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TRIPLE THREAT TO WORKERS AND HOUSEHOLDS: 

IMPACTS OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS ON JOBS, 

WAGES AND STARTUPS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

REGULATORY REFORM, 

COMMERCIAL AND ANTITRUST LAW 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 24, 2016 

Serial No. 114–65 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY REFORM, COMMERCIAL AND ANTITRUST LAW

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas, Vice-Chairman 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DANIEL FLORES, Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 24, 2016 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Darrel E. Issa, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law ........................................................................................ 1 

The Honorable Henry C. ‘‘Hank’’ Johnson, Jr., a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Georgia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law ................................................. 3 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 4 

WITNESSES 

Ryan Murray, Vice President of Operations, Murray Energy Corporation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 14 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 17 

Janet Whitacre-Kaboth, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board, 

Whitacre-Greer Company 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 26 

Jared Meyer, Fellow, Economics21, Manhattan Institute 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 35 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 37 

Patrick A. McLaughlin, Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at 

George Mason University 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 56 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 58 

Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 61 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 63 

Josh Bivens, Ph.D. Research and Policy Director, Economic Policy Institute 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 87 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 89 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 6 

Material submitted by the Honorable Henry C. ‘‘Hank’’ Johnson, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, and Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law .......... 105 

Material submitted by the Honorable Tom Marino, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law ........................................ 116 
Page

IV 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Material submitted by the Honorable Tom Marino, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law ........................................ 122 

Response to Questions for the Record from Jared Meyer, Fellow, Economics21, 

Manhattan Institute ............................................................................................ 146 

Response to Questions for the Record form Patrick A. McLaughlin, Ph.D. 

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University ........ 148 
(1) 

TRIPLE THREAT TO WORKERS AND HOUSEHOLDS: IMPACTS OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS ON JOBS, WAGES AND STARTUPS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY REFORM, COMMERCIAL AND ANTITRUST LAW

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3 p.m., in room 2141, 

Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Darrell Issa, (acting 

Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Marino, Issa, Collins, Ratcliffe, Johnson, Conyers, Jeffries, and Peters. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Daniel Huff, Counsel; Andrea Lindsey, 

Clerk; (Minority) Slade Bond, Minority Counsel; Susan Jensen, 

Counsel; and Rosalind Jackson, Professional Staff Member. 

Mr. ISSA. Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law will come to order. Without 

objection, the Chair will be authorized to declare recesses of the 

Committee at any time. We welcome everybody to the hearing 

today on ‘‘Triple Threat to Workers and Households; Impacts of 

Federal Regulations on Jobs, Wages, and Startups.’’ And I will now 

recognize myself for an opening statement, having made an opening statement simply by reading the title. 

To some people in Washington, it seems naturally, or even desirable, for the world to be governed by an endless, expanding web of 

integrate rules. Perhaps that is because Washington is a city of 

zealous policy advocates and lawyers, of which I am not one. A 

2012 Washington Post article noted that law firms are flocking to 

Washington, D.C., for ‘‘work centered around the capital’s regulatory regime.’’ There is no question that is true. 

I am sure, when I ask each of you your professions, I will get two 

out of four as lawyers as a start. But I think, more obviously, this 

is a city of lawyers. This is a city and a region in which you cannot 

even get off jury duty by being a lawyer because they could not get 

a jury impaneled if they let lawyers off the hook. 

There is a great distance, both physically and socially, between 

the regulators and the regulated. Regulators understand job impacts intellectually. They understand what they hope to achieve in 

the way of protection, but they often do not meet with industry rep-
2 

resentatives, but they are within the D.C. bubble. No one they 

know is going to lose a job because of overregulation. 

Increasingly, there are two different worlds. Perhaps the insensitivity explains the current Administration’s fanatic commitment 

to increased regulations, even as a recovery remains shaky. Each 

year since 2008, regulators have added more than $100 billion; that 

is a billion with a ‘‘B,’’ in new regulatory cost. 

For 2016, the Administration plans 22 ‘‘economically significant’’ 

regulations, up 20 percent from 2015. Outside the Beltway, we feel 

the impact. A National Black Chamber of Commerce study found 

that EPA’s ‘‘proposed Clean Power Plan would impose severe and 

disproportionate economic burdens on poor families, especially minorities.’’ No wonder Gallup recently found a near-record 69 percent of Americans named big government as the biggest threat to 

our country’s future. 

Regulatory advocates, of course, dismiss this. Instead, they focus 

on the aggregate employment. Factory workers may lose their jobs, 

but people in Washington assume they can find other ways to 

make a living: perhaps, go back to law school. And that just shows 

how much out of touch regulatory advocates often are, working 

here in the public world of Washington, D.C. Any count of the ‘‘aggregate number’’ of jobs also ignores the quality of those jobs. 

Data shows that job displacement causes significant and lingering economic and physical hardship. Regulatory compliance jobs 

do not boost productivity; or another way of putting it is you never 

got a faster horse by putting more people on its back. 

Moreover, as formal OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein has argued, even if you are not convinced that regulations kill jobs, regulators need to be ‘‘giving a lot more attention to that risk.’’ Unfortunately, only 20 percent of agencies qualify employment effects. 

Meanwhile, unemployment and underemployment are far higher 

than they are reported at any time, and particularly in January. 

We certainly see the U6 unemployment rate, which includes those 

workers who cannot find full-time work, stands at 9.9 percent. 

Similarly, the labor force participation rate remains at near alltime lows. Many displaced workers have simply given up looking. 

Job creation depends on startups and new businesses. New businesses account for nearly all net new job creation, and almost 20 

percent of gross job creation. Yet the U.S. has dropped from 12th 

among developed economies in terms of business startup activity. 

Economists identify regulatory hurdles as one of the most significant influences on business dynamics. Today, ‘‘almost 40 percent of 

U.S. jobs require a government license, as compared with 5 percent 

just one generation ago.’’ It is worth examining root causes of this 

trend, and when Federal and State regulatory requirements serve 

as barriers to market entry. 

In 2008, business deaths outnumbered business births for the 

first time in 35 years. Overregulation has wrecked the old economy. 

Now, it is suffocating startups. We have a unique panel of witnesses from old-line business, as well as the startup community, 

who can help us understand how deeply this problem is affecting 

our constituents. And I truly look forward to their testimony. And 

with that, I recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, for his opening statement. 
3 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Today’s hearing, the so-called triple threat of Federal regulation on jobs, wages, 

and innovation, is yet another attempt to justify the crony capitalist mission of regulatory reform. To suggest that we do not need 

any regulations and that regulations are terrible and a threat to 

jobs, wages, and innovation is just ridiculous. 

While my Republican colleagues have repeatedly asserted that 

regulations inhibit job growth, all of the available evidence demonstrates that regulations play little role in unemployment. As the 

unemployment rate shrinks month by month, this argument has 

now shifted to wages and innovation. Notwithstanding the slippery 

nature of the regulatory reform debate, the facts remain clear: 

there is little to no connection between Federal regulation and jobs, 

wages, or innovation. 

Leading experts at the University of Pennsylvania conducted an 

exhaustive study in 2014 that found that regulation plays a relatively small role in determining the aggregate number of jobs.’’ 

Earlier studies by a host of experts in economics and administrative law reached similar conclusions. The Economic Policy Institute, San Francisco Federal Reserve, and the National Employment 

Law Project have also refuted the assertion that regulations undermine wage growth. 

And finally, the economics chair at the Mercatus Institute, which 

is a bastion for conservative, free-market economic theory, has debunked the argument that regulations undermine innovation, finding that the exact opposite is true: ‘‘Industries with greater regulatory stringency have higher startup rates,’’ as well as similarly 

high job creation rates. 

Meanwhile, the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 

shows that unemployment has fallen to 4.9 percent, the lowest 

since the George W. Bush recession. That is over 70 straight 

months of private sector job growth. I think that is about 14 million jobs created over the last 70 months. And that is with the 

Obama regulatory system, which, by the way, is very pro-worker, 

pro-environment, pro-public health and safety, and pro-innovation. 

Even conservative economic theorists have given up insisting that 

pro-regulatory policies undermine our economic output. 

As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action 

Forum, and with great gnashing of his teeth noted himself, ‘‘With 

low unemployment and rising wages, the Republicans’ job gets a lot 

harder.’’ Noting that a recent jobs report was ‘‘promising.’’ 

Finally, some will argue today that the sharing economy is proof 

of the positive effects of deregulation. I strongly oppose that sentiment. The sharing economy involves nuanced questions concerning 

the interplay between competition, regulation, and consumer protection. It has opened new markets to competition that did not 

exist just a few years ago, while raising novel and complex regulatory issues. 

But let me be clear. The innovation economy has flourished 

under the Obama administration, just as the Internet blossomed 

under the Clinton administration. It does not exist in a regulatory 

or legal vacuum, and there is zero tradeoff between innovation and 

consumer protection. 
4 

In fact, as studies have repeatedly found, consumers only use 

services where there is a strong foundation of trust. As the Chairman of the Subcommittee knows, I have called for a hearing on this 

subject, the innovation economy, which this Subcommittee exercises ample jurisdiction over. 

