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COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT
(Senate - July 12, 1995)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S9739-S9770] COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I just want to make a few opening comments on this bill before the Senate. It is a very important bill. I consider it one of the most important bills in the last 60 years. It is going to make a difference as to whether or not we are going to be regulated to death or whether regulators are going to have to meet certain standards and norms of common sense before they overregulate us, or should I say before they regulate us properly. This bill would force them to have to do what is right. It will also force Congress to be a little more specific in its legislation so that we do not always have to rely on regulations. It will make the system more honest. This bill is about common sense, and I think most Americans would agree that the Federal Government is out of control in terms of the burdens it places on them. A lot of people in this country believe that. We know that the [[Page S 9740]] cost of regulations is eating us alive. It is between $6,000 and $10,000 per family in this country. Now, many of them are essential. We acknowledge that. This bill will protect the essential regulations. And that is as it should be. We also know that some of these regulations are restrictive of freedom, some of them are taking properties away from people, some of them are just plain, downright offensive, and some of them are stupid. In that regard, let me give my top 10 list of silly regulations--this is my fourth top 10 list of silly regulations --just to kind of bring home to everybody how utterly ridiculous some of the interpretations of regulations and the regulations themselves are in this country. No. 10. Fining a man $10,000 because he filled out his tax forms with a 10-pitch typewriter instead of a 12-pitch typewriter. That is ridiculous. But that is what happened. No. 9. Medicare will pay for a pacemaker but will not pay for a newer, smaller version of the pacemaker that actually would be less expensive because that specific version has not been approved by the FDA, even though it has been in clinical trials. It is ridiculous. And the old procedure costs a lot more compared to the new one. No. 8. Fining a company $5,000 for accidentally placing the answer to line 17 on line 18 in an Environmental Protection Agency form. Now, who would not be upset with that type of ridiculous assessment by the regulators? No. 7. Prosecuting a rancher for ``redirecting streams'' when he has cleared scrub brush removed from his irrigation ditches. The ditches have been in use since the beginning of the century, and they have cleaned them all the time. But they prosecuted him for ``redirecting the streams.'' Utterly ridiculous. No. 6. Spending nearly $3 million to protect the habitat of the endangered dusty seaside sparrow and then managing the land poorly, thus allowing this sacred bird to become extinct. Spend $3 million, wreck the land, and the bird becomes extinct anyway. Ridiculous. No. 5. A wrecking company's owner was convicted of a felony and sentenced to 3 years in jail. What was his crime? His crime was failing to inform bureaucrats that when his company demolished a building, a total of one single pound of asbestos was released into the atmosphere. Three years in jail. That is more than ridiculous. No. 4 on this top 10 list of silly regulations for today: Requiring a farmer to suspend all economic activity on 1,000 acres of land because one red-cockaded woodpecker was found. I do not know about you, but my goodness gracious, it is time to put an end to this type of silly regulation. No. 3 on the list of the silliest regulations, on our top 10 list for today, fining a business $250 for failing to report that no employee has been injured in the preceding year. No. 2. Withholding approval of a medical waste container for almost a year only to determine that the product did not need FDA review. Ridiculous. Let us look at No. 1 on our list of 10 silly regulations. No. 1. The FDA took 7 years to approve a medical device which helped premature newborn infants breathe. It then made the company withdraw the product from over 250 hospitals because the agency found inadequacies in the company's documentation of its manufacturing practices. None of this documentation affected the safety of the product. Physicians later verified that children who could not get this product died. Now, unfortunately, because of silly regulations, thousands of people are dying in this country, and many, many more people are being oppressed and mistreated in this country. Mr. President, our Nation is being suffocated under a mountain of red-tape. Unnecessary, inefficient, and wasteful regulation stifles business, slows the economy, and costs our fellow Americans their jobs. It has gotten to the point where the words Americans fear most are, ``I am from the Government and I am here to help you.'' Amazingly enough, there are still those who attempt to argue that the Federal bureaucracy is just fine. They are satisfied with the status quo. We are not. Overregulation is often just plain ludicrous. We have had some fun describing some of the goofy rules that the Feds think we just have to have. But the fact is these regulations are frequently not funny at all. They hurt people. They cause deaths--the very people they are ostensibly supposed to be helping. For example, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem struggled for 4 years to get approval for a Head Start program in a newly renovated building. Most of the time was spent arguing with the bureaucrats about the dimensions of rooms that did not satisfy the guidelines. ``An entire generation of Head Starters missed the facility,'' said Kathy Phillips from the church. ``The people in Washington want to tell you this or that can't be done. I told them, `I know you're talking about five pieces of paper, but we're talking about children.''' When regulations hurt children, it is time to change the regulations. In another case, an OSHA inspector noted that a worker wearing a dust mask had a beard, violating a rule that requires a close fit between face and mask. The dust was not heavy or of hazardous content, and even when used over a beard, the mask filtered out most of what there was. But the rule was clear and, like most rules, did not distinguish among differing situations. Nor did it matter that the worker was Amish. Given a choice between abrogating his religious beliefs or quitting his job, this Amish worker quit his job. Thus, in seeking to protect a worker, OSHA really cost him his job. Now, that is ridiculous. The rigid nature of regulations is evident in the example of Tony Benjamin, the father of eight, who after reading about lead poisoning made a mistake to look to the Government for help. He had his