oversight today is the culmination of numerous hearings related to the federal role in relationships with non federal entities the tone throughout the three hearings related to the unfunded mandates has been bipartisan and open in fact president obama's chief regulatory officer cass sunstein has called the committee's efforts constructive representatives of state and local governments and the private sector that many undocumented and burdensome unfunded mandates are slipping through the cracks in the umra statute and the heavy burden of many regulations is not fully captured on the analysis required under umra indeed in the past ten years only four rules issued by federal agencies have been classified as consisting of unfunded mandates on state local and tribal governments further only thirteen of sixty six major rules issued in two thousand and ten were classified as unfunded mandates only one of these thirteen was identified as an intergovernmental mandate even the president has stated sometimes rules have gotten out of balance placing unreasonable burdens on businesses burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and on jobs he recently made an even stronger statement telling a joint session of congress that we should have no more regulation than the health safety and security of the american people require every rule should make that common sense test with this backdrop it is appropriate we reform umra not only in the context of state local and tribal government mandates but also with regard to those affecting the private sector chief economists of the small business and entrepreneurship council at our hearing in march stated that unfunded mandates and regulations continually stifle private sector growth and economic expansion to help ensure every r the exemption for independent regulatory agencies and requiring cost estimates for conditions of grant aid under h r three hundred and seventy three federal agencies and the congressional budget office will be required to estimate the direct and indirect costs of a federal mandate finally h r three seventy three requires agencies to adhere to umra's requirements even if the agency did not issue a notice of proposed rulemaking i have stated before and will state again making these reforms is not an attack on the current administration many of the issues that we will deal with today did not originate during this administration and the solutions we propose will extend well beyond this administration it is essential that we look at the bigger picture and the long term effects of our federal involvement in state local tribal governments and private business operation but it is also essential that each agency is evaluated on results not rhetoric it is the role and responsibility of this subcommittee and congress as a whole to ensure that regulations are consistent with legislative intent and they are written in such a way to cause the least amount of burden for the greatest possible benefit is my goal to make certain that in this modern regulatory environment washington does not overstep its clearly defined constitutional boundaries and well intentioned federal employees do not impose their preferences on state local and tribal governments and the private sector marking up the legislation before us today and seeing it full committee will put us one step closer to achieving this goal and i look forward to our conversation today and seeing the eventual passage of this important bill i would ask unanimous consent that the letters of support referenced in my opening statement be entered into the record without objection so order would you like to make an opening statement mister connolly i would thank you mister chairman mister chairman we have had numerous hearings on unfunded mandates and regulations in our subcommittee and at the full committee level while we agree about the need to protect local and state governments from unwarranted unfunded mandates changes to regulatory policy under the guise of reforming unfunded mandates at the last full committee hearing one witness invited by the majority criticized federal agencies for implementing new regulations to prevent cross border shipment of non native pythons and other snakes as you know scientists have found that a warming climate means that snakes such as the burmese python and boa constrictors will be able to move farther north threatening human safety agricultural productivity and  system integrity far beyond the everglades given the devastating impact of non native snake species in the everglades it would seem appropriate for federal agencies under the one hundred and eleven year old lacey act to protect other parts of the country by restricting importation of dangerous snake species unfortunately such common sense regulations would be much harder to issue if this bill were to be passed as written and amended by your amendment in the nature of a substitute this  up federal agencies with massive quantities of red tape imposing duplicative reporting and analytic requirements to issue simple public safety regulations for example the fish and wildlife service would have to report on whether there are user fees or marketable permits would work in lieu of regulation agencies already are required to analyze costs and benefits of proposed regulations agencies are already required to solicit analyze and respond to public comments including from  that would be subject to such regulation the additional analysis and reporting requirements in this bill would simply delay issuance of regulations which of course is the intent in some cases those delays would be absurd do we really think the fish  wildlife service should consider the establishment of a marketable permit for invasive snakes i told the majority i can support the original umra information and transparency act with two simple changes replace the term indirect costs with net costs and acknowledge the difference between unfunded mandates in state and local governments and regulations of the private sector for the public interest the majority not only rejected those changes but added red tape to the bill as it appears before us today even though it cannot analyze the nebulous and direct costs identified in this bill the bill still requires it of them this bill even gives a single member of congress the authority to compel an agency to conduct retrospective analyses of regulations which surely would divert important agency resources at a time of shrinking federal budgets and add costs most fundamentally this bill fails even to recognize that regulations can save money for example according to the congressional