Indeed, we could have an entire series on it but, sadly, today’s 

hearing, the 29th anti-regulatory hearing of its kind, will not explore the issues raised by the sharing economy in a thoughtful and 

evenhanded way. But I look forward to action on this issue, and 

with that, I will yield back. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. It is now my privilege to recognize the 

Ranking Member of the full Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Chairman Issa, we have not conducted a hearing 

on the devastating impact that overwhelming student loan debt 

has on families and on our Nation’s economy, or how to strengthen 

protections for employees and retirees of companies and municipalities that seek bankruptcy relief, or the life-threatening public 

health and safety ramifications of penny-wise but, in my view, dollar-foolish budget cuts made by unelected emergency financial 

managers, as illustrated by the catastrophic Flint water crisis and 

the hazardous condition of Detroit public school buildings in Michigan. And these are matters that affect millions of hardworking 

Americans and that have real consequences, not the illusionary socalled triple threat referred to in the title of today’s hearings; and 

I use the term ‘‘illusionary’’ because there is no empirical evidence 

that regulations have a deleterious impact on job growth. 

In fact, one could argue that a strong regulatory environment actually promotes job growth. For example, my colleagues here, on 

the other side, assert that the current Administration has issued 

an unprecedented number of regulations. Assuming that is true for 

the sake of argument, how can they ignore these facts? Three of 

them: unemployment has fallen by half since the 2008 Great Recession. The United States is in the midst of one of the longest-running streaks of private sector job creation in history; and three, 14 

million new jobs have been created over the past 7 years. 

And what about the impact of regulation on wages? The Economic Report of the President, which was just issued earlier this 

week, reports that wages grew faster last year than at any time 

since the Great Recession. 

Admittedly, wages have not increased as much as they should; 

they have remained flat, but the cause is not because of overregulation. Rather, wage stagnation is largely a symptom of workplace inequality fostered by declining union membership and the resultant 

diminished bargaining power of lower- and middle-wage workers. 

Sixty years ago, 1 out of every 4 workers belonged to a union. 

Now, today, less than 10 percent of Americans belong to a union. 

In fact, union membership in some states is less than 3 percent. 

Declining unionization, according to one study, accounts for between a fifth and a third of the increase of inequality since the 

1970’s. 

And finally, with regard to the illusionary thought that regulations inhibit the creation of new businesses, this too is inaccurate. 

Startup companies, by bringing new products and services to the 
5 

marketplace, are vital to productivity growth in the United States. 

And startups create jobs. 

In 2013, startups created more than 2 million new jobs, compared with established firms that accounted for over 8 million new 

jobs. Unfortunately, there are real barriers to entry for new companies. Weak antitrust enforcement over the years has substantially 

reduced competition, thereby allowing larger firms to squeeze new 

entrants. 

In addition, existing firms often lobby for rules protecting them 

from new entrants. Eliminating these real barriers to entry should 

be our Committee’s priority, not spending, yet another hearing 

dealing with illusionary problems. And in closing, I want to thank 

the witnesses for their presence and participation. I look forward 

to the hearing of their testimony, and I thank the Chairman for his 

indulgence. 

Mr. ISSA. I want to thank the Ranking Member for his wellthought comments, and would note that at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the Chairman of the full Committee’s statement 

be placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:] 
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13 

Mr. ISSA. Additionally, I would ask all Members’ opening statements be made a part of the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

I would now ask, before we begin, for all the witnesses to please 

rise and take the oath. Please raise your right hands. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you will give here today 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

Please be seated. Let the record indicate that all our many witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Today we are pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses. 

From left to right, we have Mr. Paul Murray. He is vice president 

of operations at the Murray Energy Corporation. Murray Energy 

Corporation is the largest independent coal company in America. 

He has worked at surface and underground coal mines his entire 

career. His duties have spanned positions from laborer to vice 

president. Mr. Murray earned his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering at West Virginia University and his master’s in business 

administration from the great State of Ohio, Ohio State University. 

Go Buckeyes. 

Ms. Janet Kaboth is president of Whitacre-Greer Company. It is 

a fourth-generation—congratulations, you beat all the odds—family-run company that has been manufacturing clay products since 

1916 in northeastern Ohio. It currently operates a plant in Alliance, Ohio, that employs 80 people. During her over 30 years with 

the company, Ms. Kaboth has held roles in information systems, 

marketing, accounting, and strategic planning. 

Additionally, Ms. Kaboth serves on various industry and community boards. She earned her degree in education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the alma mater of our speaker, Paul Ryan, 

and a master’s in business administration from Baldwin Wallace 

College. And I will take just a moment to say, as a native Clevelander, you spent your whole live within a short drive of where I 

grew up. 

Our next witness, Jared Meyer, is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His area of expertise includes microeconomic theory and 

economic effects of government regulations. His work has been featured in various national publication and media outlets. He is also 

the co-author of a book, ‘‘Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young.’’ 

Mr. Meyer earned his bachelor’s degree in finance with a minor 

in philosophy of law at St. John’s University, where he graduated 

summa cum laude. 

Next we have Dr. Patrick McLaughlin, senior research fellow at 

the Mercatus Center, previously mentioned as apparently not a 

bastion of liberalism. His research has focused on regulations and 

the regulatory process. Prior to joining Mercatus, Dr. McLaughlin 

served as a senior economist at the Federal Railroad Administration. He has published in the fields of law and economics, public 

choice, environmental economics, and international trade and has 

testified before both the House of Representatives and the Senate, 

as well as state legislatures. 

Dr. McLaughlin earned his bachelor’s degree in language and 

international trade, as well as his master’s and Ph.D. in economics 

from Clemson University. Dr. Robert Weissman. Is it Weissman or 

Weissman? 
14 

Mr. WEISSMAN. Weissman. 

Mr. ISSA. Weissman.—Is the president of Public Citizen. His expertise ranges from corporate accountability and government transparency to trade and globalization to economic and regulatory policy. Prior to joining Public Citizen, Mr. Weissman served as director of the corporate accountability organization at Essential Action 

and as editor of the Multinational Monitor. He is widely published 

and has made many media appearances. 

Mr. Weissman earned his bachelor’s degree in social studies from 

Harvard University, and his J.D. again from Harvard, where he 

graduated magna cum laude. No slouch is he. 

Dr. Bivens, you are last but not least. You are the research and 

policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, often called EPI. 

Your expertise includes microeconomics and monetary policy and 

economics of globalization, social insurance, and public investment. 

Additionally, you have provided expert testimony on issues before 

the U.S. Congress, as well as analyses for the United Nations and 

the Trade Union Advisory Committee. Dr. Bivens is widely published, including both books and articles, and has made various 

media appearances. Before joining EPI, Dr. Bivens was assistant 

professor of economics at Roosevelt University and provided consulting services to Oxfam America. 

Dr. Bivens earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the 

University of Maryland at College Park, and his Ph.D. in economics 

from the New School of Social Research. 

Again, I said it was a distinguished panel; it certainly is, and I 

thank you. And with that, I would only, as you might imagine, say 

with this large panel, would you please strictly stay to 5 minutes 

or less? The counter, little traffic light there, will guide you. Green, 

of course, means you may continue as quickly as possible. Yellow 

means you really have to go quick. And of course, red always 

means stop now. With that, we have our first witness, Mr. Murray. 

TESTIMONY OF RYAN MURRAY, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

OPERATIONS, MURRAY ENERGY CORPORATION 

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank 

you. My name is Ryan Murray. I am vice president of operations 

at Murray Energy Corporation, our Nation’s largest underground 

coal mining company. I am here today to discuss the devastating 

impacts from the Stream Protection Rule proposed by the Office of 

Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement: the Nation’s mining 

operations, our proud American coal miners and their families, our 

numerous suppliers, and our communities. 

While I will focus today on the Stream Protection Rule, it is just 

one of many regulations from this Administration that are destroying our industry’s jobs, operations, suppliers, communities, and 

families. 

Murray Energy and subsidiary companies have over 2,000 employees out of work right now from our peak employment of 8,000 

employees in May of 2015. Several hundred of these men and 

women I hired myself. Due to the destructive and illegal actions of 

the Obama administration, our industry is under attack. Now with 

the proposed Stream Protection Rule, our industry will be eliminated for no environmental benefit. The SPR was originally con-
15 

ceived to keep surface mining operations from mining through 

streams. 

However, during the 6 years it took OSM to draft the SPR, the 

rule was manipulated into complete rewrite of the Surface Mining 

Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. This is most likely due to the 

fact that OSM drafted the rule largely behind closed doors and 

without meaningful input from primacy state agencies, nearly all 

of whom dropped out of the formal consultation process with OSM 

because they deemed it to be a sham. 

Now the SPR will ultimately end all underground longwall mining in the United States. Longwall mining is the safest, most modern, cost-effective, productive, and environmentally friendly method 

of mining in existence. As the diagrams attached to my testimony 

show, due to OSM’s incredibly broad and unsupported interpretations in the SPR, extremely vast portions of Murray Energy’s coal 

reserves and those of other coal companies will be sterilized if the 

rule is finalized as proposed. Incredibly, OSM has not even considered the need for a grandfathering provision, which means that primacy states will be required to overturn existing permits for which 

significant time, planning, and resources have already been expended. 

Simply stated, the SPR eliminates the United States coal industry. For underground mining operations, the SPR is expected to 

strand 289 million tons of coal reserves annually, with a value of 

at least $18 billion per year. Additional impacts include a decrease 

in recovery of coal reserves by up to 64 percent, loss of annual contribution to the Nation’s GDP of between $26 and $58 billion, and 

$3 to $6 billion in Federal and state tax revenue reductions. This 

will be devastating for America. 

This is a human issue. Layoffs are expected to be dramatic, with 

between 40,000 and 77,000 coal miners expected to lose their jobs. 

