like to begin this hearing by stating the oversight committee mission statement is what we will be doing in all of our different committee meetings we exist to secure two fundamental principles first americans have the right to know that the money in washington comes from them that is coming from them to washington is well spent and second americans deserve an efficient effective government that works for them our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to the taxpayers because taxpayers do have the right to know what they get from their in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy this is the mission of the oversight and government reform committee this is the first committee meeting of the subcommittee on technology information policy intergovernmental relations and procurement reform we have an impressively long title i know for everyone this hearing will focus on unfunded mandates and regulatory overreach since the founding of our nation the federal government has had to balance its own authority with that of the states counties and cities while each  unique responsibility to serve their constituents they also have had to operate within their limitations both budgetary and statutory however lately we have seen where dedicated and probably well intentioned government staff can move from serving people to mandating their preferences and priorities to an agency or legislative body onto people in the modern regulatory environment the probability that the federal government will overstep its clearly defined constitutional boundaries to impose its preferences on state and local leaders has become increasingly likely with apparently little check and balance federal regulators can dramatically affect the budgets and staff structure of state and local governments many state and local governments face severe budgetary shortfalls that threaten their ability to perform basic services private businesses are struggling against numerous impediments to job creation quite frankly they are all hurting the preferences of a regulatory agency should not determine the budget or priorities of a state or local leader while we are not addressing the issue of private business mandates today i would also contend there is a significant responsibility of the federal government to restrain its regulatory power to areas that are clearly constitutional in scope and that are not redundant of state or local laws codes or enforcement i hear too many stories to recount where a federal regulation can cost a business millions of dollars with little or no opportunity of recourse or reversal of the matter when the government enacts a statute or issues a regulation mandating that a state or local government or private sector entity perform certain actions but fails to provide the funds needed to perform the mandates by explicitly defining them and by creating a congressional point of order that could be used to help prevent the enactment of legislation creating them however multiple agencies and actions were excluded from umra and the definition of an unfunded mandate it established has come under criticism hearing today seeks to determine the effectiveness of umra it is intended to focus on title ii of umra which concerns the unfunded mandates handed down by the executive branch in the form of new rules and regulations while the unfunded mandates reform act has a great name it has limited reach because of its inapplicability to many regulatory actions for instance most rules issued to implement one of the major pieces of legislation enacted last year the dodd frank wall street reform and consumer protection act are exempt from umra because they will be promulgated by the securities and exchange commission an independent regulatory agency rules issued by the new bureau of consumer financial protection created by dodd frank will also be exempt from umra todays hearing focuses on local governments i intend in a future hearing to bring in tribal and private sector witnesses to testify about their personal experience with burdensome federal mandates while we will hear today from the mayor of edmond oklahoma i want to myself relate just a couple of anecdotes from my own state to illustrate why i have called this hearing today for instance the city of bethany oklahoma spent over a quarter million dollars in  eighty seven to put in two water wells only to be required a few years later to take them out by the epa because of their wastewater levels then the epa changed its wastewater requirements in two thousand and six costing the city of bethany over nine dollars million dollars the street signs  bethany also must change to a new type of reflective material to meet new department of transportation regulations costing the city who knows how much yet the oklahoma department of transportation has to jump through millions of dollars of hoops to tear down an old bridge and to put up a new bridge in the exact same spot it has to navigate the clean water act the national historic preservation act the endangered species act the migratory bird treaty act and many other federal laws while people drive over an old deteriorating bridge what i want to know is whether the unfunded mandates reform act is of any personal graciousness and commitment to cooperation on a bipartisan basis as a former local government official with fourteen years of experience in fairfax county i appreciate chairman lankfords interest in unfunded mandates early in my tenure as a supervisor on that board congress passed the unfunded mandates reform act as the chairman indicated known as umra following an outcry by state and local elected officials about unfunded mandates and their burden it was a positive step forward but as i learned in the subsequent decade the act as the chairman just indicated did not fully stem the tide of unfunded mandates it was written in a manner that exempted bills that imposed significant costs on localities such as no child left behind as has been well documented the design testing and implementation costs of no child left behind increased local educational costs significantly by hundreds of millions of dollars in many many places including my own county pleased that fairfax county executive tony griffin is here today so that he can discuss the continuing impact of federal unfunded mandates on local governments i am concerned however that some have conflated mandates with regulation i recognize that umra focuses on both intergovernmental and private sector