[Pages H7253-H7259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

MIDNIGHT RULES RELIEF ACT

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1616, I call up
the bill (H.R. 115) to amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code,
to provide for en bloc consideration in resolutions of disapproval for
``midnight rules'', and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate
consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kean of New Jersey). Pursuant to House
Resolution 1616, the amendment in the nature of a substitute
recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary, printed in the bill, is
adopted, and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:

H.R. 115

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Midnight Rules Relief Act''.

SEC. 2. EN BLOC CONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTIONS OF DISAPPROVAL
PERTAINING TO ``MIDNIGHT RULES''.

(a) In General.--Section 801(d) of title 5, United States
Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(4) In applying section 802 to rules described under
paragraph (1), a joint resolution of disapproval may contain
one or more such rules if the report under subsection
(a)(1)(A) for each such rule was submitted during the final
year of a President's term.''.
(b) Text of Resolving Clause.--Section 802(a) of title 5,
United States Code, is amended--
(1) by inserting after ``resolving clause of which is'' the
following: ``(except as otherwise provided in this
subsection)''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following: ``In the case of a
joint resolution under section 801(d)(4), the matter after
the resolving clause of such resolution shall be as follows:
`That Congress disapproves the following rules: the rule
submitted by the __ relating to __; and the rule submitted by
the __ relating to __. Such rules shall have no force or
effect.' (The blank spaces being appropriately filled in and
additional clauses describing additional rules to be included
as necessary).''.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for
1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking
minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective
designees.
The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) and the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Nadler) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

General Leave

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arizona?
There was no objection.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in support of H.R. 115, the Midnight Rules
Relief Act.
This is an important piece of legislation that will allow Congress to
more effectively and efficiently oversee Federal agency rulemaking.
Under the Congressional Review Act, known as the CRA, executive
agencies must report all promulgated rules to both Chambers of
Congress. This reporting requirement allows Congress to properly
consider Federal regulations before they take effect. The CRA gives
Congress the ability to pass a joint resolution to prevent an agency's
rule from taking effect.
The CRA's disapproval mechanism gives Congress a critical check on
Federal administrative overreach. Currently, however, the CRA forces
Congress to introduce a single, separate joint resolution for each
agency rule it seeks to render unenforceable. This one-by-one limited
joint resolution under the CRA slows Congress' oversight of agency
rulemaking.
Its inefficiency is most clear during the midnight rulemaking period
of the last year of a President's term, when executive agencies
historically issue substantially more regulations that last year of a
President's term.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 115 would make Congress' oversight more efficient
during this midnight rulemaking period by allowing Congress to
introduce joint resolutions covering multiple agency rules during the
final year of a President's term.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle may claim that this bill
is only an attempt to slow down agency rulemaking or disincentivize
Federal agencies from issuing rules on important issues, but that is
incorrect. There are no provisions in this bill designed to slow down
rulemaking. Rather, this bill would merely allow Congress to more
efficiently exercise the oversight authority it already has and respond
to the influx in agency regulations during the midnight hours of a
President's term.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I
reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, despite the bill's title, H.R. 115 is not really
intended to address midnight rules, but rather is an effort by our
Republican colleagues to advance their antigovernment, deregulatory
agenda under cover of darkness.
This legislation may appear to be a modest change to the
Congressional Review Act, but do not be fooled. It would enable the
Republican-controlled 119th Congress to use a turbocharged CRA to
nullify every rule issued by public agencies under the Biden
administration for the entire year of 2024 in a single party-line vote.
Under the CRA, if a rule is overturned, agencies are forever
prohibited from considering, without new congressional authorization, a
``substantially similar'' rule, an unreviewable, vague, and harmful
standard that would undermine agencies' statutory missions.
Doing away with dozens of rules at once, as the Republicans intend
with this bill, would substantially weaken agencies' ability to protect
the public long into the future.
While historically the CRA has been used sparingly, after Donald
Trump's first inauguration in 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress
used the CRA to repeal 16 rules issued by the Obama administration, an
all-time high. Critical rules on teacher training, internet privacy
protection, and the prevention of water pollution from coal mines,
among many others, were all repealed over a few short weeks.
It seems that Republicans have even bigger ambitions for the next
deregulatory spree as they pursue their unabashedly antigovernment
agenda.
Rather than consider agency rules on their individual merits, they
want to package as many rules as possible into a single resolution to
eliminate them

[[Page H7254]]

all at once with little debate or deliberation over the merits of each
individual rule. The results of this single vote could be catastrophic.