children tested and found the youngest had lead levels almost at the danger threshold. He got a lead detection kit and, as is common in old houses, found lead beneath the surface of his walls. The State official said not to worry because Mr. Benjamin had recently painted over the old coat. But the child's test results had been filed with the city health department. One day, unannounced, the city inspectors arrived and stamped the word ``violation'' in red ink on every nick in his paint, and after finding 17 nicks, declared his home a health hazard. Mr. Benjamin was told to move his family out of their home and strip and repaint it in large sections. If he failed to comply immediately, he was told, he could be fined over $8,000. Mr. Benjamin could not afford to do what the inspectors demanded. Certainly he could not vacate his home with his eight children. Where could they go? Meanwhile, the youngest child's lead level dropped well below the level considered dangerous, but the law still required abatement, clearly without exception. When a family can be thrown out of their own home without good reason, no one can tell me that this system is working. Another situation involves a man who tried to defend himself against a grizzly bear. Bears had eaten about $1,200 of the man's sheep in one summer. However, the grizzly bear was listed as endangered, and he could do nothing. One night he heard bears attacking. And in his frustration, he came out of his house with a rifle and shot at the bears. Then another bear he had not seen moved to attack him so he shot it. The next day he went out to look for the dead bear. Instead he found it was very much alive as it started to charge him again. He shot it in self-defense, killing it. As a punishment for defending himself he was fined $4,000 for ``taking'' the bear which had attacked him. Regulations also impose burdensome costs on hard-working people, burdens that make survival almost impossible. In one case an auto parts storeowner failed to display a sign indicating that his store accepts waste motor oil for recycling. For his crime, he faces a $10,000 fine and a 1-year prison term. The owner said that the sign was down because the windows were being washed. Well, think about it for a minute. You own a business. You are up against a fine of 10 grand and a year in jail for failing to post a sign for 1 day while you are washing the windows. What is wrong with this picture? What is happening to us in America? Convicted, violent criminals, murderers and rapists are getting out of prison through the revolving door in [[Page S 9741]] our justice system, yet a regular guy, who happens to be cleaning his window, is treated like a criminal. I say to my colleagues that if we allow this kind of distorted societal value system to continue, our negligence as holders of the public trust far exceeds anything this business owner could be cited for. Other times the immense mountain of paperwork buries business alive. I spoke earlier about Mr. Dutch Noteboom, age 72. He has owned a small meatpacking plant in Springfield, OR, for 33 years. The USDA has one full-time inspector on the premises, one full-time inspector, and another spends over half of his time there. The level of regulatory attention is somewhat surprising since Mr. Noteboom has only four employees. But the rules require there be at least one inspector wherever livestock is slaughtered. Mr. Noteboom said, ``I am swimming in paperwork, but I don't even know a tenth of the rules--you should see all these USDA manuals.'' Now, do we really need an inspector for every two employees? These silly regulations could even stop well-meaning Government employees from being able to exercise common sense. In the late 1980's, Dr. Michael McGuire, a senior research scientist at UCLA found himself in trouble. His lab, which sits on 5 acres, is funded by the Veterans Administration. Its lawn needs to be cut. When the lawnmower broke, Dr. McGuire decided to go out and buy another one. He filled out no forms and got no approvals. During a routine audit, the auditor asked why the lawnmower was different. Dr. McGuire told the truth, and thus launched an investigation that resulted in several meetings with high-level Federal officials. ``I couldn't understand,'' Dr. McGuire notes, ``why important agency officials would spend their time this way.'' No kidding. I do not understand it either. Finally, after months, they rendered their findings. They could find no malice, but they determined Dr. McGuire to be ignorant of proper procedures. He received an official reprimand and was admonished to study VA procedures about the size of an encyclopedia. Oh, one more fact about this case. Dr. McGuire bought the lab's lawnmower with his own money. Now, can anyone believe that this is a useful and productive way to spend taxpayer money--to find fault with Dr. McGuire who did it on his own with his own money to help keep the lawn cut? Well, Mr. President, I want to emphasize that the cost of regulation is not limited to a few unfortunate individuals. These examples of bureaucratic abuse, of mismanagement add up to a staggering cost for all Americans. The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation estimates that the average American works until May 5 just to pay their taxes. However, when the hidden costs of Government, the regulatory costs, are added in, it is not until July 10 that the people even start to earn money for themselves. So we are working from January 1 to July 10 to even make a dime for ourselves. Monday was July 10, Mr. President. Until this week started, this very week, every single day that an average American had spent at work so far this year has been to pay for their Government. It was only this morning that they could expect to keep one penny of what they earned. Such a tremendous drain on hard-working Americans cannot be justified when the money is being spent on some of these ridiculous regulations I have mentioned today. They are just a few of literally the thousands and hundreds of thousands of them that are ridiculous and do not work. This bill will eliminate the wasteful, absurd, and harmful regulations while keeping those that truly protect America. Those regulations that contribute to the greater good will not be affected by this bill. This bill will not summarily overturn environmental laws, antidiscrimination laws, or health and safety laws. Such allegations are pure hogwash. But as we have noted from these few examples, the true worth of many rules should seriously be questioned. That is what this bill does. It requires the Federal Government to justify the rules and regulations they expect us to live by. And, in my book, that is not too much to ask. So I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation. And I appreciate being able to just make this short set of illustrations as to why this legislation is so important here today. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we have had some discussion on both sides of the aisle on various issues. The minority leader would like to call up his amendment. We were first thinking in terms of setting aside these amendments that I have called up on behalf of Senator Roth. But the way we will approach it is this way. I ask unanimous consent that we withdraw those amendments and that the yeas and nays that have been ordered be vitiated. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. So the amendments (Nos. 1498, 1499, 1500, and 1501) were withdrawn. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as I understand it, the parliamentary situation is that the bill is now open for amendment? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mr. HATCH. I yield to the minority leader. Amendment No. 1502 to Amendment No. 1487 (Purpose: To protect public health by ensuring timely completion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rulemaking on ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al., February 3, 1995) Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator from Utah for his cooperation and the accommodation he has shown us in accommodating the interests of all concerned here. I call up an amendment that is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] proposes an amendment numbered 1502 to amendment No. 1487. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 19, line 5, strike out ``or''. One page 19, line 7, strike out the period and insert in lieu thereof a semicolon and ``or''. On page 19, add after line 7 the following new subparagraph: ``(xiii) the rule proposed by the United States Department of Agriculture on February 3, 1995, entitled ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al.).''. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the amendment that we have just offered has one specific purpose, and that is to protect the ability of the Department of Agriculture to issue its proposed rule requiring science- based hazard analysis and critical control point, or HACCP, systems in meat and poultry inspections. The rule is critical, for it will improve the quality of our Nation's food supply and help prevent a repeat of the E. coli bacterial contamination. But it is not just E. coli; it is salmonella, it is listeria, it is a number of other foodborne illnesses that as a result of recent experience has clearly demonstrated the need for a new system. Last year, 2-year-old Cullen Mack, of my home State of South Dakota, fell ill from eating beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria. As a result of experiences like Cullen's, I held a number of hearings in the Agriculture Committee on the tragic 1993 outbreak of E. coli. I held numerous follow-up hearings in which industry, producers and consumers all repeatedly called for improving and modernizing the meat and poultry inspection systems. Later, the Department of Agriculture developed regulations to address recurrences of this problem. The rules would modernize the meat inspection process using sensitive scientific techniques to detect contamination and prevent spoiled [[Page S 9742]] meat from making its way into our food supply. Not only would the public benefit from tough new meat inspection rules, but so would farmers and ranchers who raise the livestock and rely on the assurances that their products will reach the market in the best condition possible. Consumers and agricultural producers should not be asked to delay these essential reforms--reforms the entire agricultural and consumer community have been calling for for several years. Unfortunately, this bill, even with the Dole amendment adopted yesterday, could lead to unacceptable delays in the issuance and implementation of this rule. The problem is really very simple, Mr. President. In an attempt to reform the regulatory process, the bill overreaches and provides numerous opportunities to those who would seek to delay the rule, prevent it from being issued, or attempt its repeal. Such a result is, frankly, unacceptable and, I believe, would lead to the long-term detriment to the American people and American agriculture. Yesterday, we debated the Dole amendment, which purported to address the problem. Unfortunately, it did little in that regard. It simply establishes a 180-day grace period for the regulation, at which point the agency must still comply with all of the provisions of the bill. It says for 180 days the effects of this legislation will not be addressed as it relates to the regulations. But after that, everything the bill calls for is every bit as much in effect as it would have been had the 180-day period not been in existence at all. It delays it for 6 months. It does not exempt the rule from the many requirements of the bill. And, as a result, that delay is really no fix at all. So merely delaying compliance of the burdensome processes of the bill, which ultimately must be met anyway, is no solution. Moreover, once the rule is promulgated, the petition and judicial review processes would still apply. Therefore, the rule will be susceptible to the extensive challenges available through the petition processes and through litigation. All of this for a rule that has already gone through the lengthy rulemaking process, and for a rule that is so essential to protecting public health. In short, Mr. President, a 180-day delay does not solve the problem. In addition to these concerns are those that Secretary Glickman outlined in his letter of July 11. In that letter, Secretary Glickman voiced strong opposition to S. 343 because it would unnecessarily delay USDA's food safety reform, among many other things. The letter explains the Secretary's view that the peer review requirement in S. 343 will delay USDA's food safety reform by at least 6 months. As I read Secretary Glickman's letter, he is concerned that the bill, as amended by the Dole amendment, requires that risk assessments underlying both proposed and final regulations be peer reviewed prior to becoming final. In other words, before USDA can issue a final regulation reforming our meat and poultry inspection systems--a regulation that has been in the works now for more than 2 years and is based on more than 10 years of science-based reform efforts--the bill would require that the rule go through a lengthy review by scientists before it could be issued in its final form. According to the Secretary, this peer review requirement would result, as I said, in a 6-month delay in this essential food safety reform. My good friend and colleague, Senator Johnston, has stated that he believes there are exemptions in the bill to deal with the peer review issue. It is my understanding from reviewing the bill and from discussing the matter with others that it is unclear whether USDA's E. coli rule, the HACCP rule, would fit the exemption and whether it would, therefore, avoid the delays associated with the peer review process. Like any legal ambiguity, this