mandates however the focus of our efforts should be on the continued burden that unfunded mandates place on local governments this was the focus of a series of hearings in two thousand and five by congress in this committee in particular and i remain it should remain that way today despite the technical language of umra i do not consider regulations affecting businesses as unfunded mandates necessarily as president obama suggested regulation should be reviewed  but i simply do not believe that mercury sulfur dioxide or carbon dioxide restrictions on power plants should be placed in the same box was unfunded federal mandates on local governments when the private sector is engaged in activity that places public health or safety at risk these actions should be regulated in fact carte blanche elimination of regulations could create new costs for local taxpayers in fairfax county for example most smog forming pollution comes from power plants in the ohio  valley deregulation of pollution from those plants through repeal of the clean air act or otherwise would increase the costs of local government the public health impact alone would be significant and would result in more hospital emissions emergency service expenses and lost workdays due to respiratory illnesses fairfax county and other local jurisdictions would be forced to pay for more bus and transit service telework coordination and other efforts to reduce vehicular emissions in order to prevent escalating costs of air pollution it is imperative that our regulatory system prevent companies from passing on those costs of doing business to our local taxpayers i would be very apprehensive about any effort to use  vehicle for an overall review of the regulatory process as it relates to the private sector i believe that such a review would run counter to the original purpose of umra in light of this i am pleased that we have two witnesses today representing local governments i thank  for recognizing the importance of this issue to state and local governments i believe there are some substantive reforms to prevent unfunded mandates that are worthy of bipartisan examination as the chairman indicated for example the tax era law the real id act of two thousand and five could cost states as much eleven dollars billion to fully implement an unfunded mandate in addition we will hear about the impact of the brac process on local governments and local communities from mister griffin can impose multi billion dollar transportation and infrastructure obligations on state and localities if brac relocations occur in urban areas such as they do in fort belvoir and quantico in northern virginia within the context of umra these improvements are considered optional but only if it is optional for my constituents to go to work i support efforts to reform umra to take a realistic view of these costs and local governments but i do not support using umra in an attempt to roll back important public health regulations like the clean air act in addition i would ask unanimous consent that a letter from the national association of counties expressing opposition to unfunded mandates and drastic discretionary spending cuts be placed in the record i look forward to working with my chairman mister lankford to examine reforms that statements for the record let me recognize our panel and lay some ground rules for the conversation and let you all finally get a chance to be able to talk as well susan dudley is the director of the george washington university regulatory studies center from april two thousand and seven to january two thousand and nine professor submit a written statement for the record and we have also asked you to prepare an oral statement no longer than five minutes so we can allow time for questions and discussions on your statements you will see on this desk a series of lights that will count down from five minutes it will be green then the lights will change to yellow when you have one minute and red when your time has expired and it will be just your opportunity to quickly wrap up after all the panel has given their oral statements each member present will have five minutes to be able to ask questions of the panel many members may have several questions so it is very important that you answer the questions quickly and concisely dont feel would ask that members honor our guests time and attendance by prioritizing answers and information from them instead of making speeches during your questioning time i would also ask members not to ask a question after their five minutes of time has expired as chairman i do reserve the right to remind you that time has expired and ask for informed decision in our nations best interest there are many issues in congress that are divisive but most of the issues we deal with in this committee should be very bipartisan we are very grateful of the time you have committed to doing your written and oral statements and the time you have given away from your family for this hearing may i also say that i understand many or most of you gave up your valentine evening with your family to travel here to d c last night so please pass on our gratitude to your family and your willingness to share your expertise today do you understand the ground rules of this hearing it is the thank you chairman lankford ranking member connolly and members of the committee for inviting me today i am susan dudley director of the george washington university regulatory studies center and research professor of public policy at gw from april two thousand and seven to january two thousand and eight i oversaw the executive branch regulations of the federal government as administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairs or oira the views i express here are my own i thought i would use my five  summarize why i think umra has been less effective than some had hoped at curbing unfunded mandates and to offer some modest proposals during my tenure as oira administrator executive branch agencies issued one hundred and eight economically significant final regulations only seventeen of which were classified as unfunded mandates and not one of those was considered to impose mandates on state local and tribal governments now that doesnt mean that no regulations issued during my tenure impose burdens on other levels of government indeed epa issued two national ambient air quality standards during that period and i heard from several states seriously concerned about the cost of implementing them they