{time} 1415

Right now, there are dozens of regulations at risk of summary
execution, including rules that ensure the safety of bath seats for
infants, implement the National Suicide Hotline Act, create dust-lead
and lead pipe safety standards, update chemicals listed under the Toxic
Substances Control Act, update heavy vehicle automatic emergency
braking standards, and ensure all cell phones are hearing aid
compatible, among others.
Why do Republicans feel they even need this power? Maybe it is
because they realize that many of the agency rules that they constantly
rail against are actually popular with the American people.
Taking a series of votes making it easier for corporations to pollute
the environment or take advantage of the most vulnerable would likely
not be well received. Better to overturn as many rules as possible in a
single vote, reducing transparency and obscuring the consequences.
Make no mistake, whether those votes are held individually or en
bloc, the American people will be the ones to bear the consequences.
With Republicans in charge of the House, Senate, and White House, it is
likely that every rule the Biden administration has issued in the last
year will be on the chopping block, along with the protections those
rules provide to our constituents' health, safety, and economic well-
being.
In addition, striking down a bundle of rules at once means not only
that each rule will not be considered on its own merits but also that
months and years of agency time and taxpayer dollars, along with the
expert analysis and public comments from industry, nonprofit groups,
and individual Americans, all will have been wasted.
Members on both sides of the aisle have recognized that midnight
rulemaking, if left completely unchecked, can lead to abuses by the
executive branch, but true midnight rules are rarely issued, and there
is already a lookback period under the CRA to address rules promulgated
at the end of any congressional term.
If we are truly concerned about so-called midnight rules, we have
other options to check them. For example, at the end of President
George W. Bush's administration, I authored a bill that would delay
implementation of rules issued near the end of a President's term,
giving his or her successors a chance to review such rules and to
determine if they should go forward.
I believe there are ways we could work together in a bipartisan
manner to address this issue.
Where past efforts tried using a scalpel to address the problems
associated with midnight rulemaking, today's Republicans would instead
use a machete, hacking away at the Biden administration's regulatory
agenda and furthering their ideological goal of radically transforming
our government.
None of this should be a surprise. H.R. 115 is a key plank of Project
2025, the blueprint for the incoming Trump administration. Project 2025
calls for ``dismantling'' the administrative state and argues that
doing so must be ``a top priority for the next conservative
President.'' That is because, according to the document, ``the only
real solution is for the national government to do less.''
To be clear, the ``less'' that they want to do refers to the
important and expert work undertaken by the country's Federal agencies
protecting consumers, workers, and the public from corporations and
people that break the law.
We should reject any backdoor efforts that would eviscerate vital
regulations, would open rules and protections to even more political
interference, and could prevent agencies from ever working on similar
issues again, all with just the most cursory examination by Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to oppose the Midnight Rules Relief
Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cline).
Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for
introducing this important bill.
It is no surprise that House Democrats are once again standing
against the wishes of the American people. The voters voted on November
5, and they voted for Donald Trump to be President. They are seeking to
stop Donald Trump's administration from doing anything even before it
starts.
Last week, it was judges. They didn't want the incoming
administration to look forward and appoint judges to fill vacancies.
Now, they don't want the incoming administration to be able to look
backward and stop the flurry of last-minute regulations that are coming
out of the Biden White House, midnight rules issued in the final days
of a President's term.
The Democrats should listen to the voters. Their failure to listen to
the voters is why, for the next 2 years, they are going to have a
timeout. Their tantrums are not going to be listened to anymore because
the voters have given them a timeout.
These midnight rules are rushed through without sufficient review,
public input, or thorough consideration of their economic impact. They
are politically motivated policies that may not reflect the will of the
American people or the incoming administration.
This bill addresses the problem by extending the window for
congressional review of regulations after an administration's final
year. It is vital because it would allow Congress to undo the onerous
rulemaking of the Biden administration here in the last days, the rules
related to the Green New Deal, environmental regulations that heavily
rely on renewable energy transitions and increase the cost of everyday
products for Americans, or the rules promulgated by the ATF that
significantly curtail the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding
citizens.
It is about ensuring transparency and accountability in our
regulatory process. It is about giving the American people a voice
through their elected Representatives--note, their elected
Representatives--preventing regulatory overreach by the vast
bureaucracy and protecting our economy from last-minute policies that
could have a lasting impact on taxpaying Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I support this important legislation and encourage my
colleagues to as well.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).
Mrs. RAMIREZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Nadler for
yielding.
We are in the people's House, and we often say that democracy is
built on checks and balances, but my Republican colleagues seem to have
no respect for the fundamental separation of powers.
H.R. 115 is a bald-faced attempt to expand the power of Congress in
order to abuse the power of Congress. Let me say that again: H.R. 115
attempts to expand the power of Congress so that it can then abuse the
power of Congress.
While a process to address specific agency rules may have been
finalized in the late hours of an outgoing administration, there are
already systems in place to address it.
Republicans want to have the power to go back 60 legislative days--
think about that; that can take us as far as May--and bundle dozens or
even hundreds of agency rules into one single resolution. Then, they
want to go as far as forbidding the agency from issuing any rules that
are substantially the same in the future.
We are seeing today exactly what Republicans plan to do in the next 2
years. While leading the most unproductive Congress in U.S. history,
they also want to expand their power so when they do take action, when
they finally take action, they can inflict the maximum damage on rules
and policies that benefit working people, working Americans.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I would like to
offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House
rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an amendment to
this bill to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee and exclude
any rule that was noticed more than 6 months prior to when the rule was
finalized.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of this
amendment into the Record immediately prior to the vote on the motion
to recommit.

