonna regulate anything.

4:55

This will bring it to Congress.

4:57

It doesn't mean that there are no regulations to be issued.

5:00

It means that we will be the ones and we're the ones that get held accountable and we should be held accountable.

>>18896303

Sorry, this is correct transcription for this clip.

0:00

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

0:01

The last point by the ranking member.

0:04

Actually, I don't think it makes his point.

0:05

I think it makes ours.

0:08

So one reason that Congress can't do its job is because it has handed over its job to others to do if the circumstances were different and Congress were in a position to be necessary to achieve those results.

0:27

Congress would change its practices in order to get there.

0:30

I can tell you that under this Republican majority, there will be in the house prompt passage of appropriations bills on all the relevant departments.

0:44

And it is interesting that, that how fundamentally it is sort of a political mantra of my friends on the minority side of the aisle to say that they're protecting our democracy.

1:00

And I don't know if we all have the same common understanding of what they're referring to.

1:03

I assume they mean the constitutional republic that exists by design.

1:08

And to that point, there are a few things the ranking member said, well, if you pass this bill, it would reduce the efficiency of passing laws.

1:15

You couldn't possibly pass laws fast enough to satisfy our needs.

1:21

But we don't have a monarchy, a monarchy would be one very efficient way to pass laws.

1:27

The king simply decides and there are many, if you look at executive orders that would like to go that direction or you could want a technocracy.

1:37

He said right.

1:38

He said, well, Congress Congress speaks only in very broad terms.

1:42

We leave the details to experts.

1:45

Well, I mean, who says one problem that we often see if you look at the West Virginia versus EPA is Congress speaking in broad terms often leaves ambiguity, ambiguity in the language.

1:57

And that is often a product of insufficient deliberation and care in the design of the Statute.

2:04

Congress needs to do its work carefully in order to give enough guidance that people know what the law is without hordes of experts so called experts filling in the gaps.

2:16

By the way, that doesn't mean we can't take advantage of expertise.

2:21

Congress can be advised by experts should be advised by experts, certainly would be is advised by experts, but the decision maker must be accountable to the people for another fundamental principle to be observed in our law making at least as by design, which is the consent of the government.

2:39

And this idea that that regulations only deal with details.

2:46

That was the terminology the ranking member used in his argument.

2:50

It's a little bit like the debate that's entered here on Germaneness.

2:56

German, this is sort of a at the at the very margins.

3:00

It's an elastic concept.

3:02

But certainly we cannot say that our a our administrative agencies and their regulations have been limited to details and that's what this gets at this amendment.

3:11

By the way, a lot of the debate about the amendment is not limited to the amendment.

3:14

But the amendment says it proposes the idea that it wouldn't even take a regulation that's going to have a $100 million impact in the economy to be major, to be of significance, to be, to require, to make appropriate Congress's attention.

3:28

It should be 50 million with that.

3:30

I readily agree.

3:32

But you, you by no means in practice, in practice, have our administrative agencies been limited to details.

3:43

They dominate the legal landscape and since they dominate it, they, if so effective, they have displaced the predominant role that Congress is designed to have in a way that is inefficient.

3:57

It is a bicameral legislature.

3:59

You must pass the law twice because it is designed to prevent laws from being passed so rapidly and ill advisedly that the people are oppressed by them.

4:12

That is a, it is a feature not a bug.

4:16

And to say that we want to move away from that can by no means be reconciled with the notion of protecting our democracy in one respect.

4:24

Though I agree with comments from the minority.

4:27

The gentleman from Georgia said there has been that we have a tradition.

4:31

It is not our constitutional design to turn over our law making authority to agencies, but it has become, I don't know if I even want to term it a tradition, but it certainly has been a practice since about 1940 it is out of control and it is like an 80% 90% issue.

4:46

The American people understand it and agree that it must be corrected.

4:50

Sorry, I didn't save much time to yield to anybody.

4:52

I will yield in the 12 seconds.

4:53

I've got, that's fine.

4:55

Gentleman yields back.

Judiciary Hearing: Chip Roy

>>18896518

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Judiciary Hearing Mr Cline

Ms Spartz

0:00

Thank you.

0:01

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

0:03

I actually want to concur this gentle lady from Wyoming that actually, epa probably this is the most abusive agencies and actually Supreme Court rule last year on their complete overreach of their power and the authority delegated on the Clean Era Act.

0:25

And what they do in this Clean Water Act is actually, you know, it, I would argue that trying to take private property rights by the government, private property abusing abusing the power of the government.

0:39

And when governments try to take a private property, this is actually a communist by Karl Marx.

0:45

It's not even socialism and it's very dangerous.

0:47

And I'll be honest with you.

0:49

look at the P N L s and financials of all large corporations and all these big funds like Black Rock doing just fine with all of the regulations that my Democrat colleagues issued.

1:00

They making a lot of money.

1:02

But what is, who is getting hurt is the little guy that farmer or some business owner that cannot afford to hire lawyers and CPA for $1000 an hour that cannot afford to go and lobby to every level, government level and be in, sitting in the offices and trying to make their case, that's who's getting screwed.

1:22

And we now have a situation now where all of the so called dark money doing just fine.

1:29

But the little guy has no ability now to be able to start a business and be able to compete and, and, and have abilities to make money.

1:40

I think this is a very dangerous situation where we are now concentrating the power, close to the government, close to Washington DC and given the power to the bureaucracies that people have no ability to even have an input.