were not classified as unfunded mandates because one the cost to states did not meet the umra definition of mandate and two the clean air act prohibits epa from considering cost when setting the primary acts more not triggered because it is the clean air act itself that imposes the obligation on states and epa is merely interpreting those requirements another regulation issued during my tenure that a reasonable person might consider burdensome on states was hhs rule eliminating reimbursement to states under medicaid for school based administration expenditures and certain transportation costs despite the elimination of approximately six hundred and thirty five dollars million in federal funding the rule  not covered by umra because it did not require states to replace that federal funding with state funding or take any particular steps these illustrations show the limitations of umra though both umra and executive order twelve  which governs agency rulemaking exclude independent agencies and rely on a threshold of one hundred dollars million umra covers a fraction of what the executive order covers in large part because umra applies the one hundred dollars million threshold to mandated spending while the executive order applies it to affects and umra contains seven additional exemptions more i think that we will hear about from gao not only does the executive order cover more regulations than umra but it provides omb more authority to hold agencies accountable for conducting analysis and basing regulatory policy on the results of that analysis umra only requires analysis if an agency in its sole discretion determines that accurate estimates are reasonably feasible and  such effect is relevant and material in contrast oira determines whether a regulation is subject to executive order twelve thousand eight hundred and sixty six and whether agencies regulations and supporting analysis meet the principles of the order the executive order calls for quantitative and qualitative analysis and decision factors that are similar to those contained in umra it emphasizes consultation with other levels of government and states of each agency shall assess the effects of federal regulations on state local and tr governments and seek to minimize those burdens as a result in my experience the analytical and interagency review requirements of the executive order provided oira a more effective mechanism for holding agencies accountable to the  objectives expressed in umra both conducting the analysis to understand the effects of the regulations and in choosing the most cost effective regulatory approach from alternatives now onto my modest suggestions to address one the limited coverage and two the lack of accountability to broaden coverage congress could consider aligning on the language with that of executive order twelve thousand eight hundred and sixty six andor extending it to include independent regulatory agencies which are not currently bound by the executive order either to make the executive branch more accountable for the goals of umra congress could provide omb oversight authority beyond certifying and reporting on agencies actions congress might also want to expand judicial review under umra so that for example an agencys failure to justify not selecting the most cost effective or least burdensome alternatives could be grounds for staying or invalidating the rule congress might even go further for example by making compliance with mandates discretionary for state local and tribal governments unless funding is provided even without amending the statute this committee has options for increasing knowledge of the extent of unfunded mandates section one hundred and three provides that at the request of congress cbo would compare its title i estimate of the unfunded mandates of a statute with an agencys title ii estimate of the cost of the regulations implementing that statute i am not aware whether congress has ever made such a request but it could yield interesting comparisons to inform congresss deliberations of both future legislation involving unfunded mandates and whether agency implementing thank you members for allowing me to be here today i am patrice douglas i am the mayor of edmond oklahoma edmond is just to the north of oklahoma city and is oklahomas sixth large city we have about eighty six thousand people with a school district of one hundred and ten thousand we cover ninety square miles we have a general fund budget of about forty three dollars million and our overall budget is about two hundred and twenty six dollars million last year edmond was named the top place to raise a family by family circle magazine i had to put that in there edmond as all oklahoma cities and cities across the nation are facing budget decreases we are a sales tax only city we are funded only by sales tax and what we make from our utility companies for the first time in more than two decades last year we had a decrease from budget of nine percent no living mayor in edmond had ever faced that issue we were able to  prioritize people and we didnt have any furloughs or layoffs of police or fire we delayed capital improvement projects which means roads bridges repairs and we were able to cut expenses other oklahoma cities didnt fare as well they cut expenses and had to lay people off and furlough people fire police and civilian employees across the nation i believe that the picture was worse and having been at the u s conference of mayors recently i heard about mayors who were laying off as many as thirty percent of their workforces so municipalities are facing severe challenges right now i first want to commend those of you who were in congress and supported umra when it was passed i hope that you continue to support that but i hope that we can tighten it up i hope that we can make it more effective for local governments because we are feeling the pressure right now every time we have a federal mandate handed to us then that is one less thing i can do that my citizens elected me to do and i am held directly accountable because i grocery shop with those people  hit on just a few things that we are seeing as overwhelming costs in our budget first the record keeping that we are required to do for stormwater regulation i know that epa is extremely burdensome and is extensive i first want to tell you that edmond is in compliance and we are happy about that over the last five years we have done what we needed to do but it has cost us two dollars million to do