[[Page H7255]]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Illinois.
There was no objection.
Mrs. RAMIREZ. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in
voting for the motion to recommit.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let's just address the previous speaker first of all. We already have
a 60-day legislative lookback in the law. We are not changing that.
That is apparently an objection that my colleague had.
We already have in the law that a substantially similar rule cannot
be introduced if the Congress says no-go on it. Apparently, that is
what my colleague's beef is. That is already the law.
What we are allowing now is for Congress to actually look at more
than just a piece-by-piece, one here, one there, maybe you get a dozen
to 18. You really don't ever get much more than that in a congressional
lookback in the CRA.
Let's review what the Biden administration has done. The rules that
they have promulgated in the last year alone have an economic impact of
$1.4 trillion on the economy. There are individual bills in this packet
here. This is just for the last little bit, the lookback period. There
are 68, and that is with 30 days to go. There are 68 of them in here
that I am holding up.
One of my favorites is the $45 billion boondoggle that they have got
here. It is a rule, and $45 billion is the impact on that one. Let me
see if I can read it. It is the national primary drinking water
regulation for lead.
Here is the deal: It doesn't get looked at under the Democrats'
concerns, but it does under ours. Why do you need to look at it? It
just seems to be common sense that if you are going to have a $45
billion rule, maybe we ought to get to look at that.
We are going to come together to actually be able to effectively and
efficiently put together these rules in a package. They are going to be
marked up. They are going to be heard. If we think that it is
justified, we get a chance to vote on it. Members can make their
amendments to it. They can do everything else that we can have in the
process, but the current methods that we are doing right now slow this
down so much that we effectively review just a handful of rules,
literally, of the dozens and dozens and hundreds of rules. Like I say,
there have been 68 in the last little bit here that this administration
put through.
When my colleagues across the aisle start talking about this rule or
that rule, I challenge them to go through here and tell me how many of
these rules they have even looked at. Are they aware of what is even in
these rules? Are they aware of how much they are going to cost? Are
they aware of the impact that it has on the working individual or an
industry or the American people as a whole? No, they don't have that.
Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we pass this bill. I am going to
leave it there. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I ask unanimous consent to
include in the Record a letter from more than 250 organizations
representing workers, consumers, and the environment opposing H.R. 115.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New York?
There was no objection.
December 16, 2024.
Hon. Mike Johnson,
Speaker, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,
Democratic Leader,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Johnson and Democratic Leader Jeffries: The
Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) and the undersigned
organizations strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 115, the
Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2023.
H.R. 115 would amend the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to
allow simultaneous disapproval of dozens of regulations
finalized near the end of presidential terms using a single
joint resolution. The bill also would create unnecessary
confusion about whether rules issued outside of the lookback
period can be swept in. The effect of this bill would be to
greatly expand the CRA's anti-regulatory force by amplifying
the harmful impact of the CRA's ``salt the earth'' provision,
which bars agencies from issuing new rules that are
substantially the same as the rules that are repealed. It
would also make it easier for narrow majorities of lawmakers
to repeal recently completed safeguards without the due
consideration and deliberation that Congress should employ
before taking such drastic steps. As such, the operation of
the bill would significantly constrain agencies' authority to
carry out their statutory missions to protect the public.
The proposed legislation is based on a fatally flawed
premise--namely, that regulations which are proposed or
finalized during the so-called ``midnight'' rulemaking period
are rushed and inadequately vetted. In fact, the very
opposite is true. In recent months, the Biden Administration
has finalized regulations that increase overtime pay to put
