made even worse i know mister lankford plans to offer a substitute amendment that addresses some of the concerns that have been raised by the congressional budget office but unfortunately the substitute leaves intact most of this flawed legislation agencies already must comply with numerous analytical requirements when issuing a regulation this legislation adds even more complexity and confusion to the regulatory process one of the most troubling provisions in this legislation is expansion of the judicial review process under this bill opponents to the judgment of agency experts will have the opportunity to further delay the rule making process by entangling it in additional litigation finally under this bill private industry would have the chance to influence the composition of a rule before the public gets a chance to weigh in the bill explicitly requires agencies to consult with private industry before the agency even makes a propos rule publicly available agencies should consult with industry just as they should consult with all stakeholders however private companies should not be given an unfair advantage over the people a rule is designed to protect the held more than twenty hearings this year targeting regulations this legislation takes the committees anti regulatory crusade another giant step in the wrong direction as i close i ask unanimous consent to include in the record a letter written by the coalition for sensible safeguards an alliance of scientific research faith labor and environmental groups which opposes this legislation and notes that among other flaws it would impose a umra we had three legislative hearings listening to those directly affected by government mandates and made inquiries into the congressional budget office the administrations office of information and regulatory affairs regarding various umra provisions and possible improvements in september we is to improve the quality of the deliberations of congress with respect to federal proposed unfunded mandates it has the support of the national federation of independent businesses small business and entrepreneurship counsel the u s chamber of commerce and the national conference of state member of a committee to request a cost estimate by cbo for conditions of grant aid ans insures that federal agencies and the cbo estimate the entire cost of a federal mandate such as foregone profits passed on to consumers and behavioral changes ans requires federal agencies to be consistent and consult with the private sector in the development of significant regulatory mandates just like they already to for state local and tribal mandates the ans allows the chairman or ranking minority member of a committee to request that a federal agency conduct a retrospective cost analysis of an existing federal mandate to learn of any changes in the cost of the regulatory environment and it extends judicial review to help ensure agencies carefully consider the least costly least burdensome regula alternative ans permits a point of order to be raised if a private sector mandate exceeds the umra threshold finally the ans formally aligns the regulatory authority from the office of management and budget to the office of information and regulatory affairs which is already standard practice i have stated before and i will state again making these reforms is not an attack on the current administration many of the issues we deal with in this ans did not originate during this administration and the solutions we propose will extend well beyond this administration it is just essential that we look at the bigger picture and the long term effects of our federal involvement in state local and tribal governments and private business operation but it is also essential that each agency is evaluate on results not on rhetoric it is the role and the responsibility of this committee and congress as a whole to ensure that regulations are consistent with legislative intent and are written in such a way to cause the least amount of burden with the greatest amount of possible benefit it is my goal to make certain in this modern regulatory environment washington does not overstep its clearly defined constitutional boundaries and well intended federal employees do not impose their preferences on state local and tribal governments and the private sector i look forward to our conversation today about this and seeing the eventual passage of this important bill with that i yield back ms buerkle presiding thank you i thank the gentleman from oklahoma does any other member wish to speak on this  chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia mister connolly i thank the chair my amendment changes the existing language in the current bill referring to indirect costs and regulatory reporting requirements to net cost accounting for benefits including lives saved to state local and tribal governments it is important to analyze not only the cost of unfunded mandates but also the benefits it is important that we recognize that regulations serve a purpose in protecting the american people from a variety of dangers that would otherwise occur if these protections were not in place for each year from two thousand to two thousand and ten the annual estimated benefits for the rules and regulations reviewed by omb the office of management and budget also far outweighed the estimated cost estimated benefits ranged from one hundred and thirty two dollars billion the low estimate to as much as six hundred and fifty five dollars billion the high while the estimated costs were forty four  billion respectively when we were talking about epa for example issuing a rule to keep harmful bacteria out of our drinking water or the consumer product safety commission issuing a rule to protect children from hazardous substances it doesnt make sense to only analyze the cost of implementing those rules without also considering the benefits including health benefits and lives saved mister chairman it is important that agencies focus not just on the cost of regulations but also focus on the benefits this amendment would simply ensure that agencies take benefits into account when also calculating the cost of a rule with that i thank the gentleman before i recognize the next individual the chair would