that so two dollars million that i cant spend to fix roads all to show that i am in compliance that i was not outside the regulatory guidelines of that secondly there are people on this panel who know more about the clean air act than me but i can tell you that edmond sits in a greater oklahoma city region and that we are in compliance but there is talk about changing the standards and if they change the standards we will have some very long extensive processes and regulations and costs that go along with that i would be remiss if i didnt mention health care we are right now in the city of edmond reviewing what our options are with regard to health care we have traditionally covered the benefits for one hundred percent of our employees we have paid their premiums at one hundred percent and we have paid dependent coverage at seventy five percent our consultants are telling us that we are going to see an almost twenty percent increase in health care costs this year which amounts to six hundred thousand dollars  almost fifteen percent of that is directly attributable to some of the mandates that came down through the recent health care reform act and that is what we are being told so we are trying to budget for that i am not sure how  to it we are just now starting our budgeting process and what i believe is going to happen is we are going to have to consider the options on health care and perhaps lowering the coverage on our employees or raising the premiums or requiring some pay back from employees i am not sure how it is going to end up but we are facing that lastly i would be remiss if i didnt mention the dodd frank act and the concern that we have with an sec regulation that is being proposed that will affect cities and volunteer boards i have more than thirty boards and commissions in edmond with volunteers serving if this sec rule is adopted it is likely that i am going to have many of my volunteers have to be registered through the sec not only does that probably put a wet blanket on volunteers wanting to volunteer for these boards but it also causes my employees where i am already short staffed because i am not filling vacancies causes them additional work so the costs i cant determine because the rule hasnt been passed yet but i urge folks to look really closely at that rule because i do believe it is going to impose some serious anniversary to seek diverse views on umra restraints and weaknesses drawing on this work i will describe exceptions and exclusions for identifying federal mandates summarize gaos findings and also present suggestions made by knowledgeable parties about improvements to the act umra was enacted to address concerns about federal mandates that require other levels of government or the private sector to spend resources without providing funding to cover their costs umra does not prevent federal mandates from going into effect instead the acts purpose is to provide information on the costs and benefits of federal mandates and rules that meet the reporting threshold and to obtain meaningful and timely input from state local and tribal governments as rules are developed before any of this happens however rules must pass through multiple steps and meet multiple conditions lists fourteen reasons why an agency would not identify its rules as containing a federal mandate subject to umra let me give you a few examples rules are not identified as having a mandate if costs are impose condition of federal assistance or where participating in the federal program is considered voluntary other exclusions are based on the type of agency issuing the rule umra does not apply as has been sa to independent regulatory agencies such as the securities and exchange commission or another exemption is where the rule starts it must begin as a proposed rule there are other exclusions as well such as rules that involve enforcement of individual rights national security and emergency activities or procedures for safeguarding federal funds given these reasons and others i have not described it is not surprising that gao found over the years a few rules that trigger umra in two thousand and four we reviewed all final major and economically significant rules published in two thousand and one and two thousand and two only nine tripped the umra requirements of the hundred and thirteen that did not sixty five had new requirements that we determined could impose costs or other impacts on non federal parties twenty nine appeared significant and little different from the rules identified as federal mandates why didnt these rules trigger umra the most frequent explanations were the financial threshold of one hundred dollars million was not met the rule did not go through the proposed rule stage participation in the federal program was considered voluntary or the rule was issued by an independent regulatory agency similar gao findings before and since raise the question whether umra adequately captures regulatory actions that might impose financial burdens on others evidence suggests the answer is no in two thousand and five gao asked a diverse group from academia advocacy groups business federal agencies and state and local governments for their views no one suggested repealing they recognized its positive aspects but found areas that they would like to see fixed two areas in particular are relevant to todays hearing the most frequent comment across all sectors was about umras coverage most but not all  umras narrow coverage was a barrier to the acts effectiveness while there was less agreement on approach many suggested amending particular exclusions notably as a condition for federal assistance or for participation considered voluntary other frequent comments were to lower the cost threshold which for regulations would be the expenditure threshold or to include both direct and indirect costs and some parties particularly from the public interest advocacy sector viewed umras coverage as a strength and wanted to include health and environmental protection as for the underlying purpose of umra to generate information about the size and nature of federal mandates they generally agreed there needed to be more complete estimates and a frequent suggestion was that agencies evaluate mandates after they had been implemented as a way to better understand actual costs and benefits such information could help provide additional accountability and potentially member and members of the subcommittee i am anthony h griffin county executive fairfax