provision invites litigation and should be corrected here on the floor before the bill becomes law. If it is the intent of the authors of this legislation to exempt the E. coli regulation from delay caused by the peer review process--and from the other onerous processes in the bill--then they should simply vote for my amendment. My amendment would solve all of these problems by simply stating that the E. coli recall, the HACCP rule, cannot be considered a major rule for the purposes of this bill. It ensures that the bill cannot be used to delay this important rule. The Department of Agriculture has already gone through a great deal to develop this regulation. USDA published the proposed rule in February of this year with a 120-day comment period. USDA also extended the comment period at the request of a large number of commenters. Given this extensive comment period, if USDA suddenly declared an emergency exemption to avoid the peer review delay, it would simply be opening itself up to certain litigation, and even greater delay. I also note that USDA attempted to publish emergency food safety regulations a couple of years ago. To provide consumers with information on how to avoid food-borne illness from pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, USDA issued emergency regulations requiring safe handling labels on meat and poultry products. These safe handling regulations were issued without notice or comment. USDA was sued and lost and had to go through the rulemaking process before the labels could even be required. The result, then, of that ``emergency'' provision was delay. Mr. President, all we are seeking here is some common sense, some balance, some way in which to ensure that we can accomplish the goals set out in the bill, but to do so with a recognition that there is a sensitivity to many of the rules that are currently about to go into effect, rules that directly affect the public health and safety of millions of Americans, that ought not to be encumbered, that ought not to be thwarted in any way, as we go through what we consider to be reform in rulemaking overall. The Secretary felt so strongly about this issue, Mr. President, that he has issued yet a second letter that I would like to read into the Record. It was submitted by James Gilliland, general counsel at the Department of Agriculture, and was addressed to me. It simply states: Dear Senator Daschle: I am writing relative to the amendment Majority Leader Dole offered to S. 343 on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The amendment, which was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Senate, added ``food safety threat'' to the emergency exemption in the cost-benefit analysis subchapter of S. 343. I appreciate the Majority Leader's efforts to ensure that the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to reform the federal meat and poultry inspection system are not delayed by S. 343. However, the amendment does not provide an emergency exemption for the Department's food safety reform proposal and will not alleviate the delay that S. 343, in its current form, would have on the Department's efforts. So, Mr. President, here again, we have it from the Secretary of Agriculture, from the Department of Agriculture, simply asking us to consider the consequences of what this bill could do to a process for meat inspection that has been under way, under consideration, proposed now for over 24 months. It would stop in its tracks the efforts made by two administrations, really, to put all of the science and the new knowledge and the processes that we have to make food inspection more meaningful and more effective into place. We do not want to do that. I do not believe anybody in the Senate wants to encumber the Secretary's efforts to ensure that meat safety can be provided to an even greater extent than it has been in the past. My amendment will ensure that the Secretary has the latitude to provide for the culmination of this long effort and in a successful way, in a way that we all want. I urge its adoption. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the Senator from South Dakota, the very distinguished leader of the Democratic Party in this body, has to say about bringing common sense and some sensibility to regulation. I do not want to speak just to his amendment. But I think the points he is trying to make are the very basis for the legislation before us. Although I might disagree with his amendment or whether it is needed, I want to give an example, as I have been trying to do each of the last 2 days, of [[Page S 9743]] instances in which regulations have had a very negative impact in my State, a very unfair impact on certain individuals--individuals and small businesses, people that cannot afford to pay the legal fees to fight the harassment they get from Government bureaucrats, or where there is a misapplication of regulation, or where there is what I am going to mention today, disputes between Government agencies. It is one thing to have a very egregious regulation that may be justified making an impact negatively upon what an individual might want or might not want to do. But it is quite another thing to have one Government agency say you can do something and another Government agency come along and say you cannot do it, and then not even be able to get a resolution to the dispute between the two agencies. And then what is even worse--in the case I want to recite for you--is that there are four Government agencies that have four different definitions of what a wetland is, and then you are negatively impacted. Some say you can go ahead and do something, and another Government agency comes along and says ``No, we are going to fine you for what you did,'' and you cannot make use of your land. Then it is really quite perplexing for the farmer who moved ahead on the basis of two Government agencies saying he could do something, and then after a third and a fourth Government agency said he could not do it, one of the first two Government agencies that said he could do it changed their mind and said he could not do it. Now, when I say we ought to have common sense brought to regulation writing and in the enforcement of regulation, the very least that a citizen ought to be able to expect out of his Government is to get an answer and to get a resolution of a problem, and to get a quick resolution of the problem. Persons ought to expect in the first place they would not have two Government agencies, one saying you could do something and one saying you could not do it. Or you would at least think if that is the way it is, those two Government agencies ought to get together and say ``Yes, you can do it,'' or, ``No, you cannot do it.'' We have such a morass of regulation and we have so much conflicting regulation that we actually have citizens of the United States that cannot get a resolution, cannot get agreement among Government agencies, and then it is even