These estimates completely undercut OSM’s ridiculous suggestion 

that there will be minimal job impacts from the rule because coal 

mining jobs will be replaced with compliance and government inspector positions. 

The broader effects of these layoffs will be enormous, as suppliers, retailers, and others feel the impact of reduced spending 

from the mining industry. One outside expert concluded that the 

SPR would cost between 112,000 to 280,000 jobs throughout the 

United States. Another analysis indicates an even greater ripple effect, where one lost mining job causes a loss of 11 additional jobs 

in the community, meaning up to 850,000 lost jobs as a result of 

the SPR. 

For a coal miner, losing a job even temporarily is financially devastating. Most often, their major asset owned by many miners is 

their home. When they have to relocate just to attempt to find 

work, to whom are they supposed to sell this home? Their community is devastated. The Administration asserts that these coal miners will simply be retrained for other work within their communities. The reality is, there are virtually no other high-paying jobs 

in these communities. The average wages of a U.S. coal miner are 

typically double those of the average in their community. 

Additionally, suppliers to the coal industry will be further devastated by the SPR. For example, one major equipment supplier in 
16 

the mining industry, who is a world leader in innovation and development, had their first layoff in the company’s 80-year history just 

last month. The SPR will push this innovation and manufacturing 

to other countries permanently. 

Lastly, the impacts on coal mining communities themselves will 

be significant. Many of these communities rely on coal severance 

tax revenues to fund critical programs and projects, including 

school districts. OSM wholly ignored all of these real-world consequences, which disproportionately affect low-income households. 

The Obama administration’s regulatory assault can best be described as a political power grab of America’s power grid. It is my 

sincere hope that Congress will stop the proposed SPR rule. 

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of our Nation’s 

coal miners, and I will be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murray follows:] 
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ATTACHMENT 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Murray. Ms. Kaboth? 

TESTIMONY OF JANET WHITACRE-KABOTH, PRESIDENT, CEO 

AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, WHITACRE-GREER COMPANY 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting 

me to testify. My name is Janet Whitacre-Kaboth. I am the president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Whitacre-Greer Company, 

which has manufactured clay products in northeastern Ohio since 

1916. As we celebrate 100 years in business, we are very proud of 

our heritage. We operate a manufacturing facility in Alliance, Ohio, 

that employs approximately 80 people. We manufacture firebrick 

for the inside of masonry fireplaces and paving brick. In Washington, D.C., paving brick made by Whitacre-Greer form the sidewalks along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White 

House. 

I am here on behalf of my company and the brick industry as a 

whole, as I serve on the board of the Brick Industry Association. 

We are a very small company within the brick industry. We only 

have one plant that has two kilns. Our industry and our company 

is committed to doing our share and to doing the right thing for 

our employees, our vendors, customers, and communities. 

However, as our industry continues to struggle to come out of the 

Great Recession, we, like many others, have limited resources. It 

is extremely important that these limited resources be used judiciously and on the most important issues. It is critical that every 

dollar we spend gives back some benefit. There are many regulations that affect us, but I am going to talk about two regulations 

today: the air toxics standard or brick MACT developed by the 

USEPA; and the proposed revisions to the silica permissible exposure limit, expected to be issued very soon by OSHA. These two 

rules and their crippling impact on the brick industry illustrate 

how workers and local communities can be devastated by new regulations. 

The current brick MACT is the second time in a decade that the 

EPA imposed major requirements on our industry. The agency finalized a rule in 2003. Our industry complied with the rule in 

2006. But in 2007, the courts vacated the rule. Our industry was 

in compliance with that rule when it was thrown out, and had 

spent over $100 million to install 80 of the 100 controls that now 

exist in our industry. The EPA used the performance of the new 

controls to establish even lower limits for its current rule, which 

it finalized in late 2015. 

For many brick companies, this will require them to tear out the 

existing controls that they spent millions on, and purchase more 

costly new controls in order to produce a slight benefit to the environment. While the brick MACT does allow a health-based standard for some emission types, full compliance will probably require 

the installation of control devices for particulate matter and mercury for most kilns. For our plant in Alliance, Ohio, the estimated 

cost is $4 million for control devices and operation. This represents 

23 percent of our current net worth, which would eliminate at most 

4 pounds of mercury per year. 

In September 2014, OSHA proposed revisions to the current PEL 

for silica. This reduction was proposed as a one-size-fits-all type 
25 

*Note: Supplemental material submitted with this prepared statement is not reprinted in this 

record but is on file with the Committee, and can also be accessed at: 

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=104519. 

regulation that is typical. OSHA estimates costs for this rule to average $38,000 per year annualized over a 10-year period for a brick 

plant. However, compliance would require an initial capital expenditure of about $906,000. 

OSHA has been provided a significant set of studies conducted 

over the last 75 or more years, demonstrating that the response to 

the silica used in the brick industry is very different from other industries, and they acknowledge the much lower incidence rate of 

silicosis from our industry. They also separately acknowledge the 

high costs of their rule. However, they do not put these two pieces 

of data together and consider our industry separately when attempting to show that the rule is justified. 

In both these cases, the statutes that direct EPA and OSHA to 

develop these rules have flexibilities contained with them to allow 

these agencies to meet their obligation without destroying our industry. We just do not know how to make them use these flexibilities and to take the time to do it right, rather than just doing it 

quickly, and to not take a one-size-fits-all approach that will destroy an industry. Compliance with both of these rules at the same 

time will devastate our already threatened industry, where 75 percent of the companies are small businesses. This is well documented in a report issued earlier this month by the U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce entitled ‘‘Regulatory Indifference Hurts Vulnerable 

Communities.’’ 

Practically speaking, from my end, compliance with both these 

regulations would require me to obtain a loan for $5 million that 

would add equipment that would not reduce our cost, improve our 

product, increase our sales, or provide any health benefits for our 

employees or neighbors. It would be impossible for us to obtain a 

loan of this size that would not provide us with any benefits. I 

spent the last 2 years trying to obtain financing for kiln renovation, 

which would reduce our natural gas cost by approximately 

$500,000 per year, but it took me 2 years to find a financial institution willing to lend us the money. The cost of compliance with both 

these regulations at the same time would put us out of business, 

and we are not the only ones. 

If the inability to comply would cause us to go out of business, 

more than $8 million would be lost from our local community; we 

would pay over $4 million in wages to 80 families. Many of our employees would have difficulty finding other employment due to their 

low level of education. 

However, if these regulations would save lives of our workers or 

neighbors, they would be worth it, but for both of these rules, the 

agencies themselves have data that show that the benefits of these 

regulations is minimal or nonexistent for our industry. 

So, I guess I would like to think that after 100 years of providing 

good employment, paying taxes, and trying to be a responsible corporate entity, that someone in the government could look at the cumulative effect of this regulation and help us. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Whitacre-Kaboth follows:*] 
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ATTACHMENT 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Mr. Meyer. 

TESTIMONY OF JARED MEYER, FELLOW, ECONOMICS21, 

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE 

Mr. MEYER. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, and other 

Members of the House Judiciary Committee, thanks for giving me 

the opportunity to give testimony on how the current model of Federal regulation stands in the way of millennial entrepreneurs. 

Millennials have been called the startup generation, but few young 

Americans have followed through on their entrepreneurial dreams. 

About two-thirds of millennials want to work for themselves at 

some point. Yet less than 4 percent of private businesses are at 

least partially owned by someone under the age of 30, the lowest 

annual proportion on record. 

Government policy, particularly in regards to regulation, ignores 

the reality of a 21st century economy and continues to hold back 

millennials’ economic opportunity. Congress has granted executive 

and independent agencies freedom to regulate with minimal oversight, and these agencies consistently understate the costs that 

their pronouncements place on young Americans. It is impossible 

to know the full costs of America’s 175,000-page Code of Federal 

Regulations because executive agencies refuse to take count. 

For example, during 2014, only 16 of the over 3,500 rules published in the Federal Register had a cost analysis. This lack of 

oversight occurred even though there were 290 significant rules 

and 69 economically significant rules that year. These types of 

rules generally have over $100 million in annual negative effects 

on the economy, and are supposed to undergo rigorous review. 

Agencies are also increasingly acting as legislators. In 2015, 

there were over 50 regulations for each law that Congress passed. 

This imbalance shows the need for Congress to take back its authority from agencies. Public review and transparency requirements do not apply to agency guidance documents, memorandum, 

or notices. 

These growing types of shadow, or also called dark matter, regulation lack transparency, even though they can impose substantial 

costs on young Americans. This negative effect can be seen in the 

Department of Labor’s efforts to make it more difficult for independent contractors to work. 

The Labor Department recently issued an administrator’s interpretation, which did not have to go before the public for comments; 

that downplays a lack of control over workers’ hours as a determinant in employment status. The flexibility that independent contractor status offers workers is vital for many industries, including 

the emerging sharing economy. The sharing economy’s embrace of 

technology, convenience, and flexibility embodies many young 

Americans’ economic ideal. While some workers use these platforms full-time, the vast majority use them for part-time work or 

supplemental income. For about the 70 percent of young adults 

who experience an average change of over 30 percent in their 

monthly incomes, the opportunity to smooth out earnings to meet 

rent, pay down student loans, or fund a new business venture is 

a benefit of the sharing economy that must be protected. 
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Young Americans realize how out of touch regulators are with today’s economy. If you look at it, only 18 percent of millennials believe that regulators primarily have the public’s interest in mind. 