county virginia a position that i have had the privilege of holding since january two thousand i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today on the subject unfunded mandates it is a subject that is treated with some sensitivity in how fairfax county legislates and operates when county staff proposes changes to local ordinances or on how it operates there is a requirement to identify the regulatory and financial impact of such changes as part of the staff report to the board of supervisors in addition county staff works in advance with the impacted parties to understand the effects of any changes and to reach a consensus if possible on implementation and costs the county staff frequently is trying to balance the interests of public safety and quality of life with the immediate concerns of neighborhoods and industry the process concludes with a public hearing if staff has done its job well there are few or no speakers and the decision of the board of supervisors is usually unanimous since local government is the closest to the people it is ironic that the use of a significant amount of its resources are in fact dictated by the higher levels of government in fiscal year two thousand and eight the last time fairfax county analyzed the cost of mandates it was estimated that the net cost of federal and state mandates was seven hundred and fifty one dollars million out of a three dollars billion general fund federal mandates accounted for thirty nine percent of all mandated expenditures for a net cost to the county of three hundred and thirteen dollars million what is more difficult to do with the cost of mandates is to decipher how much a community would pay to implement a mandate whether it was a mandate or not in many instances fairfax county chooses to exceed state mandates because the mandate is viewed as a minimum as it relates to quality of life schools and mental health are examples some federal mandates are not as apparent as say the american disabilities act or the health insurance portability and accountability act for example fairfax county is trying to mitigate the impacts of decisions made in the last round of the base closure and also known as brac which in most instances relocated defense employees located near transit to fort belvoir which has no transit and is served by a road system already at capacity while the county appreciates the additional twenty six thousand jobs at fort belvoir it actually tried to limit brac related moves in the national capital region because of the negative impact to the transportation system the defense department provides no money for road improvements external to military installations unless the impacts exceeds the doubling of traffic given that the primary roads involved are interstate ninety five and route one no money is forthcoming the estimate to mitigate the moves to fort belvoir are in excess of eight hundred dollars million money which neither the state nor the county have unlike the countys process the federal government did not quantify the impacts of the relocation on the host jurisdiction or the region nor has the federal government in the form of the defense department offer to mitigate the impacts in fact access to the proving ground of fort belvoir would not have been possible without a significant financial contribution by the county and the state in closing i would note that regulation by all levels of government are necessary to achieve certain minimums and how services and facilities are available to our public communication sensitivity balance and identified resources need to be part of the process creating them mister chairman thank you for the privilege to speak i be pleased to respond to the committees questions mister lankford we look forward to that actually and we will go back and forth giving a chance just to ask questions and we are just looking for your honest answers and just response to it we will take not only your written testimony but your oral testimony will be all compiled together in a permanent clear defined of what the law says on it what would your perspective be how would you define it mister griffin my perspective would be an obligation imposed on the county which the county otherwise would probably  large is a twenty five dollars million burden an unfunded mandate you would say would that have an effect if there was a ten percent burden on the city  executive order that has been out there for us since the s trying to deal with the unfunded mandates you made some specific suggestions for that including aligning umra with the twelve thousand eight hundred and sixty six and then you also talked about the independent agencies tell me your  personal perspective on it if those were excluded how would the independent agencies be looped into the unfunded mandates if this were to be reformed how do you suggest those get engaged  a follow up to saying okay this is what you said it would cost what did it actually cost that is an interesting determination that we may have to determine as well on finding other regulations and saying how will we process through that with individuals on it then you made a statement as well about the judicial review and determining if things are cost effective tell us about just the inside conversation that may happen saying okay is this the most cost effective way to do this is that something that is really discussed often among the agencies so you are saying if there was an agency that determined it doesnt matter we want to do it this way there is no way to really stop them at this point okay ms fantone let me ask you a quick question as well give us an example of a voluntary federal program you said that was a major piece of an exception that is sitting out there what is a good example of a voluntary federal program ms fantone well oftentimes what we have is the same kind of thing that actually applies with federal assistance there is the carrot and the stick an  example would be if you have and i will use firefighters oftentimes we provide technical assistance and there may be some cost sharing piece of that  soon as you have a condition in which you want to get a federal assistance or it can also happen with the private sector you have to commit to making a decision that you are going to go ahead with  aware of the dodd frank legislation affecting any of our boards or commissions in fairfax what were you referring to ms douglas there is an sec proposed rule to carry out some of the language that is in the dodd