more money in the pockets of working families, limit carbon
emissions from polluters to fight climate change, increase
fuel efficiency standards to make cars cleaner, protect
workers from harmful ``non-compete'' clauses in employment
contracts, block companies from taking advantage of consumers
with ``junk fees,'' put new limits on toxic ``forever
chemicals'' that poison communities across the country, and
many more. Unlike CRA resolutions, which can sprint through
Congress in just a few weeks, many of these regulations that
will benefit the American public had been in the regulatory
process for years.
In July 2016, Public Citizen released a report that
compared rulemaking lengths for rules finalized at the end of
the term or during the presidential transition period to
those that were finalized outside of this period. The results
were noteworthy. The report found that rules issued during
the presidential transition period spent even more time in
the rulemaking process and received even more extensive
vetting than other rules.
Prominent administrative law experts have also concluded
that the concerns regarding these regulations are not borne
out by the evidence. For example, in 2012 the Administrative
Conference of the United States (ACUS) conducted an extensive
study of regulations finalized near the end of previous
presidential terms and found that many end-of-term
regulations were ``relatively routine matters not implicating
new policy initiatives by incumbent administrations.''
ACUS also found that the ``majority of the rules appear to
be the result of finishing tasks that were initiated before
the Presidential transition period or the result of deadlines
outside the agency's control (such as year-end statutory or
court-ordered deadlines).'' ACUS concluded that ``the
perception of midnight rulemaking as an unseemly practice is
worse than the reality.''
Supporters of H.R. 115 have presented no persuasive
empirical evidence supporting their claims that regulations
were rushed near the end of presidential terms. Likewise,
they have supplied no evidence that such regulations did not
involve diligent compliance with mandated rulemaking
procedures. In reality, compliance with the current lengthy
regulatory process prevents agencies from finalizing new
regulations efficiently, and thus earlier in presidential
terms.
In the end, it is difficult to overlook the tragic irony at
the heart of H.R. 115. It would empower Congress to use the
Congressional Review Act (CRA)--a process that is rushed,
nontransparent and discourages informed decision-making--to
block rules that have completed the long journey through the
rulemaking process.
Unlike the CRA's expedited procedures, agency rules are
subjected to myriad accountability mechanisms, and, for each
rule, the agency must articulate a policy rationale that is
supported by the rulemaking record and consistent with the
requirements of the authorizing statute. In contrast, members
of Congress do not have to articulate a valid policy
rationale--or any rationale at all--in support of CRA
resolutions of disapproval. Quite simply, they can be, and
often are, an act of pure politics. H.R. 115 would make the
situation even worse. It would, in effect, demand that all
members of Congress have adequate expertise on all of the
rules that would be targeted by a single disapproval
resolution. Such a scenario would be highly unlikely.
It would also risk encouraging members to engage in ``horse
trading'' to add still more rules to the disapproval
resolution until enough votes have been gathered to ensure
the resolution's passage. Surely, this approach to
policymaking cannot be defended as superior to that
undertaken by regulatory agencies.
Public Citizen, which co-chairs CSS, is actively tracking
the CRA resolutions introduced in the 119th Congress. At
least 50 rules are vulnerable to repeal through the CRA, and
another 52 would be vulnerable if finalized before the end of
the current administration. In the current Congress, 22 out
of at least 109 CRA resolutions have faced votes on the House
or Senate floor. The targeted rules protect small businesses,
workers, consumers, students, veterans, investors, people of
color, clean air, clean water, renewable energy, wildlife,
gun safety, among others.
Further, instead of empowering Congress to bundle CRA
resolutions, Congress should investigate if the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO) role in evaluating whether
agency actions are rules, and therefore subject to the CRA,
is an appropriate authority for the U.S. Comptroller General
given that the CRA provides GAO with no authority whatsoever
to make such determinations. This review overrides an agency
decision that the particular action was not a rule and gives
members of Congress the ability to request a determination
that could lead to a resolution of disapproval under the CRA.