The worker classification needs to be sorted out by Congress, not 

courts or unaccountable executive agencies. The alternative is the 

crippling of economic opportunity by executive agencies who are set 

on incorrectly classifying the vast majority of new economy workers 

as employees. 

The House Judiciary Committee deserves credit for establishing 

a task force on executive overreach, as there are many ways that 

Congress can regain control over Federal agencies and restore lost 

economic opportunity for millennials. Part of the reason for the ineffectiveness of previous reforms is the inherent incentives that 

agencies have to expand their reach. Internal regulatory reviews 

have not led to meaningful reform, but how could they have? The 

hands-off approach that Congress has given agencies provides little 

incentive for self-control. 

The three main priorities for meaningful regulatory reform 

should be slowing the continued growth in the cost and number of 

regulations, repealing outdated and burdensome regulations, and 

giving the public a greater say in agencies’ actions. Many promising regulatory reforms have already been introduced in the 

House. The Regulatory Predictability for Business Growth Act, the 

Regulatory Accountability Act, REINS Act, Red Tape Act, and 

SCRUB Act, all address at least one of these important priorities. 

Young Americans need a stronger voice in the regulatory process, 

and their elected representatives can provide that check. 

Millennials value transparency, democracy, and accountability. It is 

long past time for Congress to apply these principles to U.S. regulation. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony, and I look 

forward to continuing the discussion. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Meyer follows:] 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Dr. McLaughlin. 

TESTIMONY OF PATRICK A. McLAUGHLIN, Ph.D., SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, MERCATUS CENTER AT GEORGE MASON 

UNIVERSITY 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, 

Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me. My main 

point today is simple: regulations contribute to poverty. That may 

sound counterintuitive, perhaps because some people assume that 

the costs of regulations are limited to compliance costs, and that 

those costs are paid primarily by businesses. This belief is incorrect. There are at least two specific ways that the costs of regulation can actually be regressive, meaning that the costs are disproportionately borne by low-income households. 

First, regulations have regressive effects by increasing the prices 

of basic necessities, such as electricity and housing, which typically 

are the big-ticket items on the budget of low-income households. 

Second, some types of regulations are associated with higher levels of income inequality, because they make it too costly and too 

difficult for entrepreneurs from the lowest segments of the income 

distribution to start their own businesses. 

On my first point, in contrast to the belief that businesses pay 

the cost of regulation, regulatory growth is in fact associated with 

increases in the prices of all goods for all consumers. 

A recent study, which I have submitted for the record, found that 

a 10 percent increase in the quantity of Federal regulations is associated with a 0.7-perecent increase in prices. While 0.7 percent may 

sound small, consider that this same study found that regulations 

grew by 33.6 percent from 2000 to 2012. A simple linear calculation 

of the effect over time implies that 2.31 percent of price inflation 

was associated with Federal regulatory growth. 

However, if you consider annual compounding, which would be 

appropriate given that this is a rate of growth, the total price inflation associated with regulation over that period is close to 9 percent; and I promise I will not mention annual compounding again. 

That percentage is the average across all households, but the price 

inflation associated with regulation is worse for low-income households because the big-ticket items in their budgets also happen to 

be heavily regulated. For example, electricity costs make up more 

than twice as much of the budgets of low-income households compared to high-income households. Because it is heavily regulated, 

the regulatory price inflation associated with the good is also relatively high. 

My second point is that regulations can contribute to income inequality. In the study that I submitted for the record, a co-author 

and I examined a sample of 175 countries to learn more about the 

relationship between regulation and income inequality. We found 

that those countries with more stringent entry regulations tend to 

experience significantly higher levels of income inequality. The explanation for this is straightforward: when entrepreneurs cannot 

legally open a business because of the cost or difficulty of dealing 

with regulations, they may abandon the idea altogether. 

Consider the longstanding reputation of America as the land of 

opportunity, where you can lift yourself up by your bootstraps with 
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**Note: Supplemental material submitted with this witness statement is not reprinted in this 

record but is on file with the Committee. The complete statement can be accessed at: 

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=104519. 

enough hard work. Indeed, entrepreneurship has historically been 

one of the best paths from rags to riches. If regulations are inhibiting this process, people with low incomes have fewer opportunities to rise up the income distribution. 

In sum, there is mounting evidence, mounting empirical evidence, that regulations are contributing to poverty. First, they have 

regressive effects caused by increasing prices, particularly for those 

items that low-income households purchase most. 

Second, regulations can contribute to income inequality by increasing the cost of starting a business. This makes it more difficult for entrepreneurs to start their climb up the income ladder. 

Although these facts are surely disheartening, there is good 

news. Because regulations disproportionately harm low-income 

households, regulatory reform offers an opportunity to enact a policy that would effectively act like a tax refund, because it would reduce the price inflation associated with regulations. 

However, unlike a one-time tax refund, the benefits from regulatory reform would repeat year after year. They would not increase the deficit, and they would be progressive in their nature. 

That is, they would accrue foremost to low-income households. The 

regulatory process in the United States leads to regulatory accumulation, the buildup of rules over time. 

Federal regulatory code currently contains over 1 million individual regulatory restrictions. If you actually tried to read regulations as a full-time job, it would take you over 3 years to read the 

entire code: over 3 years. 

The accumulation of regulation is both undesirable because of 

the unintended consequences associated with it, and avoidable. If 

this accumulation of regulation is harming not only the economy 

but especially low-income households, it is certainly time to consider ways that we can eliminate regulations that are obsolete, duplicative, ineffective, or otherwise undesirable. We can and should 

change the regulatory process to reduce the ways that Federal regulations are hurting, not helping, low-income households. Thank 

you for your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McLaughlin follows:**] 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Mr. Weissman. 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT WEISSMAN, PRESIDENT, 

PUBLIC CITIZEN 

Mr. WEISSMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Johnson, Members of the Committee. This hearing is constructed around looking 

at the costs of regulation, but it does not make sense to think only 

about the costs without looking at the benefits, without thinking 

about how it nets out for society. 

You mentioned in your opening statement that it is important to 

take into account the impact of regulation on real, live people, and 

that is true, but we have to think about that for regulatory benefits 

as well. When we fail to protect the safety of our food, real people 

get sick and die. When we make our air clean, lives are saved: real, 

live people’s lives are saved. 

When we improve safety and health in our workplaces, it makes 

a difference for real, actual people. These are not hypothetical matters. They make a big difference, and the history of regulation in 

America is that it has conferred enormous benefits on our country. 

It has actually conferred not just health, safety, and environmental benefits, but significant economic benefits. Now, I think 

there is a substantial literature of non-empirical and poorly constructed studies that suggest the contrary, but when you actually 

look at regulations that are adopted—in fact, look at the costs, look 

at the benefits, as OIRA does on an annual basis—the benefits exceed costs by between 2-to-1 or 15-to-1. 

As an aside, the study that Mr. McLaughlin was just referring 

to relies on data from the World Bank. The long time lead to establish a business in the United States—four days in that study. Hard 

to see how that is a significant contributor to economic inequality. 

Regulation, additionally, is not responsible in any scaled-up way 

for job loss. Before the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped collecting 

data, very few employers reported that regulation was responsible 

for layoffs, as compared to general business demand. And if we 

pause for a moment and think about our recent history, and what 

is by far the greatest contributor to job loss, not just in the last 10 

years but in the last 70 years, it was the Great Recession, due in 

substantial part, by almost any account, to regulatory failure: either too few regulations, too much deregulation, too little regulatory enforcement. 

So, in fact, it is regulation; and it is lack of regulation and lack 

of regulatory enforcement that has been by far the greatest contributor to job loss, as well as, of course, disruption to families, households, and wages. 

Moreover, there are substantial savings available, economic savings, that come from smart regulation. I list a number of examples 

in my testimony. Energy efficiency rules have saved consumers 

hundreds of billions of dollars. The introduction of generic competition for pharmaceuticals has saved more than $1.5 trillion, as compared to brand-name prices, over the last decade. The Administration’s Clean Power Plan would save between $260 and $840 billion 

in net costs, and would actually reduce overall energy bills for 

households if it were to take place, if it is to be ultimately implemented. 
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A final point, as has been noted, this Committee and Washington 

has been engaged in a debate about regulatory policy for quite 

some time, and revisited many similar arguments, I think, over 

time. And it might be useful to move beyond the same back-andforth debate, to have a more empirically-informed debate, but also 

to think about where there can be a meeting of minds. 

And as regards the issue of startups and small business, it seems 

to me that there is a great opportunity to think about how regulation can promote competition and benefit small businesses. 

For example, there is substantial evidence of manipulation in the 

energy markets, which directly impact the ability of small business 

to operate effectively. That would be an excellent area, in my view, 

for further Committee investigation and for congressional action. 

There is a substantial problem of patent trolls and the abuse of 

patent monopolies to undermine innovation in the IT sector. There 

are problems from too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail financial institutions not providing adequate credit to small businesses. That is 

an appropriate area for investigation and action by this Committee 

and by Congress. 

Mr. Johnson has introduced legislation to address the problem of 

forced arbitration, which denies even small businesses the ability 

to bring antitrust claims against large corporations that are engaged in unfair and monopolistic practices against them. That, too, 

I think is an area where there should be action, where we can see 

where regulation will actually empower small business, increase 

market competition, and make our country stronger, safer, and 

more financially well-off. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weissman follows:] 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you. And certainly you got a rise positively 

when you talked about patent trolls. Thank you. Yeah, there you 

go. Dr. Bivens. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well with arbitration also. 

