Regulation Nation
“[T]here's got to be some simplification of regulations in the United States. The fact is, is that GE and IBM and J.P. Morgan, we're big enough companies that we can muscle through regulatory, you know, pressure. We can comply, we can do the things we need to do. If you're a $50 million business, it's just so much harder.”
—General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, September 18, 2011
As the Obama Administration struggles to come up with things to “do” in order to create jobs, there is almost a willful ignorance of the fact that much of the “doing” is actually stifling job growth. The panoply of job-destroying regulations hanging over the country robs businesses and individuals of the certainty necessary to invest and grow in a free market economy. Just this year the Federal Register has grown by almost 60,000 pages, with more than 400 “economically significant” rules costing over $70 billion in compliance.
GOP Conference Secretary, Rep. John Carter (R-TX), has highlighted the potential employment effects if the president’s regulatory apparatus were slowed or reversed:
- 19,000 oil workers idle in the Gulf region due to the de facto moratorium on oil drilling
- 200,000 jobs at risk due to the increased costs associated with EPA’s “Boiler MACT” rule that will affect numerous industries
- 100,000 construction and manufacturing jobs estimated to be lost as a result of EPA’s new rules on coal ash, a key industrial product
- 20,000 cement and construction workers likely to lose their jobs because of EPA’s draconian regulations of the cement industry
- 2,000 jobs will not be created by Boeing in South Carolina due to the National Labor Relations Board’s politically motivated lawsuit prohibiting the installation of a manufacturing plant in a right-to-work state
With job growth slowing to ZERO for the month of August, the link between economically costly regulations and joblessness cannot be ignored. From small business owners to the 14 million unemployed Americans, there is agreement that in this area the Obama administration should stop “doing” so much.
What are House Republicans doing?
During the August work period, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), the GOP Chief Deputy Whip, conducted a regulatory tour of his district. Through a series of visits with local businesses and coordinated media outreach, Rep. Roskam brought attention to the excessive federal regulation of employers. His tour is one way in which House Republicans are seeking to roll back the growth of job-destroying regulations.
House Republicans will be pursuing the House GOP plan for job creation this Fall, which includes a focus on preventing or reversing the negative impact of over-regulation on jobs. This week the House will consider H.R. 2401, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act. The bill would require a cumulative economic analysis for specific EPA rules, and specifically delay the final date for both the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards and the cross-state air pollution rule (CSAPR) until the full impact of the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda has been studied.
For additional information, contact:
The House Republican Conference Policy Office