[[Page H7256]]

CSS agrees that the CRA is in dire need of reform, but
instead of expanding its harmful effects, as the Midnight
Rules Relief Act of 2023 would do, we encourage the Committee
to evaluate proposals that would limit those effects. One
such measure is H.R. 1507, the ``Stop Corporate Capture
Act.'' Among its many real and meaningful reforms to
strengthen the regulatory process, the Stop Corporate Capture
Act would address one of the most problematic aspects of the
CRA by eliminating the ``salt the earth'' provision discussed
above. Critically, the Stop Corporate Capture Act would also
create a fast-track reinstatement process for rules that were
the subject of resolutions of disapproval.
We look forward to assisting the Committee in ensuring that
our regulatory process is working effectively and efficiently
to protect the American public.
CSS strongly urges opposition to H.R. 115, the Midnight
Rules Relief Act of 2023.
Sincerely,
Accountable.US; AFL-CIO; American Bird Conservancy;
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME); Americans for Financial Reform; Animal Welfare
Institute; CalWild; Center for Biological Diversity; Center
for Economic Integrity; Center for Food Safety; Center for
Progressive Reform; Center for Responsible Lending; Christian
Council of Delmarva; Citizen Action/Illinois; Coalition for
Sensible Safeguards; Consumer Action; Consumer Federation of
America; Consumer Federation of California; Consumers for
Auto Reliability and Safety; Earthjustice.
Economic Action Maryland Fund; Economic Policy Institute;
Endangered Habitats League; Endangered Species Coalition;
FOUR PAWS USA; Friends of the Earth; Government Information
Watch; Greenpeace USA; Impact Fund; Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility; Kettle Range Conservation Group;
Large Carnivore Fund; League of Conservation Voters; National
Association for Latino Community Asset Builders; National
Consumers League; National Health Law Program; National
Wolfwatcher Coalition; National Women's Law Center; Natural
Resources Defense Council; Oceana.
P Street; People Power United; Physicians for Social
Responsibility; Public Citizen; Public Justice Center;
Resource Renewal Institute; RESTORE: The North Woods; Rise
Economy; Southern Environmental Law Center; Team Wolf; Texas
Appleseed; Tzedek DC; United Auto Workers (UAW); United
Steelworkers (USW); Vermont Public Interest Research Group;
Virginia Citizens Consumer Council; Womxn From The Mountain;
Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona says the Biden administration
has enacted rules that will cost $1.4 trillion. Over what period of
time, he doesn't tell us, and I don't know whether it is correct or
not, but I am sure, in terms of the budget, the Democratic and
Republican staffs of the Appropriations Committee are looking at them
very carefully every year.
He picked one as an example, $45 million to protect against lead
poisoning. Lead poisoning is a real problem. It leads to mental
deficiencies in children. If there is a $45 million rule to deal with
this, that sounds fine to me.
The real question is, maybe we ought to examine that rule. Maybe, as
Mr. Biggs said, there is something wrong with that rule. Maybe we ought
to repeal that rule, but we have the procedure to do that in the
current law.
What this bill seeks to do is to say: Don't look at that law. Take 25
rules and put them together so that you can't examine any one of them,
and in one vote, we will get rid of 25 rules. Maybe some of them are
good rules, and maybe some of them are bad rules, but no one is going
to get a chance to debate them because we have one vote, one bill.
That is what this bill does. This bill says to combine all the CRAs
into one CRA vote. CRAs are a proper exercise of congressional power.
It helps us control the executive, whether it is Democratic or
Republican. Nobody argues against a CRA--well, maybe a particular CRA,
but no one argues against the idea of a CRA. A CRA ought to be looked
at individually. We ought to look at the merits of the CRA, maybe
debate it on the floor. Maybe Republicans support it and Democrats
oppose it, or maybe the other way around. Maybe it splits not along
partisan lines. Maybe it is very clear that we want to do it, but we
ought to look at it.