Mr. BIVENS. Thank you. 

Mr. ISSA. Something for everyone. Doctor? 

TESTIMONY OF JOSH BIVENS, Ph.D., RESEARCH AND 

POLICY DIRECTOR, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE 

Mr. BIVENS. I thank the Members of the Committee, and particularly the Chair and the Ranking Member, for the invitation to testify today. I am the Research and Policy Director of the Economic 

Policy Institute, and I am also a macroeconomist by training, which 

means I have a pretty decent grasp on what the best research indicates are the drivers of overall trends in job creation and wage 

growth. 

This research is clear that regulatory changes at the Federal 

level are not primary drivers of these trends; and this finding applies both to the long historical record, as well as to recent economic history, for example, during the recovery from the Great Recession, a recovery that officially began in mid-2009. 

Over the course of this recovery, there is really little evidence 

that a surge in excess regulation has held back either job growth 

or wage growth. Perhaps the clearest evidence of this can simply 

be seen by looking at the profitability performance of the U.S. business sector since the recovery began. The case that some regulatory 

surge since 2009 has strangled businesses’ ability to expand really 

should rest on evidence that regulations are making production 

less profitable. But production has not become less profitable for 

American business since 2009. Both pre- and post-tax profit margins have essentially matched 50-year highs during the latest recovery. 

And so, there is very little evidence that lack of profitability or 

anything about regulations imposing excess costs on businesses 

could really be holding back employment growth in today’s U.S. 

economy; and people have noted that employment growth has not 

really been held back. We have had 71 straight months of private 

sector job growth. The one really clear weakness in job growth during the current recovery is the public sector. 

Federal, state, and local governments have actually shed jobs 

about two-and-a-half percent over the course of the recovery, in 

very stark contrast to any other postwar recovery. In the recoveries 

in the early 1980’s and early 2000’s, public sector jobs grew by 

about 11 and 5 percent, respectively. So, it is really hard to see any 

fingerprints of excess regulation stunting job growth over the past 

7 years. 

You know, this is not to suggest that no rule ever cannot be disruptive to any community. If the argument is that regulations with 

net benefits should be accompanied by measures to ensure that no 

specific set of communities bear a disproportionate burden of the 

gross costs, that is a very worthy conversation to have. That is unfortunately not the conversation that we generally have about regulation. 
88 

Turning to wage growth, it is clear there is a genuine problem 

in the American economy. The bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution has seen essentially stagnant growth in hourly pay over 

about the last three decades. That includes the period in the late 

1990’s where wages were actually pretty good, when labor markets 

got very tight. 

But the problem with stagnant wage growth certainly did not 

begin in 2009. Hourly wages for the bottom 70 percent were stagnant over the economic recovery that preceded the Great Recession. 

And hourly pay for the typical worker has actually steadily fallen 

behind growth in economy-wide productivity since the late 1970’s. 

And this wedge between economy-wide productivity growth and 

hourly pay for the typical worker has been driven, in large part, 

by regulatory retreat, not regulatory overreach. 

The fallout from the Great Recession is the clearest cause of 

stagnant wage growth recently. This recession was caused, as Rob 

mentioned, largely by the failure of regulators to check access in 

the financial sector. 

Besides the regulatory failure that contributed to the Great Recession, the stagnation of hourly pay has been driven by intentional 

policy decisions, lots of regulatory decisions that took away traditional leverage mechanisms for low- and moderate-wage workers. 

The value of the Federal minimum wage was allowed to erode for 

excessively long periods of time without Congress raising it. The 

playing field was not kept level between willing workers who wanted to form a union and employers who were trying to block such 

efforts. 

Federal protections guaranteeing the right to overtime pay were 

allowed to really stagnate as the salary threshold was not updated 

for inflation. Lack of enforcement in wages and hours has made 

wage theft rampant for low-wage workers. I would say American 

workers really do have real wage problems, but they do not have 

much to do with any alleged excessive regulations passed in recent 

years. 

And I would echo the call that the regulatory debate in turn 

should hinge on the pros and cons of specific regulations, and not 

rely on sweeping claims about some bundled, homogenous mass of 

regulatory changes that are allegedly driving economy-wide trends 

in job and wage growth. 

And with that, I thank you for your attention. I am happy to answer questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bivens follows:] 
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Mr. ISSA. Thank you. I will recognize myself for some questions. 

And doctor, since your microphone is still close, pull it in, Dr. 

Bivens. My father-in-law was a World War II Army Air Corps pilot. 

He was a bomber pilot out of England flying over Germany, and 

I am sure that when the Fourth Air Force and all these others 

were rating what happened on a given day, if they sent out 100 

planes and 99 came back, it was a good day. And if they sent out 

100 planes and 80 came back, it was a bad day; but whether you 

were one of one or among the 20, for you it was a really bad day 

regardless. 

So, when you gave the macroeconomics view, you really were not 

addressing what is happening to an 80-person employer in Alliance, Ohio, who after 100 years is being faced with essentially having to buy her company anew, almost, just to comply with the regulation. For her, she is being shot down, is she not? Or a coal company that effectively is losing all of its resources through retroactive regulation. So, for those two, there is an economic impact, 

is there not? 

Mr. BIVENS. Yep, there definitely is. There is also jobs created by 

regulatory changes as well. 

Mr. ISSA. Yeah, usually here in Washington. That is true. 

Mr. BIVENS. And for places that do energy efficiency to meet 

these same regulations that are affecting energy—— 

Mr. ISSA. Again, those are the people on the horse. You know, it 

is one of those amazing things, is here in Washington, they always 

think that more people on a horse makes the horse go faster, rather than more horses make it go faster. And this is also a place 

where, as you know, there is more horse’s asses than horses. 

But it is absolutely amazing to me that everybody thinks a good 

job is a job sitting on the back of a horse telling the horse to go 

faster, not actually getting more horses to actually pull the load. 

Ms. Kaboth, I am going to focus on you in my short time, since 

we are fellow Ohioans, and although I went to Kent State, so it is 

a little different curriculum. But—— 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. I will not tell you what we say about 

Kent People. 

Mr. ISSA. ‘‘If you cannot go to college, go to Kent.’’ I know it. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. There you go. You already know. 

Mr. ISSA. We know that. And then, we even say worse things 

about some of our athletic teams. However, let’s go through 100 

years of your family’s history. I assume you were making bricks 

100 years ago, including some of them on Pennsylvania Avenue, as 

you said in your testimony. Materials you use substantially the 

same 100 years ago? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. Basically it is clay and shale, raw 

materials from the ground. We used to use coal to burn them; now 

we use natural gas. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. So, 100 years ago, you used coal. You burned it 

naturally, the way they do in Hanoi today. So, black smoke, it was 

pretty awful, no question at all. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Right. 

Mr. ISSA. And as you switched from coal to maybe cleaning up 

coal a little bit, and then ultimately to natural gas. Either way, 

your particulate count went down much cleaner, right? 
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Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And that transition occurred over many, many 

years, right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. And so, you made a decision to convert your kilns or 

to buy new ones at the end of a cycle, when you decided to reinvest, 

right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Correct. 

Mr. ISSA. So, the speed of new regulation at that time was one 

in which you were looking at changes in a way in which your company could meet those requirements and plan for them, right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Now, you mentioned that recently, you upgraded some 

of your equipment, and you bought—made a large capital investment, and that that capital investment was somewhat based on existing regulations you were complying with. And now you are being 

asked to comply with regulations when in fact that equipment is 

still relatively new. Is that your testimony? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. ISSA. So, in your case, if I understand correctly, for the 4 

pounds of mercury a year that your plant would put out, and correct me if I am wrong, that 4 pounds of mercury at a given production level is about the same 4 pounds it was 100 years ago, right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. So, we are not talking about a new pollutant. We are 

talking about something that was in place in the 1960’s and 1970’s 

when these laws were put in place. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. So, after 40 or 50 years of the government having the 

ability to regulate, and after they regulated and caused you to 

make capital investments just a few years ago, they are now asking 

you to make another major capital investment: essentially, bet your 

company on new equipment to deal with something that is been 

around for 100 years and certainly for the 50 years, 40-some years 

of the Clean Air Act. Is that right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. That is correct. 

Mr. ISSA. So, your testimony today, if I understand it—and I just 

want to stick to your testimony because I have lived that life as 

a manufacturer—is there is nothing wrong with your wanting to 

invest in new equipment and reduce this. It is the fact that they 

want you to do it on their schedule, which is immediate, rather 

than on a reasonable schedule of compliance that gives you time 

to plan for and make those capital investments in the ordinary 

course of how people improve their business. Is that right? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Last question. The age of your equipment—what is— 

you said you had relatively new kilns. How old are they? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. We have a kiln that was built in 1955. 

Our second kiln, we have been renovating, and it was built in 1960. 

Mr. ISSA. And I am going to close with this. You mentioned that 

it took you years to get the loan so you could begin getting a new 

efficiency level that would save, I believe, half a million dollars a 

year? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 
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Mr. ISSA. And on a $4 million payroll, that is a lot of money. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. So, if the government really cared about the balance between your reducing CO2 emissions by taking $500,000 worth of 

burning of natural gas out versus this 4 pounds of mercury, they 

would actually be helping you get a low-cost lender loan so that 

you could reduce that consumption, would they not? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. That would be really nice. 