difficult to get an answer to your problem when you spend a lot of money on legal fees and appeals. Now, that is the regulatory state on a rampage that is looking out for its own interest and not the interest of the citizens that it is impacting. There is not common sense in a lot of regulation writing, and we, in rural America, have found really a lack of common sense when it comes to Government regulation of wetlands. I want to highlight another case in my State that illustrates this. Remember, yesterday, I spoke about the country cooperative elevators that are impacted from the air quality standards of EPA, where they want to regulate what only occurs about 30 days out of a year as if it were happening 365 days, 24 hours a day, and costing these small cooperative businesses up to $40,000 to fill out a 280-page form that once they get it filled out only 1 percent of the elevators in my State are going to be impacted by the regulation in the first place. The day before, I spoke about how EPA caused a small business in my State--the costs of legal fees and lost business $200,000--to defend himself against a criminal charge that was brought by EPA, by a paid informant who was a disgruntled former employee, and there was not any case there. Misinformation. They came on this businessperson, a quiet morning at 9 o'clock in the morning, with their shotguns cocked, wearing bulletproof vests, sticking the gun in the face of the owner and in the face of the accountant, all on misinformation, and costing the business $200,000. Now, that is what is wrong with regulation. There are people in this body that want Government regulation and they do not care about the adverse impacts upon the small businesses of America and the farmers of America from adverse regulation. This bill before the Senate is to bring common sense to this process--nothing more, nothing less. In the instance I want to recite this morning, it all started in April 1989. A young family purchased a 284-acre farm in Mahaska County, IA. I presume from the description of how this problem evolved, this was probably not a very expensive farm. It was probably a farm that only a young person could afford to purchase. Remember, in my State, less than 5 percent of the farmers are under 30 years of age. We lost a whole generation of farmers because of the agriculture depression in the 1980's. The average age of the farmer in my State is 61 years of age. Do we want young farmers to start farming? Do we want them to start this business where they will produce for the consumer of America the cheapest food of any consumer in the world, because we city slickers only spend 8 percent of disposable income on food? There is no other consumer anywhere in the world that has that cheap of a buy or that quality of a buy. Or do we want corporate farming to take over America, where there are no young farmers who have the ability to get started? We have a harassment by a Government agency here that I am going to give an example of that is an impediment to young people getting into farming, because this farm was in a state of disrepair. That is why it was cheaper for this person to buy. The drainage system needed improvement. There was a stand of timber occupying part of the land. He wanted to make some improvements once he purchased it. He did the right thing. Before messing with Government regulation, because we really cannot understand Government regulation, go to some friends at the Soil Conservation Service and check with them, because for 60 years, the Soil Conservation Service provided technical help to the farmer. The farmer considered the employees of the Soil Conservation Service to be people that would level with or help you. Now, of course, these employees of the Soil Conservation Service are seen as regulators. Farmers do not want them on their farm. You do not go to their office to ask questions any more because some Federal regulator is going to come down on you if there is some suspicion that you might do something that was wrong. Yet we have reduced dramatically the amount of soil erosion in America because of the cooperation between the family farmer and the Soil Conservation personnel. Even in 1989, this farmer did the right thing, because he does not want to do something to his land and have the Government regulator come in and say ``You did this and should not have done it.'' So he did the right thing and checked with them ahead of time before making the necessary improvements to his drainage system and before clearing some of the trees. He checked with the Soil Conservation Service. The personnel at the SCS authorized his plans. Also, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the State agency which issues farmers flood planning permits, also authorized what he wanted to do. With the blessing of two Government agencies representing both State and Federal governments, this young farmer cleared trees and improved the drainage on his new farm. However, in just a few months, October 1989, the Army Corps of Engineers, a Federal agency, visited the farm. They discovered and alleged that a wetland had been filled without a permit. A follow-up letter by the Corps directed the farmer to obtain an after-the-fact permit or be fined up to $25,000 per day. Mr. President, $25,000 per day--that is what the average farmer lives on in Iowa for a whole year. A short time later, the Fish and Wildlife Service visited the farm and determined that more than 100 acres of wetlands had been impacted. Now, of course, this farmer was shocked to discover wetlands on his otherwise dry farm, especially since the Soil Conservation Service had already approved his actions. The farmer agreed to a wetlands delineation by the corps. The corps used what is now not used by the corps, a 1989 wetlands manual, and according to this manual, you had to have water within 4 feet of the ground surface for it to be classified as a wetlands. And at no time has there been water at that [[Page S 9744]] level. However, they did find, under another provision of the wetlands delineation, the presence of hydric soils, and so they declared 95 percent of the farm wetland. Since the farmer thought this conclusion was absurd, he decided to appeal to the Soil Conservation Service, another Federal agency, because of that agency's long history of working with farmers and because they said he could go ahead and make these improvements. Now, this is what is really frustrating to the farmer. This time around, when he went back to the SCS office, he found that the SCS office was more interested in cooperating with the Corps of Engineers than they were with the farmer. Even though they originally said that he could clear the land and improve the drainage system. This time the SCS was not the friend of the farmer. They found his 284-acre farm had 150 acres of wetlands. This determination was made in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. An extensive engineering