{time} 1430

This bill says take 25 CRAs and have one vote so that we can't look
at the merits of the individual CRAs, and with one vote, we may be
doing immense damage to the health, safety and welfare of the American
people, or not. We have no way of knowing because we can't study the
CRAs individually.
This bill is pernicious because it combines everything into one vote
and denies us the ability to look at the merits of each. Therefore, it
ought to be defeated.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, when I first got to Congress, I was sitting in the
Senator from Utah Mike Lee's office, and I said, hey, I don't
understand this. You have got a stack on your desk here of about 4
inches, and yet you have a 13-foot tall stack of documents right next
to it. What does that symbolize?
He said, the 4 inches are the total number of laws passed by Congress
in the last year. The 13 feet is the total number of rules and
regulations promulgated by administrative agencies. That is what we are
facing.
When my colleague says, hey, we can look at 25--do you know what the
high recently has been? It has been 17 in a year, 17 individual ones.
Guess what? My bill doesn't say you can't look at these. In fact, it
does the opposite. It encourages us to look at the rules. If they are
good, they will stand. If they are not good, they will fail. That is
what Congress is supposed to do. Another colleague would say, we are
trying to expand Congress' power.
No. The Founders were clear. In the Constitutional Convention it
isn't three separate coequal branches. It is three separate but unequal
branches.
The legislative branch is supposed to be the most powerful. That is
why it got funding. That is why the House is supposed to do the funding
because we are the people's House. We are ostensibly closest to the
people in the Federal Government.
They don't want you to look at the rules promulgated by unelected
bureaucrats. They want you to just blithely go ahead with it. That is
the problem.
So when my colleague stands up and says, well, I don't know the cost.
Maybe that cost is $45 billion. Maybe Biggs is right, maybe he is
wrong. I don't know what is in the regulation. Maybe it is good, maybe
it is not.
The essence of that argument is that we really shouldn't look at it.
Really? Don't look at the law?
That is not what we are saying. We are saying, indeed, look at the
regulation, and let's get as many regulations as we possibly can and
look at them. That is what we are trying to do.
Let me give you one right now. This is another one right here. If you
happen to be fortunate enough to buy a piece of property, no matter how
large or how small, and you can pay cash for it--and oddly enough, I
was able to buy a couple of acres of property not long ago--it was
actually a long time ago, about 25 years ago now, back before property
blew up in cost in my area--well, if I were to pay cash now, that
transaction is going to be heavily regulated, and it is going to cost
the economy and cost taxpayers $2.2 billion.
By the way, these aren't Biggs' numbers, these are the Biden
administration's numbers. When the Biden administration's number says
we imposed $1.4 or $1.37 trillion on our regulations, that is not me
talking. That is the Biden administration admitting that their
regulatory impact is $1.4 trillion.
Maybe we should look at that. Let me just add this: This notion that,
gee, we need to look at these one at a time, and if we only get through
16 or 17 that is really odd because--it is ironic, actually. Tomorrow
probably or the next day, you are going to see an omnibus, a short-term
omnibus, come to the floor. They are calling it a CR, but it is really
a short-term omnibus. In that bill are loads and loads of spending,
loads and loads of policy.
Guess what? They are all going to vote for it. They just don't want
you to look back at the rules that this administration has put into
place.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, another rule on the chopping block is to update heavy
machinery emergency brakes.
Does my colleague also want to roll back this rule, a rule that will
save lives?
If the will of the people is truly that we roll back these lifesaving
measures,

[[Page H7257]]

my colleagues should have the bravery to vote down each rule
individually. Then you can tell your happy constituents that you voted
for lead poisoning, and you voted for not implementing a national
suicide hotline.
Let me say this: The gentleman from Arizona gets it exactly backward.
First of all, he says the cost of all of the regulations is $1.2
trillion.
What are the benefits? Maybe they are far greater than that. We ought
to know.
If you find a rule that you think is wrong, if you think the cost of
this rule outweighs the benefits, fine, bring a CRA to the floor. That
is not what this bill does. This bill says don't bring a CRA to the
floor. Bring a combination of 25 or 30 CRAs to the floor so that you
can't examine them individually.
Maybe some of them make sense. Maybe, in some cases, the regulation
outweighs the benefits, or the cost outweighs the benefits. Maybe in
another case, it is a different regulation, the benefits outweigh the