research service the pending cross state air pollution control rule could save as much as two hundred and eighty dollars billion per year by reducing health care costs with a three hundred and fifty to one benefit to cost ratio why would we ignore one side of the equation by only looking at the costs but never at the benefits of proposed regulation the answer is that this majority has an inflexible ideological commitment to dismantling many of the institutions we cherish tomorrow we will del some dozen environmental regulations including limits on soot smog and mercury within the last month we repealed part of the wagner labor relations act the bill before us today would impede the ability of the securities and exchange commission the consumer financial protection bureau among others to police wall street after the worst meltdown in eighty years in short the republican agenda would return america to the law of the jungle with their failure to address global warming and the proposal to deregulate interstate snake commerce this committee should be focused on creating jobs i am starting to sound like a broken record but i will repeat what i have been saying all year my constituents tell me that we need to find common ground one and it is interesting that this afternoon we will be addressing the postal system and its problems and will place probably tens of thousands of people who have worked so hard for so long to basically be laid off what this bill will do is add barriers to the rulemaking process that will tie up federal agencies and make it harder for them to pass rules that protect the health of our children your constituents and mine the safety of our food the quality of our water and air and our national security i have said it from this dais many times that we can erode from the inside we can be destroyed from the inside by not taking care of our people by not educating them by not taking care of their health welfare and safety another argument that is often made about regulations is uncertainty as mister connolly has pointed out from what i can see this adds even more uncertainty it drags out the process so any legislation aimed at improving the regulatory process should take a very balanced approach the substitute amendment that the gives industries an unfair advantage in rulemaking process expands judicial review which will tie up agencies in court and cause judges to second guess agency experts what kind of predictability does that provide i am disappointed in the approach the majority has taken to this markup this markup was originally scheduled for august  that was forty nine days ago yet the minority members of the subcommittee were not provided a copy of the majority substitute amendment until monday the substitute amendment makes significant changes to the bill rendering it a new back to this whole issue of being able to predict what is going on with regard to business people yesterday in one of my other roles as a member of the joint economic committee doctor alan m interesting he said it is important that we have this predictability but whatever it is going to be he even talked about when clinton  testimony and it made a lot of sense i am just saying if we are going to do this let's not add more burdens the one thing i am glad about mister chairman to give you maximum credit you did give the president of the united states president barack obama credit for what he has done you did make it clear that these regulations are not just his they have been coming on for many years and i think we ought to continuously make it clear that this president has done mandates reform act of one thousand nine hundred and ninety five to ensure that actions taken by regulatory agencies are subject to that act and for other purposes mister lankford i have an amendment in the nature of a substitute the amendment has been distributed without objection the amendment will be considered read in the original text for the purposes of an have hearings we held hearings to listen and then formed the legislation around many of the ideas that were heard during those hearings the ans allows umra to label more unfunded mandates by removing the exemption for conditions of federal assistance and d consistent and to consult with the private sector in the development of significant regulatory mandates just like they already do for state local and tribal government mandates the ans allows the chairman of any standing committee to request that a federal agency conduct a retrospect cost analysis of an existing federal mandate to learn of any changes in the cost to the regulatory environment and that also includes the ranking member of any committee the ans extends judicial review to help ensure agencies carefully consider the least costly least practice already today many of the things that we are actually adding into this amendment in the nature of a substitute are things that are currently practiced in twelve thousand eight hundred and sixty six that executive order they just don't exist in legislative language they only exist  of jurisdiction a statement of the reasonably foreseeable indirect costs of any unfunded mandate this provision is problematic for several reasons one being that we do not know how or if cbo would comply with this requirement since indirect costs are very difficult if not impossible to quantify in addition this provision creates an undue burden on cbo that already a substantial amount of work attempting to score bills that actually have concrete and readily available costs associated with them it is my in all my years in congress now sixteen i do not believe the director of the cbo has called my staff directly to express such concern about a piece of legislation the amendment in the nature of a substitute does not include a clear definition of reasonably foreseeable indirect costs instead it says the following the term reasonably foreseeable indirect costs with respect to a federal mandate means secondary monetary costs resulting from the mandate the question mister chairman is what does that mean both the phrase and the definition are so ambiguous that it will be impossible for that they have sent to us as a follow up and communications that we have had with them they already track some of these indirect costs currently in their cost estimates the challenge they have is how to define this does the definition really work is it clear enough so i do have some of those same concerns after chatting back and forth through staff with cbo and i would be supportive of us reworking the language because cbo already includes some of these indirect costs in some of their