frank act that talks about municipal advisors and they are defining municipal advisors as people who have to be registered through the sec the sec has proposed this rule i believe lots of cities are coming in and saying there is a am not aware of the details i suspect organizations like our economic development authority may have to be involved but i think most of our volunteer committees and commissions would not most of the major provisions dont kick in for another two years or three years has actually contributed to an increase in her premium cost is that the case in fairfax as well  an unfunded mandate how does gao separate the issue of unfunded mandates from normal regulation i mean the minimum wage requirement in a sense is an unfunded mandate it tells people you have to pay this much you cant pay less per hour presumably nobody would say that we ought to eliminate that or we ought to fully fund that requirement this is a societal requirement saying this is what a living and just wage ought to be we may disagree about what that level ought to be we might even philosophically disagree about whether it is the role of the federal government to impose it but there is lots of history suggesting by and large the united states population agrees there should be such a regulation how do we separate that kind of regulatory activity normal by the state or federal government versus unfunded mandates i would put no child left behind or the brac process for example in the latter category well as you point out this is a decision that is as much a policy and philosophical decision as anything else i think probably to respond i would like to briefly describe what we did in two thousand and four when looking at  that were not classified as federal mandates so we did a variety of different things first of all we looked at all of the ones that were unclassified and that was one hundred and thirteen and then we reviewed the evidence and the evidence included what statements were available from the agencies themselves that would indicate that there were additional costs and then we went out and we talked to those that would be affected to see whether we in fact had captured correctly and that included the federal agencies that were involved as well as those again who were affected and there was consensus that in fact there was additional costs some of which twenty nine in particular that would be significant so it is kind of the goldilocks complex here trying to get it just right it is a difficult thing but kelly and i think that it would be hard to argue that a lot of these are well intentioned when they start off but i would submit that in our little town sixty seven cents out of every dollar we bring in in revenue tax revenue is already eaten up by public safety and there are so many unfunded mandates that are out there as a mayor as you sit there and as you watch what is going on you are almost afraid to read your next email or open the next piece of mail that comes through because you dont know where it is going to come from or who is going to ask you to participate in something so we have these partners that say we need to do this but they dont bring any money to the table so if you could tell me i know we struggle with our budgets every year trying to meet all these some of the things that you have to do and some of the services that have to be cut dramatically just to comply with a mandate an unfunded mandate ms douglas well we have to direct money away from our general fund which is like you said that is my thirty three percent that i get to run the rest of city government on outside of police and fire so that is what i run my trash collection i repair my roads i clean my roads after the recent two blizzards i repair bridges after a five hundred year flood  this summer so you are exactly right what we are looking at this year is simply trying to decide whether or not we are one of the fastest growing communities in oklahoma so we are an economic engine for our state we provide jobs and what we are looking at right now is deciding between keeping people or building the roads to get economic development to our city because you have companies that wont locate there unless you can build the roads so it is a decision right now for me and my council priorities we have to prioritize are we going to do the infrastructure projects that we have already delayed because last year we could not build roads we couldnt do the repairs we needed and that we had budgeted because we had a nine percent decrease so we are making those decisions i talk about in my written testimony that there is a program called nims nobody can fight about the fact that homeland security is very important but edmond was the eighth safest city in america a couple of years ago yet we are spending at least eighty two thousand and by my estimates that they called me last night three hundred and ten thousand dollars to do a training program that we are now having to document we are doing and we are already one of the safest cities in america so we are not going to fight against homeland security but it is three hundred and ten thousand dollars that comes out of my budget in order to get other federal grants it is money that sits out there and says if you dont do this then you dont get these grants and it doesnt just apply to homeland security grants it applies to other grants so i think local governments are your representatives all of us on the federal level trying to get certain things done and then when it is filtered down to you all then you all are where the rubber meets the road so then you sympathize with everything you have said i think your employees are very fortunate to be getting one hundred percent of their insurance covered i mean i think that is great and that says a lot for you and your city but i want to go back to you were talking knowledge we were in compliance but i am not going to answer that for certain what i will tell you is that what this money went for was to implement the minimum control measures with six areas of focus to address the stormwater run off quality and to report on it to address public participation and to report on that to address public education and outreach and to report on that to address post construction stormwater management and report on that new development old development stormwater management and to file the reports so we were in compliance for five years it is apparently a five year study i have been mayor for two but it was