costs. We should look at it as an individual CRA. That is why the CRA
process was designed.
What this bill does is to upend that process by saying we are not
going to look at the individual regulation. We are not going to look at
the individual CRA. We are going to put 25 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 100
CRAs together in one vote with presumably an hour of debate on the
floor. It is saying you can't look at the merits. That makes no sense.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman from New York says we ought to know
what is in the rule, he doesn't know diddly crap about the lead pipe
rule that he keeps referring to. He doesn't know diddly about any of
these other rules. He has admitted that.
He doesn't know about them, doesn't know how much they cost, and he
doesn't know whether they would have a good cost-benefit analysis.
Guess what? Most of this body doesn't either.
What he is arguing is you really shouldn't look at it because this
bill does not change regular order. It does not change regular order.
That means somebody is going to be drafting this bill. It means
somebody is going to debate this bill in a committee. It means somebody
is going to debate it on the floor, and that means you are going to
have an opportunity to look at these rules, and if it has benefit, you
can amend it.
You can amend that bill to remove that from your CRA. That is the way
to get this through. I do find it--I have got to mention it again--
laughable to say you shouldn't combine 20 rules that are made by
unelected officials who we haven't seen their rule, we haven't
participated in their rulemaking process generically--that is normal--
and then stand up here and tell us we shouldn't have that lookback.
We shouldn't do that, when awkwardly, those same folks are going to
vote on a massive omnibus spending package in the next 48 hours. They
haven't seen the language. You know why I know they haven't seen the
language? I know because it isn't out yet. I haven't seen the language,
but they are going to vote for it. They don't want you to know what is
in these rules promulgated by unelected officials. That is the doggone
shame of it all.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman wants to criticize the Republican
leadership of the House for not bringing to the floor the 12
appropriations bills that they promised they would and that they
should, and instead putting them all in one omnibus bill, I join him in
that criticism. It is not the way to run the ship of state. I join him
in that criticism of the Republican leadership of the House.
Let's go back to the lead paint. It costs $45 million we are told.
How much does it save in children not getting lead paint poisoning, in
hospital costs? It saves a lot more, presumably.
We have agencies that Congress has established over the last more
than a century, since World War I, since the Wilson administration, to
make determinations that Congress can't.
How many parts per million of cadmium should be permitted in drinking
water? I don't know, but the EPA makes that judgment. Now, if someone
in Congress thinks the EPA made the wrong judgment, that it is costing
more than it is worth, bring a CRA. That is why we have CRAs. Don't
talk about the total cost of all regulations because the total benefit
of all regulations is many times greater than that.
Certainly, if you are talking about looking at anything, bring a
single CRA. This bill, again, says to Congress, don't look at what the
administrative agencies have done. Don't look at whether it makes sense
to have this regulation or not. Just take 25 or 35 or 45 CRAs, repeal
35 or 25 or 55 rules without having a chance to really look at any of
them because someone in the Republican leadership decided that they
should.
If this bill passes, Congress will not have the chance to examine any
subject of a CRA. That is why this bill is so pernicious and ought to
be defeated.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we can walk around this barn all day long. When you say,
look, we want you to do this on a single rule over and over again, that
is not real. That is the way it has been. We don't know. Congress
doesn't know.
That is why your constituents come up and say to you, hey, why is
this going on? Why is now a financial adviser going to be regulated
very tightly to the tune of $7.2 billion adjudicated by the Biden
administration? Why is that?
Well, I don't know. Well, you are in Congress. Well, yeah, but it is
a rule. You know, we put it on autopilot because we think the experts
really are experts. Maybe they are. Maybe they are not. One thing this
bill does is it says look at what the bureaucracy is doing. Look at
what the fourth branch of government is doing here. Look at this.
If my colleague from New York says, hey, we don't know if something
is good or bad, let me reiterate: We are not changing regular order. We
are not changing regular order. Someone has to draft the bill. You are
going to debate the bill. You are going to debate it in committee. You
are going to debate it in rules. You are going to debate it on the
floor. There will be opportunities to amend it. That is called regular
order.