Mr. ISSA. Sometimes we just miss Ohioans when we are looking 

for energy savings. Thank you. And I now recognize the Ranking 

Member for his questions. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank the members 

of the panel for coming here today to testify. Mr. Murray, it is your 

contention that regulations are what is resulting in your industry 

not doing as well as it had in the past? 

Mr. MURRAY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Which rules in particular, in addition to the 

Stream Protection Rule, are you unhappy with? 

Mr. MURRAY. In addition to the Stream Protection Rule, we have 

the Clean Water Rule, the mine dust rule, the ozone rule, and the 

Clean Power Plan that we are currently dealing with, along with 

a myriad of other regulations that have been pushed under this 

Administration. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Now, you are aware of the fact that 95 percent of 

the world’s scientists, as I understand it, all agree that the burning 

of fossil fuels like coal produce heat-trapping gases that are the 

main cause of the ongoing rise in global atmospheric temperatures. 

Mr. MURRAY. I am not a climate scientist; I am a coal miner. But 

I will say that by the EPA’s own admission, you could shut down 

every coal-fired power plant in the United States, and it would 

have a negligible effect on the climate. That is a fact; they have 

stated as such. 

I am here today to talk about the Stream Protection Rule. This 

is a real issue. It is a job killer. It is going to affect those on fixed 

income, low-income families, senior citizens, and it is a catastrophic 

rule that will destroy underground coal mining in this country. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, you know, there are a lot of organizations 

that take a different view of the Stream Protection Rule, and they 

see a need for regulations to protect clean water, to enable us as 

people to enjoy clean water. And you know, regulations have their 

place, do they not? 

Mr. MURRAY. Yes, absolutely. We are for clean water. There are 

laws on the books right now with the Surface Mining Control and 

Reclamation Act of 1977. Those rules are complied with daily. We 

have more environmental scientists on staff than we have mining 

engineers. So, we work with the state and Federal agencies continually and apply our good science and good faith and sincere concern for the environment on a daily basis and we work with those 

agencies. And the rules that are on the books now, they work, and 

they do not need to be materially rewrote under the Stream Protection Rule. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I can appreciate your view on that. And others have a different view. And, you know, the fact is the coal industry is subject to a lot of pressure from—I mean, Ms. Kaboth, her 
103 

industry or her company has moved away from coal-fired plants or 

coal-fired production to natural gas. Is that right, Ms. Kaboth? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And so, natural gas is one of your competitors, Mr. 

Murray. Is that not correct? 

Mr. MURRAY. Absolutely. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is another factor that is causing your industry to not be doing as well as it once did? 

Mr. MURRAY. That is correct, yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And you believe that—both of you believe, do you 

not, that health of workers is a legitimate area for regulation? 

Mr. MURRAY. Absolutely. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So, you are not contesting any occupational safety 

rules, occupational health and safety rules, are you? 

Mr. MURRAY. In the mining sector, we have one called the mine 

dust rule, which on its face sounds like it is a health and safety 

rule that would help our miners but, in fact, it does not. But as 

far as occupational safety health measures, it is the only thing we 

would be contesting. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And, Mr. Bivens, your conclusion is that these regulations have no impact on job creation or investment or profits or 

even wages for workers. Is that correct? 

Mr. BIVENS. Not at the economy-wide level. There is definitely 

some shuffling of jobs. You do have some negative impacts in some 

sectors of the economy that are counterbalanced by positive impacts elsewhere. But aggregate trends—no, regulatory changes are 

just not a primary driver. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Mr. Weissman, you are the only attorney 

on the panel. I share that dubious distinction with you, although 

I appreciate having that distinction. Anything you would like to 

add? 

Mr. WEISSMAN. I think it is just important to remember two 

things. One is that for—— 

VOICE. Could you move it a little closer? 

Mr. WEISSMAN. Closer? Two things. One is that it is natural for 

regulated companies to push back against regulations that are 

newly being required of them. The record of industry complaining 

about the next regulation ready to destroy it is not a good one, including, I must say, in the coal industry particularly. But this is 

true going back to the New Deal and bankers, chemical companies, 

restaurant and hotels worried about clean air rules related to tobacco. I detail some of this in my testimony. That is one thing. 

And the other thing is, the stories are compelling. And as Dr. 

Bivens suggested, individual firms may actually be impacted, but 

there are individuals who are benefiting as well, and we are not 

hearing from them today. The person who is protected from silica 

dust exposure and resulting cancer—that is a real, live life saved 

as a result of the rule that is being talked about here. And there 

is going to be hundreds of lives saved every year by the silica rule 

that we are discussing. 

You go down the list of these, of the regulations, we are talking 

about; they have these net benefits. We aggregate them. But those 

net benefits are really an expression of the lives that are saved, the 
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lives that are improved, the quality of life that is guaranteed as a 

result of the rules that are under discussion today. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Thank you. My time has expired, so 

thank you. Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to enter 

into the record a letter from the coalition of environmental groups 

in support of this, the stream rule, and also a letter from the American Sustainable Business Council that is regarding this hearing. 

Mr. MARINO [presiding]. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

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Mr. MARINO. Okay. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman 

from Georgia, Mr. Collins. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will say this, though— 

and we are going to get to Mr. Murray and Ms. Kaboth. I thank 

you all for being a part of this panel. You actually work in industries and not discuss other industries, and I always think that the 

greatest thing about these panels—no offense to my legal experts 

and my think tanks—you are actually hiring people, getting people 

jobs, doing those kind of things that actually are being affected up 

here in Washington. 

And being a part of this panel makes great sense. The thing that 

just—and I have sat up here for just a few moments. And again, 

Mr. Bivens is probably the most—and I am not saying dishonest 

or—the truthful thing you said just a moment ago was the shuffling of jobs—that one may have a problem in where it—you know 

where that greatest impact is shown is in Washington, D.C. We 

have been wonderful at creating jobs in Washington, D.C. We have 

been wonderful at creating regulatory impact jobs in Washington, 

D.C. 

We have not been very good—I mean, when you have—I am 

going to just name some things here because, Mr. Chairman, this— 

I could not think of a better—I have got banks that are being regulated by more regulators than the bank has employees. And the 

regulators get mad because they do not have someplace to sit 

down. 

Mr. Weissman, you just said the silica rule. I was in environmental monitoring before. You know what one of the problems with 

the silica rule is? They cannot get honest measurements. They cannot determine actual levels. You go to the granite industry in my 

district, and you actually go into one of these facilities where they 

are already using protective devices and try and measure ambient 

silicate. I mean, it sounds great. You are going to save so many 

other people. It sounds wonderful, but yet, the practicality is almost impossible to read. 

You get into phosphate readings in Lake Lanier in northeast 

Georgia in which the phosphate levels taken from the sample are 

too small to be accurately counted, but yet the cities and counties 

are required to meet a level in which the Federal Government cannot even verify. 

We talk about issues when it comes to the position of saying regulations help. There is nobody in this room, and this is where the 

straw man arguments often come out in this, that Republicans do 

not like regulations; we want unsafe air; we want to drink dirty 

water; we want to do this. That is ridiculous. What is unfair to the 

American people is to come up with rules and regulations and say, 

‘‘Well, they do not affect people.’’ I have got an industry in my district, RING, (?) which is a nonprofit. They are wanting to expand 

and want to do, but they got caught with the 50 full-time equivalent issue. Now, we can say that, you know, that regulations do not 

affect jobs, but they cannot afford to grow because of these regulations that have been put on them. 

Every night that I am thankfully home, I get to sleep with and 

have a great relationship with a wife who is a teacher. I am tired 

of hearing my wife for 26 years—because one of the things we talk 
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about is jobs in this Committee and regulatory in this Committee 

is, we need an educated workforce, but, yet, we have an ever-expanding Department of Education up here, many who of which 

have never been in a classroom. Banking regulators who have 

never made a loan, telling the rest of the world how to make a 

loan: that is just ludicrous. Educators sitting in a cubicle saying, 

‘‘Here is how you teach kids,’’ and have never taught in a classroom. 

It is not the fact if regulation matters. It is the fact of Washington on steroids thinking, ‘‘We know better than everywhere 

else.’’ If you want to help industry, if you want to help manufacturers be—I have yet to walk into a factory in which the general manager says, ‘‘Doug, watch today. We are going to maim three people. 

Doug, I want you to watch this. We are hiding the ball, and we 

want to see people’s fingers cut off today. It is fabulous. Watch it.’’ 

When you have OSHA, which lives off its own fine system, hiring 

regulators, increasing the fine schedule, and going in, and this is 

what they do. They fine first instead of showing businesses, ‘‘Here 

is a better way. Here is how you can fix the problem’’—never seen 

that in your industries, I bet. But instead, it is because they have 

to keep their job. They are better than used car salesmen. OSHA 

inspectors have to write up and have to get fines, and then they 

settle the fines. If that is the regulatory environment that this 

country wants, then we are headed straight for disaster. 

So, to say silica is going to save all these lives—Mr. Weissman, 

show me how you are going to measure that in the ambient air. 

Show me how that is actually going to save people. I believe several things. I believe you eat right, you exercise daily, you follow 

your doctor’s instructions, you die anyway. There are some things 

in life that are just attributable to living, and to say we are going 

to save so many people by something that you honestly cannot 

measure is a disingenuous remark to a country that is struggling 

for jobs and education. 

Mr. Bivens, you said it right. Regulations help some areas, and 

they hurt others. My problem is, they hurt these people on this end 

who are actually trying to give people jobs, and they help people 

up here who have never done the jobs. I do not have any questions, 

Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. MARINO. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 

York, Congressman Jeffries. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank the 

witnesses for your presence here today. And if I could just start 

with Mr. Meyer, and perhaps we can take a macroeconomic approach to the economic situation that we find ourselves in today. 