1:56

I mean, this is crazy and this is very dangerous for our country.

2:00

And I will tell you, I mean, E P S is so creative.

2:03

They do the sale gimmicks, you know, to try to put, violate even administrative procedures act, they doing all these definitions, you know, they use them, they pay people to come to committees and lobby on something that doesn't help the people.

2:19

But in reality, what, what's, what's happening with all of these environmental regulations that we put because when they are feasible, what's happened right now that we're killing, destroying businesses in our country.

2:31

And companies like Black Rock are part of it and they're given a lot of power.

2:34

They don't have to follow the rules.

2:36

But what's happening?

2:37

We are burning coal from China.

2:40

We help in Russia to make a lot of money and American companies are getting screwed.

2:44

And our pollution is actually, has not, in fact higher than actually that was before because when we push our companies to do business in lowest and corrupt countries in dictatorship, they collude in the same environment.

2:58

We don't build the walls, you know, from China, anywhere else in the same ocean and all pollution goes instead of have reasonable laws, the representative of the people and the business is here and help our people and our companies and Americans to succeed.

3:14

So this is just dumb.

3:16

And if you think about it, some of these funds, you know, that wasn't this, you know, climate change, the of Black Rock like British funds that actually there are some activists that are honest and actually respect if someone who is honest, you know, not hypocrite.

3:29

If you want to drive everyone a bike and you're driving a bike, I respect you.

3:33

But if you are flying big jet fuel jets and you want me to ride the bike or screw you, you know, you're not going to tell me what to do.

3:39

You know, this is wrong on, you know, you have no power to do that and, and, and these big companies have no right to tell us what to do.

3:47

And I think we as legislators to need to think about it who we're representing because these agencies do not represent with the people, they represent.

Ms Hagamen / EPA

Mr Biggs offers an amendment at Judiciary Hearing

0:00

I am offering this amendment to ensure that the bill captures the totality of agency actions.

0:07

The American people elected us to legislate in a time of record inflation and an executive branch that has grown out of control.

0:15

It is well past time to regain control over the administrative state.

0:19

Currently, agency rules must go through a full notice and comment process but agency guidance is not subject to the same requirements.

0:27

And my simple amendment fixes this loophole.

0:31

It's it subjects guidance that has the same effect of the rules and makes it subject to the Rains Act.

0:40

It would require that guidance be explicitly included in the definition of a rule under the Congressional Review Act and therefore subject to congressional oversight would also require that significant guidance without an economic impact of $100 million or more must go through a full notice and comment process to ensure it then goes into the congressional oversight process under the C R A.

0:59

My amendment would include guidance in the agency reports to Congress and give us an opportunity to act to stop it.

1:07

If the Rains Act becomes law, an agency won't be able to implement a major rule or guidance with this amendment without formal approval from the House and Senate, I support the underlying bill.

1:18

It is an important step.

1:20

And Representative Klein's bill ensuring accountability and agency rulemaking act is another fine bill to reel in the unelected and unaccountable administrative state.

1:31

Without this amendment, a clever drafter will circumvent the Reins Act enacting an agenda through neither rulemaking nor congressional statute.

1:38

As we've seen from this very administration.

1:40

For instance, with President Biden's student loan cancellation, guidance was treated as binding and used to circumvent public input and avoid congressional oversight.

1:53

And that had an impact of over $600 billion.

1:57

Guidance allows bureaucrats to bypass Congress entirely if we want to offer families workers or small business owners real relief.

2:04

It's going to require a serious effort on our part to stop out of control.

2:09

Bureaucrats from regulating and spinning away our country's future.

2:13

The agency guidance has been used too, too long as a bludgeon, a hammer and it has been exploitable by the bureaucracy.

2:24

If we're going to rein in the administrative state, this amen amendment is certainly the way we do it.

2:31

If we're serious about reestablishing accountability and responsibility, then my colleague should, should join me by passing this amendment.

2:38

And with that Mr Chairman, I yield back.

2:40

Gentlemen, gentle me yds back

>>18896896

Ms Spartz

0:00

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

0:02

I actually think it's a very good amendment because it's even worse, the guidance even worse, you know, than everything else because it costs so much money and think about agencies like FDA they issue this guidance and reissue the guidance.

0:18

It cost billions of dollars, you know, of companies that are doing research, it creates unpredictability and it cost taxpayers at the end because we all this passed on to us a consumer but also stolen innovation.

0:33

And this guidance has no clear rule how it should no ability to input.

0:38

It is terrible.

0:39

The same happened in the Department of Energy with all of the different things that guidance need to do for different like nuclear plants.

0:47

I mean, this stuff is so important, you know, for us to be able to have the predictable set of rules and there's rules that express actually the will of Congress and the will of the people.

0:59

So this is the amendment that I should probably make this bill even more important because guidance is really something that agencies shouldn't even be able to do.

1:09

But they put such enforcement mechanism on this guidance that it actually cost so much for the, the economy, for the taxpayer, but also to people's lives in some industry because sometimes it's life and death situation.

1:21

And when we stall some of this innovative, you know, drugs that may be save people lives.

1:27

We actually, you know, we, we, we might be able to not save some people.

1:31

So this is a significantly important issue and I appreciate the, gentlemen bringing this amendment, I, I hope this committee will support it.

1:38

I yield back.