and to see if either what we are looking for can be included in the definition of direct costs or just be able to get a good definition of what they are already accomplishing to be able to put that into the legislation or to be able to clearly articulate that if we can't clearly articulate that then it is not going to help cbo and it is going to create  ironic as it is an unfunded mandate on them to be able to try to help accomplish something through additional staffing and through additional needs they have over there which we don't need to add at this point so i would propose that we put a letter to them and have some  and i appreciate your willingness to work with the ranking member on the issue of reasonably foreseeable indirect costs i think you are engaging most likely in a herculean endeavor to try to find some definition of that i think we would all love to be able to understand all of the indirect costs of everything we do but to ask an agency of this congress which is already overburdened to do that i think likely to be impossible but i appreciate the dialogue you are going to take i just wanted to put some concerns on the record regarding section eleven of this bill i certainly understand i think what the intent of section eleven is to get increased stakeholder participation in the setting of regulations but i don't meet many of my constituents out there who worry about whether or not industry has a seat at the table when regulations are being set in  washington frankly industry has legions of lobbyists whether it be the banks the oil companies the insurance companies the problem that my constituents see is not whether industry has a seat at the table but whether regular ordinary everyday people have a seat at the table and whether their interests are being represented i am all for increased participation from every potential affected party when a regulation is coming through the system but i would hope if this legislation is to move forward that what we are getting at is not just an increased forum for industry to help agencies write regulations i think frankly that happens according to folks i represent all too often that we just being the target of the regulations to have real public input in this process it is hard for me to understand the true intent of this legislation but that is the concern that frankly is given to me back home not necessarily wanting us to come here and give more forums for industry they want more forums for their views to be represented before agencies an before this government lankford that section of it puts us into line where city county and states already have an opportunity to be able to say here are the issues we are going to bump up against beyond just the review and comment format and allows companies that are affected directly to be able to also have that same privilege to say here is what that looks like dealing with the least costly options there are other options on the table to give them plenty of opportunity if this is going to affect at this point over one hundred dollars million worth of impact on our economy it  allows the people that it will affect first to be able to have that opportunity now this as you know well the umra is an informational piece it doesn't prohibit anything it provides information to the regulators it provides information to the legislators at the end of the day this provides maximum amount of impact to all parties that are affected on that so i agree on it i am not looking for any kind of special interest anyway to be able to have it i am looking for it to be consistent with the non federal party how it is written in the umra regulation whether that non federal is a county that is affected or whether that is a company that is affected or a group of companies small or large mister murphy then let me just ask a follow up question when we talk about affected parties let's say we were talking about a workplace safety regulation clearly i think the intent is that for one of the affected parties to be the employer but would one of the affected parties also be the workers mister lankford they should be well represented in that as well but if there are unfunded mandates coming down that regulation is being created for workplace safety obviously that has risen up through there is a need for that but if there are four different options to be able to resolve the same problem there should be people being able to lay out four different options rather than a regulator that may or may not know four different options to be able to talk through the process mister murphy but just to clarify under the definition impacted parties within the private  they be required under this section to consult with both the workers as a party impacted in the private sector or just with the employers mister lankford we might have to get some clarify on that i know in the review and comment period that is included as  well this is simply trying to state what are the different options that are possibilities that are out there i would assume that when they are talking with any type of industry they are also going to be chatting with folks that are impacted within that industry as well mister murphy i appreciate the answer i think it is imperative as we move this bill forward that this not be simply a requirement that the business be consulted but if we are going to have all parties within the private sector have a seat at the table that those parties that may be receiving the protection also have representation as well  to believe as someone who spent fourteen years in local government there is a world of difference between an unfunded mandate by the federal government on a state and local government that has a similar function and mission in the public sector than it is to treat that as the same when we have a regulation proposed on the private sector a polluter being required to clean up his or her pollution is in a totally different category than an unfunded mandate to do something in education on a local government and this bill treats them the same and that is in my view totally overturning the real intent of umra so i understand the agenda in trying to equate the two but i just want to go on the record as rejecting that equation and it is yet another reason why to mister murphy i would say i would hope this bill would not go forward mister lankford i understand the original as you know well included all non federal parties including the private sector so this is not an expansion in that area it is an expansion to say when we do input from each area as we do with a city county or state we should also do with industry