Is it your view that regulations that have been put forth under this 

Administration have stifled economic growth in America? 

Mr. MEYER. I would say that there are specific examples of regulation that have made it harder for young people to start businesses. But I would say this is by no means a phenomenon that 

is unique to this Administration. If you look back at the history of 

regulatory growth and accumulation, it has been unfortunately a 

bipartisan priority to continue increasing the size and scope of Federal regulation. 
111 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, we are in a period of unprecedented economic growth, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. I would not call it unprecedented. I would agree that 

we have seen an impressive streak of monthly job growth. But we 

still have not reached levels that would be expected this long after 

the recession. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Seventy-one consecutive months of private sector 

job creation is impressive, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. It is impressive that it is been unbroken. But if you 

look at the employment levels, especially taking into account decreased labor force participation, I think there are still a lot of 

problems going on in the labor force right now, especially—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Fourteen million jobs created under this Administration is impressive, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes, but if you look at, for young people, the labor 

force participation rate for teenagers now is at the lowest rate ever; 

same with for young adults 20 to 24, and this is not accounted for 

by increased education or increased people who are going to school. 

So—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Over the last 7 years, the unemployment rate has 

gone from over 10 percent to under 5 percent, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Could you say that one more time? Sorry. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. I said, over the last 7 years, the unemployment 

rate has gone from over 10 percent to under 5 percent. Is that correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Well, overall. But if we are looking at unemployment 

rates for young people, it is now still over 16 percent for teenagers, 

and it is pushing 9 percent for young adults 20—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Teenagers who would otherwise be in high school 

or college? 

Mr. MEYER. These are ones who want a job and are looking for 

a job but are unable to find one. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. I certainly think it is the case that we need to do 

more. I just want to make sure that the record is clear as it relates 

to the progress that has already been made over the last 7 years. 

Now, you testified, I believe, that the length of the U.S. Code of 

Federal Regulation is preventing millennial entrepreneurship because, I want to get the quote right, ‘‘attempting to comprehend 

which of these million-plus restrictions apply to their businesses is 

a waste of young entrepreneurs’ valuable time.’’ Is that right? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes, that was in my testimony. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, there are a whole host of other factors that 

limit the ability of millennials to pursue entrepreneurial activities, 

correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes, there are many, among them, having trouble 

finding a job, student loan debt. There are a lot of other factors. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now, let’s focus in on what I think is the predominant problem that we have got in America. Student loan debt is 

now $1.3 trillion, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. That is correct. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. That is an unprecedented number in American 

history, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 
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Mr. JEFFRIES. And that level of student loan debt, which is strangling young people, limits their ability to purchase a home earlier 

than or along the same timeframe as prior generations. True? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. When 70 percent of graduates are graduating with an average of $30,000 in student loans, that does put a burden on your future. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. And it may even limit their ability to get married, 

start a family consistent with the timeframe of prior generations, 

correct? 

Mr. MEYER. I think that is one of the factors that has led to delayed marriages. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. And would you not also agree that that $1.3 trillion number is probably the predominant factor in limiting 

millennials from taking an entrepreneurial risk because of the need 

to consistently pay off student loan debt on a month-by-month 

basis? 

Mr. MEYER. Since the summer, since my book came out, I have 

traveled across the country and spoken to hundreds of millennials, 

a lot of them that want to be entrepreneurs. And student loan debt 

was brought up. But also, a lot of people, when they wanted to 

start their business, they thought it was as simple as, you know, 

have an idea, comply with a few basic tax and regulatory requirements, and then start earning money, or start providing opportunity to others. And they—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. I appreciate that. I have got limited time, so—— 

Mr. MEYER. Okay, sorry. 

Mr. JEFFRIES [continuing]. If I can just get one or two questions 

in. 

Mr. MEYER. Yeah. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. But I do really appreciate your thoughtful responses. Now, Facebook is a successful company, true? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. And that was founded by millennials, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Twitter is a successful company, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Correct. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Started by millennials. True? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes, in general. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Snapchat is a successful company? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes, and that—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Started by millennials, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. Uber is a pretty successful company. True? 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Started by millennials, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Just over the millennial cutoff, but pretty close. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. Yelp is a successful company, correct? 

Mr. MEYER. Is—which company? 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Yelp. 

Mr. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Started by millennials? 

Mr. MEYER. I am not sure if Yelp’s founder was a millennial or 

not. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Okay. No further questions. I yield back. 
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Mr. MARINO. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ratcliffe. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think everyone here 

knows and hopefully agrees that unnecessary regulations hurt job 

growth and suppress wages, but we often talk about that conceptually. We talk about it in broad strokes. We talk about tens of 

thousands of jobs that will be crushed by a new regulation created 

by some unelected bureaucrat or the millions of dollars in compliance costs. But those tens of thousands of jobs are not just numbers; they are individuals, and they are families. They are hardworking Texans like a lot of the folks that I represent. And those 

millions of dollars in compliance costs do not just appear out of 

thin air. Those are funds that could otherwise be used to pay salaries or to create more jobs or to invest in future growth. 

Just 2 months ago, Gallup released a poll that found that 69 percent of Americans name big government as the biggest threat to 

our country right now and in the future, not ISIS, not out-of-control 

spending, not a broken health care system, not a nuclear Iran. 

Now, those threats are certainly all real. But right now, 7 out of 

10 Americans are most worried about a rapidly growing government, a government that does stifle opportunity instead of fostering 

it. And it is a real problem, as we are hearing today. It is forcing 

companies out of business that have been around for almost a century. Real people are losing their jobs. Businesses are not growing. 

So, Dr. McLaughlin, I want to start with you. Regulators do not 

seem to understand that the world is interconnected. They appear 

to view each regulation in isolation and do not seem to understand 

that they are actually crushing the jobs of their fellow Americans. 

I want to give you an opportunity to elaborate on this very narrowminded, naive, in my opinion, view of the world. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Thank you. Yes, typically a regulatory impact 

analysis performed by a regulatory agency looks at a single proposed rule in isolation and that is not a bad thing. But it is also 

necessary to consider that rule as part of a system of rules. And 

to paraphrase, actually, Ranking Member Johnson, there are 

nuanced questions concerning the interplay of various forces here, 

and those should be considered. Complexity of the regulatory system can in itself be a negative force in our economy. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. So I think you would agree with me that the 

claimed societal benefits of regulations are often inflated. And if 

you do agree with me, who is it that is pushing the inflated benefit 

estimates, and why are they doing that? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. A couple of thoughts on this. First, the benefits estimates that are typically referred to are coming out of agencies’ estimates before they make regulations. They are not estimates after the fact. It would be wonderful if we could implement 

a system of measuring both costs and benefits after rules have had 

their effects and we understand whether they are actually working 

or not. That would be a good way, if there is inflating going on, to 

avoid that. 

But second, I also think it is relevant to consider the incentives 

of anyone who is engaged in a measurement activity, whether it is 

agencies or someone else. If agencies have incentives to make their 

numbers appear one way or the other, then perhaps you want to 
114 

have independent analysis or another analyst take a look as well 

to corroborate. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Thank you, doctor. Ms. Kaboth, your testimony 

touched on two very troubling trends that we are seeing: one, outof-touch regulators who seem to have no grasp of the real-world impact of the regulations. You said they need to understand the local 

impacts of their rule on real people whose real lives may be ruined 

by losing their job. I could not agree more. 

You also discussed a troubling pattern by this Administration of 

imposing an illegal regulation forcing the industry to spend sometimes millions of dollars to comply with it, only to then have courts 

throw that regulation out. And by that time, of course, it is too late 

for the companies who have spent all that money to do anything 

about it and to comply. So, as an individual business owner and an 

employer, I want to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit 

about the human element and consequence of those two trends. 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. My family has owned this company for 

100 years, and a few years ago we had to make a decision with our 

next generation of owners if we wanted to continue to make brick, 

or if we wanted to try and cash out. It was becoming more expensive to be a manufacturer. The markets were smaller, and one of 

the things that we really talked about was the role of regulation. 

How much were we going to have to spend in the future, and would 

it be worth it? It is expensive to make brick. Everything about it 

is expensive, frankly. However, when we talked about it with the 

entire—we got the entire family together, and we all wanted to invest in continuing to make brick. And it was not just us, because 

the people that we work with—we have worked with their families 

for a long time, and we feel responsible for the 80 people that work 

at our plant. It is not very many people, but they are our people 

and we want them to continue to have jobs. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. My time has expired. I would just like to say this 

in closing: that your company has been in your community for almost a century. That is quite a feat. Congratulations. It would also 

be quite a shame if the reason it stopped doing business was—after 

nearly a century—was because of unnecessary regulatory interference. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you. I will now recognize myself for several 

questions. And I apologize for being late, but I had a piece of legislation on the floor that I had to be present for. I want to thank you 

all for being here. I know everyone is genuinely concerned about 

the issues presented to them. We just have a different aspect of 

how to get there, but I will get to you two gentlemen in a moment. 

I want to ask Mr. Weissman—excuse me, Mr. Murray—Mr. 

Weissman referred to something in his testimony that, ‘‘a history 

of regulated industries’ Chicken Little claims about the devastating 

impact of proposed rules.’’ Would you share with me some of the 

conversations you have had with people that—in your company 

about what they have expressed to you about losing their jobs or 

the potential of losing their jobs? What it is going to mean to them 

and to their families? 

