“Reducing Burdensome Government Regulations”
Recently, thousands of people in more than 20 communities across the nation came together for “Lemonade Freedom Day.” Although these grassroots protests focused on the increasing incidence of local government shutdowns of neighborhood lemonade stands, they vividly demonstrated a growing concern among many Americans about the burden excessive regulations at all levels of government place on our economy and our freedoms.
I share that concern. After all, if our youngsters cannot engage in the time-honored summer tradition of selling refreshing lemonade in their front yards to buy a new bike or support a charity, imagine the regulatory obstacles faced by their parents trying to build a business and create jobs. We must not allow America’s entrepreneurial spirit to be strangled by red tape.
We are fighting back and achieving some success. For example, recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed requiring farmers and all who operate farm equipment on the road to obtain commercial drivers licenses. The same tests, fees, detailed forms and logs required of those who drive big rigs on our highways would have been required of a potato farmer who drives a tractor across a road to get to another field.
I was among nearly two dozen Senators who urged the Department to reconsider this flawed proposal. Our bipartisan position, bolstered by farmers and ranchers throughout the country, was that Washington cannot afford to place needless additional burdens on our nation’s producers of high quality, safe, and nutritious food especially at a time of high economic uncertainty and unemployment. Fortunately, the Department quickly withdrew the proposal.
This January, Maine’s farmers were also stunned by proposals by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to severely limit the consumption of white potatoes in federal school lunch and breakfast programs. It seemed that a legitimate concern about the over-consumption of french fries was leading to a near-total ban on a food that is highly nutritious, inexpensive, and naturally fat-free. At a time when the USDA is encouraging Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables, it is inconceivable that the only vegetable singled out to be severely limited is the white potato, which has more nutrients than hundreds of other approved foods, such as iceberg lettuce.
I joined with Maine potato growers and Senate colleagues to press for a more sensible approach. At an Appropriations Committee hearing in March, I questioned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about this misguided proposal. In June, I wrote to Under Secretary Kevin Concannon, a former Maine Commissioner of Health and Human Services, asking him to review the nutritional science and to consider the economic harm this new regulation would cause to his home state. The Department has said it is rethinking the proposal, but the outcome is still far from certain.
In April of 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations for boilers, called boiler MACT rules. Since those rules were proposed, I have been very concerned that the cost of implementation would be far greater than EPA has estimated, costing us jobs and running counter to the goal of encouraging biomass boilers instead of burning fossil fuels. According to industry estimates, these rules could cost Maine businesses $640 million when less costly approaches could be used to address emissions from boilers.
The proposed regulations were also an example of one agency of government contradicting another. The owner of a small business in Maine told me the proposed rule would have required him to scrap a new $300,000 wood waste boiler he installed to eliminate his use of fossil fuels and his landfill waste stream. Even though the EPA has backed off that portion of the boiler MACT rules, the owner remains concerned that it’s only a matter of time before the EPA again takes aim at small boilers.
I have introduced bipartisan legislation to give the EPA sufficient time to revise these rules, to extend compliance deadlines, to help ensure that the new rules are achievable by real-world boilers, and to impose the least burdensome requirements to achieve emissions-reduction goals. The EPA performs vital functions in helping to protect the public health, but we need to make sure that new regulations do not create roadblocks to economic growth and job creation.
We cannot fight back against regulatory overkill one rule at a time – the tide simply is too great. Right now, federal agencies are at work on more than 4,200 new rules, 845 of which affect small businesses. Two hundred twenty-four are major rules, costing more than $100 million each.
This is a decades-long trend. In the 1970s, the Federal Register, the compilation of federal regulations, added some 450,000 pages. In the first decade of the 21st Century, more than 730,000 pages were added – a rate of 73,000 pages per year. And the trend is up. Economic recovery and job creation require comprehensive regulatory reform. I have introduced legislation, “The Clearing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens,” or CURB, Act that contains three essential elements for reform: first, require agencies to evaluate the costs and benefits of proposed rules, including indirect costs on job creation, productivity, and the economy; second, make sure agencies don’t attempt to go around the rulemaking process by issuing improper “guidance;” and third, provide relief from penalties imposed on small businesses that face first-time paperwork violations that result in no harm.
From lemonade stands to mills, no business owner I know questions the legitimate role of government in protecting the health, safety, and well-being of the public and employees. Far too often, however, our small businesses are buried under a mountain of paperwork, driving up costs and impeding growth and job creation. Working together, Congress can advance legislation that improves the regulatory process to make it less burdensome, friendlier to job creators, and no less protective of the public interest.
###