a it sounds like in an effort to plan sometimes it becomes very difficult if you dont know what is coming down as a matter of fact the chairman talked about the case in oklahoma your city i think it was is that right right okay so how does it affect planning and what can the federal government do to help locals be able to plan better with regard to so called unfunded mandate i believe that  i think we cant change the mandates without getting a lot of warning to a municipality first of all i think you have to give us warning like you were talking about secondly i think that we need to have input on that we need to have input right now the sec is taking comments on what it is going to cost governments and how many people are going to have to be registered under this new proposed rule i am glad that they taking comments because they are going to hear from me about what it is going to cost me i think as well that if you have a city that is showing itself to be a quality city in all these regards i believe that they should i dont want to say have less requirements on them but i think that it should be understood that this city is already in compliance the bottom line is every decision that requires me to fund a mandate takes money out of my roads my bridges my parks my infrastructure in my city so i think we just need to keep that in mind realize that the local officials are the ones who are sectors that were involved i would like to be able to respond to some of their comments on what would help notably and i have mentioned two of them already and it has been part of our discussion about getting it right in terms of what is the right relationship with federal assistance and how much is involved also the question of voluntary is this program really voluntary but the other issue is one of threshold and for rulemaking the threshold is in fact  higher bar because they use expenditures rather than considering that there are other kinds of costs involved in deciding whether something is in fact a federal mandate so you have to identify it first and if you take it off the table because you cant meet the threshold then you dont have the written analysis you dont have that discussion so if you go with expenditures and some of the suggestions were to broaden it to conform to other definitions where you include lost revenue for example where you include both direct and indirect cos griffin in response to your question i would refer to my testimony i indicated that dealing with mandates is really a balancing act my perception is that while it is useful to have a comment period such as has been referred to with the sec i think it would be helpful if there could be more in depth if you will a pilot study of what the impact would actually be in a community or in a state before the legislation is finalized i think too often the legislation is generalized and impacts are perceived but not actually determined and i think it would be helpful to have a more in depth analysis actually at the local and the state level congress and i dont have a lot of questions i just want to thank you for being here it is a little bit dumfounding that we are hearing testimony that we have agencies that determine whether umra applies to them or not and we minutes for questioning ms speier thank you mister chairman and thank you to all of the witnesses that are here today mayor douglas you indicated that the city pays the entire cost of health care premium for the employees is that ms douglas the employees currently ms speier which is a very rich program i mean i cant imagine many cities or counties or states or federal government that could provide one hundred percent coverage for the premium  having said that you indicated that the increase of twenty percent is due or at least fifteen percent fourteen point five percent is directly attributable to the health care reform law ms douglas correct ms speier i would like to know how you came up with that figure to have to refer you to the consultants that we hire to come up with that figure we hire a group that comes in and evaluates our program where at the beginning of that we in fact had the first presentation last week in edmond what they have told us their review to us said that it was directly attributable to the fact that we have to begin since we are a self funded plan we have to begin to set money aside for the requirement of covering up to twenty five dependents up to the age of twenty five or twenty six i cant remember twenty six and that we also have to begin to make accommodations for the pre existing condition requirements that they believe are going to  lift the amount of claims that we have in our plan so they divided it out we asked specifically for it to be divided out so that we would know what was basically the increase that we would have seen versus the increase that we are seeing now ms speier so you are totally self funded  so i am real familiar with unfunded mandates and they have been the bane of my existence for twenty years because it was always the federal government imposing a mandate and yet not paying for it so i dont think it is fair and i would agree with all of you who complain about that having said that first to be really i think productive here i think we should hone in on the most egregious unfunded mandate that you incur if you can provide that griffin well in my testimony i refer to the brac process and the fact that twenty six thousand defense related employees were transferred to fort belvoir from essentially the metropolitan washington area the national capital region and that has imposed a burden on the state and the county primarily to make transportation improvements to provide access to fort belvoir because the road system serving fort belvoir was already at capacity so we are having to make significant new investments to facilitate getting people in and out of the we have no money forthcoming from the defense department to mitigate those impacts and that is not something we were really consulted about it just happened now the good news for fairfax county is it certainly strengthens the countys employment base in that part of the county and we do appreciate that but it is offset by a significant taxpayer investment without any benefit mister griffin well it is debatable whether there is a benefit or not because as i indicated the employees were already in the region in fact they were vacating leased office space which was a benefit to the private sector and going into space built