Mr. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your question. It is 

devastating. I have talked to many of our employees. We have 

2,000 that are laid off right now. I have had to lay off many of 
115 

them myself. They express outrage. Financially, they have nowhere 

to go. And there is no job for them to go to. Our coal miners are 

making around $80 to $100,000 a year. These jobs are irreplaceable 

anywhere in their community. 

Some of the greatest reward in my career has been when I have 

hired someone that literally was working at a fast food restaurant 

and we gave him a job opportunity; he improved his standard of 

living, bought his first house, had his first child, grew up, sent his 

kids to college. We get to see those things on a daily basis, and 

with this Stream Protection Rule, that will not continue to exist. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you. Ms. Kaboth, you say compliance with 

OSHA’s silica rule threatens the entire industry. Can you share 

with us how many silicosis cases have you had in the last 40 to 

50 years with your company? 

Ms. WHITACRE-KABOTH. None at Whitacre-Greer, which is what 

I know. None. 

Mr. MARINO. I would like to read something into the record. ‘‘In 

January of 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ seasonally adjusted U-3 unemployment rate fell to an 8-year low of 4.9 percent. 

But this figure masked workers who are underemployed or who 

have left the workforce. When those categories are included, the 

picture is much more troubling. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U6 

employment number, which includes those who cannot find fulltime work, and those about a million, stands at 9.9 percent, almost 

10 percent, more than twice the U-3 rate.’’ 

So, I see that all the time in my district. People who have goodpaying jobs are now rated as being full-time employed because they 

are cutting grass or working part-time at a fast food stand. 

Gentlemen, there is no one that is more concerned about the environment as I do. I live out in the country. I get my water from 

the ground. I have children, and I want to protect them with my 

life. But we are getting to a point where—well, just let me read you 

something—actually, I do not have the quote; I will find it, and get 

it in the record. But an international organization stated that— 

they were talking about China and India. They are the single— 

China, but in addition to the other country I named, are the single 

largest sources of pollution in the world, not only with coal, but 

also with what they are burning, and what they are dumping into 

their waters. 

And it goes on to refer to—that if the United States stopped 

using all fossil fuels whatsoever, it would be negligible, if anything, 

that would have any impact on cleaning up the environment. So, 

I do believe that humans do create pollution problems, but I do not 

agree with the extent that is, I think, being propagated out there. 

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Mr. MARINO. I am not sure which one of you, but you stated that 

jobs, in your opening statement, stated that jobs are created when 

jobs are lost; and I invite you to come to my district, the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania and I can assure you—there is 

an electric plant that generated electricity using coal. It is out of 

business. I can assure you, those people are not coming to Washington to get a job. 

So, you know, can—you know, the benefits that you are stating, 

I think, Dr. Bivens, you stated quite a bit the benefits of this: they 

are overstated, as well as the other side of the coin here. 

So even looking at the banking industry—I hear it from the 

banking industry. I hear it from the coal industry, manufacturing, 

the food industry; OSHA, EPA, the Labor Bureau: the regulations 

are just crushing jobs in my district. I had a banker just tell me, 

when I was in my district last week, for—if I have the figures 

right—17 days, 12 regulators were in their bank. So, they had to 

pay so much attention to those people, they were not giving the 

customers the service that they really deserved. They were not 

working on loans. They left, and everything was fine. 

So, I think the pendulum is swinging in the wrong direction, and 

even though my time has expired, as the Chairman, I have a little 

bit of clout here and I will certainly give my colleague, if he wants 

to ask other questions, but what do you suggest? 

I mean, you are both very well educated men, but have you 

ever—and please do not take this personally—have you ever visited 

a coal mine? Have you ever visited an electric-generating power 

plant? Have you ever visited a construction site where a guy builds 

three houses a year in trying to make a living, but he cannot now 

because now he has to build a reservoir at the tune of $20,000 

within a three-house project to take care of so-called runoff water? 

Help us out here. Mr. Weissman? 

Mr. WEISSMAN. Well, a few things, Mr. Chair. First, on the environmental point you made, there are some global environmental 

issues like climate change. In that case, it is not true that if the 

U.S. were to go to zero emissions, it would have no impact on the 

global problem. It would have—— 

Mr. MARINO. I did not say no impact; that it would have negligible impact. 

Mr. WEISSMAN. It would not be negligible. It would have a significant impact and would also have a demonstration impact that 

would change other things. But—— 

Mr. MARINO. Yeah, but you think we should be demonstrating to 

the world, to China, who keeps pumping out the burning coal, at 

the risk of us losing jobs? 

Mr. WEISSMAN. I will answer; I do not want to try to dodge your 

question. But I did not want to ignore the other pieces of what you 

were saying. No. I mean, obviously the U.S. is not going to go to— 

is not on track to go to zero emissions. If you actually look at the 

Clean Power Plan, though, as I discuss—and which is the actual 

plan on the table, as I discuss in my testimony—that will lower 

electric bills for consumers. So, it is going to be both a net savings 

on cost-benefit analysis. But just on the consumer side, in terms of 

what we spend on electric bills, we will save money as a result of 

the Clean Power Plan. 
119 

Mr. MARINO. In the long run. But what do you say to the electric 

plant that puts scrubbers in that they were supposed to put in 5 

years ago and then gets another order from EPA saying, ‘‘Now you 

have got to put this on top of the scrubbers,’’ which costs millions 

and millions of dollars, and 172 people are put out of work? I 

mean, there has to be a cost analysis in here taking into consideration the jobs, and as far as expanding jobs in D.C., believe me, you 

do not want to go there with me. 

Mr. WEISSMAN. I mean, I am happy to go there with you because 

I agree with you. There are too many jobs that the regs—and to 

the earlier member’s point about distrust of big government, the 

stories about regulated industry having too much power, not being 

subjected to an overreach Washington—that is what people are objecting to—that big corporations have too much influence, that they 

are the ones who are writing the rules, that they have too many 

lobbyists here. 

Unfortunately, Public Citizen and our friends—we are not really 

a match in terms of numbers. That is not really the problem. So, 

I agree that there is a broad perception of that. I think the assessment of what that means is off. I do not think actually people are 

saying they want the government to stand aside. They just want 

the government to stand with them. 

I take very seriously job loss. Mr. Issa is gone; I am from Cleveland as well, and I come from an auto family. I come from a family 

that works with injured workers. I know these issues quite well. 

No one from Cleveland is insensitive to the issue of job loss. But 

if we think about regulatory issue and job loss, there is no question 

that the most significant impact was the regulatory failure that led 

to the Great Recession. And if we want to sort of talk about what 

is the role—what is the connection between regulation and jobs, 

that we did not prevent the financial sector from causing the Great 

Recession, by far the biggest story of the last 7 years on job loss. 

Mr. MARINO. Okay, I do not dispute you with that. In fact, I 

agree with you. But from a regulatory perspective of banks and 

lending, sure, that is important. We need a certain degree of regulation, but I was more so pointing to examples of manufacturing 

jobs in my district, which is a rural district and a farming district. 

And I think you are aware of what the EPA tried to do in the farming industry with the Army Corps of Engineers—simply saying because there is a puddle of water on a farmland, this gives them the 

right, through the Navigable Waters Act, to come in and to regulate. 

Listen, I live in the middle of five farms. I have not seen a boat 

come through there yet, but I think we want the same thing. It is 

just a different approach. Dr. Bivens, do you want to respond to 

any of this? 

Mr. BIVENS. If I could, really quickly. I mean, a couple people 

have said it now: the claim that the jobs created by regulatory 

changes are in D.C. There is no evidence that they show up in D.C. 

And in fact, if you look over the past recovery, it is the public sector that has been really weak in job creation, historically weak in 

job creation, while the private sector has done very well. 

So, you take the environmental regulations we have talked 

about. The jobs created through regulatory changes—they are con-
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struction workers retrofitting buildings and weatherizing them. It 

is people who manufacture and install renewable capacity; some 

people bringing forward natural gas capacity sooner than it would 

otherwise. It is not jobs in D.C. They are entirely outside. 

Mr. MARINO. And I agree with you, particularly in the natural 

gas aspect, one of the most clean-burning fossil fuels that we have. 

I mean, we should be building an infrastructure on that. 

But again, you are comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing sitting behind a desk doing something, where most people 

in the United States do not sit behind a desk. They are farmers. 

They work in factories. They have to go to part-time jobs because 

we do not have the industry in this country because, in part, because of the environmental controls and OSHA and others. So, we 

could debate this. 

I would love to talk to you more so in the future about this. But 

given the fact that we are running close to 5:00, we are going to 

shut down now the question-and-answer part of this. And I appreciate everything that all of you have brought to our attention because these are clearly hearings that we want to get the facts. We 

want to get issues out. And that will help us make determinations 

on how we legislate or should be legislating in this country. 

So with that, this concludes today’s hearing. I want to thank all 

you witnesses once again for coming here, spending time with us, 

traveling here. And I want you to have a safe trip back to wherever 

you are going. And without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. And this hearing is 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned subject to 

the call of the Chair.] 
(121) 

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD
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Material submitted by the Honorable Tom Marino, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law 
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f 
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Response to Questions for the Record from Jared Meyer, Fellow, 

Economics21, Manhattan Institute 
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f 
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Response to Questions for the Record form Patrick A. McLaughlin, Ph.D. 

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University 
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Æ