study on the farm shows that normal flooding fails to inundate the farm for the 7 days required under the 1989 manual--which manual is no longer used. Furthermore, evidence from 23 monitoring holes showed that the water depth on the farm is normally 4 to 5 feet and not the 7 days on the surface that you must have under that manual to have a wetlands delineation. So the farmer used this evidence from this extensive engineering study to appeal, then, to the Soil Conservation Service State office. Although the regulations required the Soil Conservation Service to respond to an appeal request within 15 days, they took more than 150 days to respond. You know, 150 days is a whole cropping season on Iowa farmland--a growing season. They cannot even respond in the 15 days. Then you wonder why we need a regulatory reform act? It ought to be very obvious why we need one. Now, surprisingly, when the SCS, the Soil Conservation Service, did respond, do you know what they said? They said they did not have enough information to make a decision. But the Soil Conservation Service had enough evidence to agree with the Corps of Engineers that 150 acres of this 284-acre farm had wetlands on it--after, months before, they said you can go ahead and make these improvements. They said they did not have any information, after both the Corps and the SCS had already made determinations of wetlands based on the exact same information. Based on this case, it seems to me it is very easy to understand why the American public has become cynical about its Government. All people want for the high taxes they pay in this country, plus all the money we borrow--saddling the next generation of children and grandchildren with a big cost--they may not like the Government they get, and they are not getting what they are paying for, but they would at least like to see their Government work. Instead, what we have is a bureaucracy characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, where one official can authorize an action that another will condemn you for later. There is also a lack of flexibility and common sense in interpreting and enforcing regulations. The average citizen can find himself subject to the whims of a powerful yet irrational Federal bureaucracy. During the last 2 years this young Mahaska County farmer I am referring to here has spent his own time and money attending countless numbers of meetings, hearings and appeals. His farm has been visited by Government officials on 7 different occasions. And he still does not have an answer. This all started in 1989 and here it is 1995. He spent thousands of dollars defending himself against Federal regulators, and the U.S. Government has spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars to deprive this farmer of the economic use of his property, yet this case remains unresolved. The consequences are severe for this young farmer. He was deprived of disaster assistance during the floods of 1993, and is not eligible for Federal crop insurance. So the Government is depriving this farmer of benefits, even though a final resolution of his case has not been decided, and apparently this young man, then, is presumed guilty under these other Federal programs, until he proves himself innocent. This type of overreaching by the bureaucracy must stop. S. 343 will force agencies to more carefully promulgate regulations, paying attention to the costs and benefits of their actions. Maybe this example will help us put in perspective the need for the cost and benefit analysis that is in this legislation. This Government regulation has tremendous costs for this young farmer that I just referred to. There is nothing wrong with a Government agency, if it is going to have a Government policy, to make sure that the costs of that policy are not greater than the benefits. Or, under this legislation, if there is a determination that the cost is still greater than the benefit, at least you ought to choose the least costly method of accomplishing our goals. So, maybe this will cause these agencies to hesitate and contemplate, before they move ahead and infringe on the rights of our citizens. Hopefully, S. 343 will force these agencies to use more common sense in the future, and avoid situations like the one experienced by the young farmer in Mahaska County. If the Corps of Engineers, if the Fish and Wildlife Service, if the Soil Conservation Service, and if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources want to show that they are concerned about the impact their regulations have, if they want to show the public that Government works, if they want to show the public that Government is good, if they want to show the public that Government is responsible, if they want to show the public that Government is cost effective, if they want to show the people that Government is humane, it is very easy to do. Just help this young farmer in Mahaska County, IA, to get a resolution to his problem. Do you know what we think? We think the reason he is not getting his appeals decided is because he is right and the Government is wrong and they do not want to issue an OK to this guy, that he was deprived of something, because it would set a precedent. A politician who does not admit he is wrong is destined to a rude awakening someday. And regulators that fails to admit they are wrong are subject to a rude awakening someday as well. I hope that we have an opportunity through this legislation to give justice to our young farmers of America and justice to all young Americans. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Ohio. Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the minority leader. I have stated several times in the Chamber the importance of regulatory reform and the importance of the legislation that we are considering here. I know it does not get all the inches in the newspaper and all the TV time because it is bland, dry, arcane, all the words you can put together to make it uninteresting. Yet I would say this. I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation--it affects more Americans directly--than any legislation we will take up this year except for probably the appropriations bills. The rules and regulations that are put out pursuant to the laws that we pass here affect every single man, woman and child, every business, every activity that we conduct in this country. I believe very strongly in the need for regulatory reform for every person and business in America, but it must be done sensibly and it must be done with balance. Regulatory reform, to be true reform, should fulfill two principles. First, it should provide regulatory relief for businesses, State and local governments, and individuals. And, second, it also should provide the necessary protections to the safety, health and environment of the American people. Now, that is the balance. S. 343 does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people. That is why in this