His criticism of our leadership for not bringing 12 bills, I am
always there. I am always critical of it. This is probably the only
thing that we have agreed on today so far. Well, his party did the same
just a couple years ago, too. It goes back and forth.
There is a problem with that on both sides, but what I am encouraging
and what this bill encourages is a real lookback, a real follow through
on regular order, and a real understanding of what the rules are doing
to the American people.
Some of them may be excellent. Some of them may not be so, but this
is an opportunity to actually get Congress doing its job. Maybe that is
why there is reticence to support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this bill does exactly the opposite of what the
gentleman from Arizona says. This bill does not give us the chance to
look at a regulation and decide whether it makes sense.
This bill puts all the regulations together so that we can't look at
them. We can't look at any one of them in particular because they are
all together in one vote with one hour of debate on the floor.
Let me give you an example of a rule that is on the chopping block.
You have a rule ensuring that all cell phones--it is a new rule--that
all cell phones are hearing aid compatible, a rule that requires cell
phone makers to update their tech.
Does my colleague want to roll this back? What is the cost that my
colleague would stomach to ensure our seniors can call and hear their
family members and friends? That is just one regulation.

{time} 1445

Maybe you think it costs too much money for the tech companies to
satisfy grandma and grandpa, that they

[[Page H7258]]

shouldn't be able to talk to their grandkids or their family members by
phone because it costs the tech companies too much money. All right.
Make that case on the floor with a CRA. I will debate it because I
think the opposite, but make that case on the floor with a CRA.
This bill says don't make that case on the floor with a CRA. Put all
the CRAs together so you can't debate the merits of any one of them.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Here we go, Mr. Speaker. We are going to walk around the barn one
more time. Let's go around that barn just one more time and say the
same thing again.
My colleague and I are obviously diametrically opposed. He thinks
that if this bill passes you won't look back, you won't specifically
look at any iterated rule. I am telling you, nothing seems further from
the truth than that to me because here is the deal: Somebody is going
to have to draft that bill. They are going to have looked at some of
these regulations. They then are going to bring it to the committee
chairs, you are going to be sitting in a committee, and you are going
to have a markup on this.
The gentleman from New York knows this because we both sit on the
Judiciary Committee, and I sit on the Oversight and Accountability
Committee, and we have almost indeterminable debates in markups. They
go forever. Everybody gets 5 minutes for everything, for every
amendment. If you have 25 rules sitting in there, guess what? You are
going to have everybody in that committee probably taking 5 minutes a
piece on all 25 rules and fully examining that rule and deciding
whether they want to keep it in the CRA.
Right now do you know what happens? You might look at as many as 15
or 20 rules per Congress. That is it. We are talking literally hundreds
and hundreds of rules that pass that are promulgated. Some may be
great. Some may be bad. What this bill does is it encourages Congress
to finally do its job.
I am all in on doing the 12 approps bills separately, but even with
the 12 approps bills, you will have multiple lines that you are looking
at, and you won't necessarily see all those lines.
It is time that we start looking at the rules and see what the
administrative state is doing to Americans. That is the bottom line.
They don't want that. They don't want that. That is a crying shame to
me. It is a crying shame.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We are going around in circles, but let me just add one thing. We
call this the Midnight Rules Relief Act, but it is a big midnight. It
extends the entire year, the last year of any President's
administration. A whole year, that is hardly a midnight rule.
Again, if you want to look at the merits of a rule--and the gentleman
says we have only like 20, 25 a year maybe or maybe we will have 250
next year, who knows. It depends on the politics. Debate the bill.
When a bill comes to the floor, there is 1 hour of debate. We are
supposed to debate 25 CRAs in an hour. Some of them may be good, and
some of them may be bad. Each CRA deserves its own consideration by
those who support it and by those who oppose it.
This bill says, no, all together in one bill, so you can't really
oppose or support any particular one of them. Take it or leave it on
all of them, and you have no time for debate.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I am glad we agreed finally on the second thing, and that is we are
going around in circles.
I want to make a couple quick points as I round the barn one more
time. The most CRAs done in a year was in the 115th Congress. Mr.
Speaker, 17, only 17--which by the way, that is the same year that Mike
Lee had 13 feet of regulations promulgated by the administrative state.
I just want to remind you what happens in the last year and why this
is critical. Regulatory promulgation kind of goes at a flat line. Then
that last year of a Presidency, of an administration, boom, it spikes
up. It spikes up. That is the reality. That is why we have always had
the 60-day lookback. If it extends now to the whole year, if it were to
do that, you are going to be dealing with a spike.
I am just getting back to this point. If the most you have ever
looked at ever is 17 in a year, then you don't know what the other hand
is doing, the other hand being the administrative state.
I am just saying let's do it. Let's look at them, and let's make this
work.
Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to pass this bill, and I reserve the
balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, as we have both said, we are going around in
circles, so I will say what everybody has been waiting to hear: I am
prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am also prepared to close, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona just said that the greatest
number of CRAs that we have had in a given Congress is 17. Okay, I will
take him at his word. Why not have 17 votes? Why not debate each for up
to an hour so we know what we are doing? This bill says put them all
together so we don't know what we are doing.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation is just the latest Republican effort to
undermine the regulatory process. It would allow Donald Trump and his
Republican enablers in Congress to wipe away dozens of lifesaving
regulations and consumer protections in one single party-line vote
under cover of darkness.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to oppose this dangerous legislation,
and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, so you have thousands of regulations in 2024
promulgated, thousands, impacting us by $1.4 trillion. The most CRAs
you have ever had is 17, and we are told, oh, just trust the
administrative state.
I can't do that.
My constituents can't do that.
Americans can't do that.
We are trying to come up with a reasonable approach to make this more
workable, and that is what this bill is. That is what H.R. 115 is. It
encourages Congress to do its job. That is why this is so important.
I urge my colleagues to join me and vote in favor of H.R. 115. Let's
get this passed and let's make Congress the legislative branch it is
supposed to be per the Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 1616, the previous question is ordered
on the bill, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third
reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.

Motion to Recommit

Mrs. RAMIERZ. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:

Mrs. Ramirez of Illinois moves to recommit the bill H.R.
115 to the Committee on the Judiciary.

The material previously referred to by Mrs. Ramirez is as follows:

Mrs. Ramirez moves to recommit the bill H.R. 115 to the
Committee on the Judiciary with instructions to report the
same back to the House forthwith, with the following
amendment:
Page 3, line 12, insert ``except in the case of a
rulemaking where the proposed rule was published more than 6
months prior to the publication of the final rule,'' before
``a joint resolution of disapproval''.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XIX, the
previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit.
The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.

[[Page H7259]]

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question are postponed.

____________________