announce that the intention is if there are any rolled votes or any votes requested they will be rolled and they will occur ten minutes after the last  underlying analysis of benefits anticipated from the proposed rule making or final rule such as the promotion of the efficient functioning of the economy private markets enhancements of health and safety protection of the natural environment and elimination or reduction of discrimination or b so that is already included the second thing is that already the term effects has already been interpreted to mean both the costs and the benefits so that is already included in this so it is a little confusing to say that we have to add this thing about the benefits and also accounting for lives saved when it is already included in the bill itself number one number two is if it is the intention of the minority to  say that we have to then balance this out the net effect of both the cost and the lives saved i have a difficult time balancing the cost of a single life saved so if the issue is with the balancing economic cost against a life saved it of my colleagues objection secondly i think my colleague has to distinguished between what happens after umra is triggered and what happens before obviously my amendment deals with the latter not the  gentlemans comments but i didnt hear a response to the part about the net i think the gentleman from oklahomas remarks about you can never net even one life saved or lost against any amount of dollars would the gentleman respond to that well as a matter of fact i would respond we have had hearings on this committee for example where we have looked at epa assessments of the net benefits for example we had a hearing with the attorney general of my home state of virginia not so long ago in which i entered data into the record of the net benefits associated with epa regulation and they did a calculation so it is not an impossible thing to do and many of the reclaiming my time on it i understand the difficulties in looking at this language on it because it is already included into this bill and i think could cause some confusion i am going to oppose this just because i want to make sure that we keep it clear straightforward language throughout this and we dont have the tendency at some point to say now we have to get a certain number of attorneys to then determine what the value of a single life is and weigh it against this and somehow now we cant have unfunded mandates because it has the potential at some point of saving a life and amendment is not agreed to are there any further amendments the ranking member is recognized for the purpose of offering an amendment bill we are considering mandates an unfair advantage for corporations and businesses in the rule making process and my amendment eliminates that advantage section ten of the underlying bill will require agencies to also provide private sector corporations but not other stakeholders an advance opportunity to influence proposed regulations we should not require agencies to give business interests a special advantage over consumers and other stakeholders who would be directly impacted by proposed regulations can you imagine the impact of applying such a rule to medicare it would require agencies to seek input from the insurance companies before they considered the opinions of the elderly or how about wall street reform this law would mandate that the wall street firms have the opportunity to weigh in on regulations before investors and the american conversation sometimes you can get a sense of here is where to cut off some of this it still goes out to proposed rule making there is still plenty of input from any outside group in fact the bill itself even encourages people that disagree with industry to be included in those early parts of that conversation so it is not just a single voice saying for instance if there is going to be a regulation coming down in the airline industry only airlines are consulted in this but it is those that are affected should be at the table and then it goes out to complete public comment so it just allows that unique conversation let me give a quick illustration with that yesterday we had a hearing in my subcommittee and it was dealing with federal procurement policy there are right now federal procurement agencies that are sending out information to all their contracting officers what they are calling a myth buster that procurement officers and contracting officers cannot engage with industry during the course of that conversation there has been a wall of separation between industry and the federal government during the contracting process they are sending out messages saying stop that are actually hurting the process by not engaging the affected parties in this conversation so that has actually impeded our contracting and the federal leadership that we met with yesterday all said we are trying to knock down that wall because we have erected it too high so we have to engage with this so in this reason i just have a belief that if you can get a chance to get the affected parties together they can make the rule better at the very beginning rather than cause all of the consternation that happens during the rule making process and the affected parties hope that they get a voice at the table hear over and over again from regulatory agencies how difficult it is to have consultation and repeatedly i see them green light various projects only to discover that there are sacred lands there things which every tribe already knew but they dont give notification to the tribes much less consultation so i think that the gentleman is absolutely right that any time you can have more notification not less notification but especially early in the process it is in requested pursuant to the earlier agreement that will be rolled until after the first set of house floor votes are there any further amendments vote at this point since this is the last piece of business before the final vote we will suspend any further process until immediately that being ten minutes after the last vote of this first it could be as late as but we believe that is the best way rather than trying to get everybody back from their luncheon appointments at this time we stand in recess