on federal facilities so the county no longer accesses the property tax if you will that we benefitted from before so  havent done a precise cost benefit but in the long term i think there is a benefit but in the short term there is a significant cost ms speier anyone else yes rolled into our budget when these rules come down and you find out that you are going to have to spend four hundred thousand dollars out of your general fund in the next year that is a near impossibility for a city the size of mine to do so i would say  take into consideration the fact that we have a one year budget cycle so rules need to accommodate that i also believe that it is really important to note that what some of the panelists  talked about is direct and indirect costs and you cant always determine the indirect costs quickly it takes you a little while to get a handle on what some of those indirect costs are for example that nims training it took us a while to get a handle on how much it was going to cost us to comply with the homeland security requirements so we thought at first it was going to be a small amount of money and now it has come out to be in two years three hundred and ten thousand dollars which is not small to my general fund so  i would urge caution in rules like that i would urge that you understand that it is local governments that are going to be funding things like that and you look at whether or not you are actually getting a benefit out of  want input on it that an agency could create a rule seek public comment do they have to abide by that public comment if there were five hundred comments all saying this is a bad idea do they have to respond and say no we can do it is it typical for them to be responsive on that what have you experienced ms dudley there are several requirements on agencies to respond to public comment probably the most important of which is the administrative procedure act which does involve judicial review and if an agency ignored all their but also under the federalism executive order in fact i am on the administrative conference of the united states and we just came out with new recommendations on federal preemption and how agencies should spend more time consulting with information to say this is coming preparatory information ms douglas well we were notified we read articles about the sec proposal to comply with the dodd frank act so we read about that my city treasurer came to me and said okay i think this impacts more than just the city treasurers office and then there was an article i believe in the wall street journal talking about how it is going to affect volunteer boards and there were comments from several state wide i do want you all to know that mister cummings and i practice what we preach with his leadership we introduced a bill to regulate further regulate frankly water quality for the chesapeake bay in the last congress and we created a new standard for local governments in the watershed to have low development impacts to have one standard that applied to everyone but we funded it we provided a substantial amount of money for local governments to apply for grants to fully comply with the new standard  and ours was the only bill that did that but because we were sensitive to this very issue i just thought for the record mister chairman we would point out we practice what we preach and i thank my colleague elijah cummings for his leadership ms dudley you in your no child left behind good intentions unfunded too rigid and i fought with the previous administration and their secretary of education very publicly about this issue so i cant wait to address it in this congress however you talked about maybe creating a new judicial standard that would make it easier to seek an injunction to stay the implementation of a new regulation do you want to just expand on that and then i went to follow up if i may mis  that is all that the act does is require the analysis and as we have discussed it is a small subset of the rules that a normal person might think is an unfunded mandate that actually gets covered the analysis  say well the analysis didnt demonstrate that you have chosen the least costly approach you could mister connolly right let me just ask though in the category of perhaps unintended consequences because everything you just said sounds awfully reasonable to me why wouldnt you do that but in looking at the language of the statute on the books it expressly provides that an agencys failure to perform any estimate analysis statement or description cannot be used cannot be used as a basis for delaying or invalidating a rule so what we just talked about would actually significantly alter the current statutory language  fantone in that report issued two years ago gao said that in terms of the average rulemaking new rule it takes four years if we were to change the judicial review language in umra what m year review process now look like ms fantone you asked me the question that is difficult for me to answer first because again i am not a lawyer either and judicial review is not an area that i feel qualified to talk about the  report you are referring to is a federal rulemaking report in which we tried to identify how long something takes what are the resources and frankly we got a very mixed response a lot of it has to do with the complexity of the rules themselves and to come up with sort of a this is the proper amount of time is not going to be something that i think is a fruitful direction i would like to add to some of the comments that have already been made in terms of suggestions of what congress could revisit and i think address some of the questions here which is right now there is an exclusion for those that dont go through propos rulemaking so that would be an area to revisit whether there is opportunities there to get some of the information that would help balance the equation a bit and then adding to that would be retrospective analysis which potentially could improve cost benefit analysis by looking back and seeing well how well did agencies do in estimating these so i am sorry i didnt answer your question directly but i think these are other things that might assist mi dealing with these issues before in fact ranking member mister connolly was actually on the other side of this table in two thousand and five i was going through the notes on that as a witness there so these are very important comments they are held in record and there will be decisions that will be made in future