specific instance I support the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. Now, what is the problem? E. coli, what does that mean? Most people would not even know what you are talking about. Yet, according to USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 3,000 to 7,000 people die each year--not just made ill but 3,000 to 7,000 people [[Page S 9745]] die each year--from foodborne illnesses like E. coli, and another 3 to 7 million people get sick every year from such illnesses. Just from the E. coli bacteria alone, the estimates are, about 500 people die per year, year in, year out, year in, year out--500 fatalities. We have had testimony before our Governmental Affairs Committee; we have heard the stories of those who have lost loved ones to E. coli. Rainer Mueller testified before our committee about his son's death from eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger, painful death. It could have been prevented if we had better inspection standards in the first place. Nancy Donley came to Washington to tell the story of her son Ellis who also died from eating E. coli contaminated meat. The tragedies are real. Now, is anyone immune from this? Other figures indicate that about 4 percent of the ground beef in supermarkets has E. coli bacteria present in it--4 percent. Just on an average, that would be 1 out of every 25 hamburger patties that you pick up or 1 out of every 25 steaks that you pick up out of a supermarket has E. coli bacteria. Why is the problem then not more severe? Because we cook that meat and that kills E. coli. But in the raw state it has E. coli, and if it is not cooked enough you can come down with it. This can cause death, particularly among children. Now, in the State of Washington, we remember the problem out there where 3 children died, 500 were sick from contaminated hamburgers from just one fast food outlet back a couple of years. How do we prevent this? USDA is finally modernizing its inspection methods to be able to detect deadly bacteria like E. coli. The new proposal is called hazard analysis and critical control point [HACCP]. That will be the rule which will bring our Nation's meat and poultry inspection system into the 20th century. Now, the proposed rule, the public comment period for which just closed, was wanted by the meat industry and has wide public support. It was pushed for by the meat industry. And the public certainly wants it. It will prevent deaths and illnesses, and we should not put this off. The minority leader's amendment would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. The situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium that we had before us a short time ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must go back to square one. Forget that the Department of Agriculture has already done a cost-benefit analysis. It now will be subject to all the requirements of S. 343--new rulemaking procedures, new decisional criteria, opportunities for lawyer after lawyer after lawyer to sue the agency and stop the rule, petitions for the agency to review the rule, and so on. Unending legal battles and litigation. The potential delays for this rule are real but so also real are the additional deaths and sicknesses suffered by Americans who thought they were eating safe meat. And, indeed, every American deserves to have the meat they eat be safe. And yesterday the majority leader offered an amendment which was accepted to specifically include food safety rules among those rules covered by the bill's exemption provision. And yesterday the point was repeatedly made that there already was included in the bill an exemption from analysis requirements of the bill for ``health, safety or emergency exemption from cost-benefit analysis,'' which is the title of that section of the bill, but that is only for a 180-day period. Then the rule could be subject to judicial challenge if the agency had not completed all the analysis, and we would, indeed, be back to square one again. The problem is that section does not really exempt anything in the bill. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule, that is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with all the many requirements of this bill and all the legal challenges that can go along with that. And that is it. At the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again, no exemption there---- Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield at that point? Mr. GLENN. No. I would rather finish and then answer questions. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces these prospects? Regardless of the majority leader's amendment, the E. coli rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will be in danger. The minority leader's amendment is a first step in protecting the health of the American people, but it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health and safety and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: Regulatory relief and protection for the American people. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which I believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. Our bill would not shut down important rules such as USDA's meat and poultry inspection rule. Our bill would require cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment, but it would not force agencies to choose the cheapest, least-cost rule. It would not let the lawyers drag the agencies into court over every detail, every step along the way. It would not create several petition processes that could be used to tie up agency resources in litigation. But it would provide for sensible reform and it would allow the agencies to perform their important duties. Let me add that our bill also would not catch rules that are almost final, like the meat and poultry infection rule. Our bill has an effective date of 6 months from enactment, which gives the agencies time to gear up for the many requirements of this legislation. That makes sense. That is what we should be doing here, working toward commonsense reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. But I urge my colleagues to support the amendment put in by the minority leader. Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question? Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to yield for a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is yielding for a question. Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I simply wanted to tell the Senator that I agree with him that on the 180-day period on the emergency situation, the period is too short. We are requesting --I put in a request to the other side of the aisle that we extend that 180 days to 1 year. I think your suggestion is a good one and an appropriate one, and we will deal with that separately. That does not concern this amendment at this point. Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment. Just before making comment on that, I was listening to my good friend from Iowa talk about the rules and regulations going back some years affecting some of his constituents. I think all of us, during the course of this debate, have heard examples of rules and regulations that have been untenable and inexcusable. I think we have to be very careful even in the course of this debate and discussion because often when we go back and review the specific rule, regulation, or enforcement action that has been talked about, that has been addressed and has been altered and has been changed. If you take the examples of OSHA, that performs 100,000 inspections a year, and they are 99.9 percent good inspections--sound, reasonable, rational--you are still going to have 100 that do not make it. I think we understand that. But we have a measure of lives that have been saved and the quality of life that has been improved by OSHA, for example, by work safety regulation, on the other side. So we will have a chance, as we have during the course of this discussion and debate, to consider that factor. [[Page S 9746]] Those regulations that we heard about from the Senator from Iowa, of course, were issued in a previous administration. And I think any of us who, for example, have watched the difference between the administration of OSHA, particularly in the last 2 years under an excellent administrator, Joe Dear, can see the dramatic change, that the focus and attention has not been on the issuance of paper citations and rules and regulations, but really reaching at the core of what OSHA is really all about. I was amused at the start of this debate when before our committee, they were talking about the rules and regulations, and how by and large those rules and regulations had accumulated under previous administrations. And it has been this administration that has been working both to try to reduce the complexity of the rules and regulations, simplify the process, and still move ahead in the areas about which I am most concerned; that is in the health and safety areas--in OSHA, the FDA, and in mine safety. For example, the Delaney clause--I will have more to say about that later--should be updated, not repealed. And OSHA should be helped, not paralyzed, if we want to ensure that we are going to take the best in terms of modern science and industrial techniques in order to make our workplaces safer for American workers. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment, which I hope will serve two purposes: To keep this bill from blocking an important regulation and to illustrate one of the fundamental flaws of S. 343 that is so extreme and antiregulatory that it will block good and essential regulations that Americans want. I would like to begin by telling a story about a constituent of mine, a 40-year-old woman named Joan Sullivan. Earlier this year, on February 4, 1995, Joan Sullivan did something almost every American does many times a year. She ate a hamburger. She did not know that such a simple act would lead her to the edge of death, to weeks of incapacitation, pain, and suffering, and to catastrophic medical expenses. Joan Sullivan had no idea she was risking her life when she sat down to eat that night, but she was. The meat she ate was tainted by a microorganism, E. coli, a bacterium that is found with increasing frequency in the Nation's meat supply. When Joan ate that tainted hamburger she contracted an infection of astonishing virulence that came within a hair's breadth of killing her. Joan Sullivan was admitted to her local hospital emergency room with severe stomach pains, constant diarrhea, and vomiting. When her condition worsened, she was transferred to one of America's greatest medical institutions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where her condition was diagnosed as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Desperate measures to save her were undertaken. A tube was placed into Ms. Sullivan's chest without any anesthetic, according to her testimony, and inserted into one of her heart's major blood vessels in order to administer a blood-cleansing treatment. After a month in the hospital, 20 treatments, and the concentrated efforts of dozens of doctors, nurses, and technicians, Joan Sullivan's life was saved. But the cost in terms of her suffering and her family's time and anxiety and in the dollars spent on her care were enormous. Her medical bills alone have totaled approximately $300,000. What happened to Joan Sullivan has happened to hundreds of other Americans, but many have not been as lucky as she. Many of the victims of E. coli poisoning, especially children, do not survive the infection. Although 5,000 to 9,000 Americans die every year from foodborne diseases, the FDA estimates that another 4 million--4 million--are made ill at a cost to consumers of about $4 billion a year. That is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing a new regulation on meat and poultry handling and microbe sampling. The key to the proposed rule is the requirement that meatpackers and processors carry out microbiological tests once a day to be sure that their handling procedures are effective. USDA estimates that the rule, including its testing requirements, will save consumers $1 to $4 billion a year by preventing salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. This is a rule that is urgently needed and Congress should do whatever it can to expedite. But the pending bill could set back the USDA's efforts by years, blocking the rule until the agency can jump through all of the procedural hoops and red tape associated with the bill's extreme risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, and allowing businesses to challenge the rule after its issuance for failure to meet those requirements. The supporters of this misguided bill keep arguing that they are for common sense. Well, common sense tells me that if the USDA has already done a risk assessment under the Executive order, and has already done a cost-benefit analysis estimating that the benefits will be four times greater than the cost, then it would be foolish, wasteful, and dangerous to make them go back and do the analysis again. How much time and money will the agency waste unnecessarily while Congress forces it to comply with this bill's one-size-fits-all procedures? Is it common sense to demand that the USDA explore the regional effects of the rule or whether it has analyzed the extent to which the industry can control the problem of E. coli contamination through voluntary measures? That is not common sense, that is common nonsense. The bill's overly complex and rigid requirements add nothing at all to the agency's efforts to control this serious threat to public health. The bill's exemption for health and safety threats, as amended, clearly excludes rules dealing with E. coli contamination from the cost-benefit and risk assessment rules, at least when the rules are first promulgated. But it is clear that a meatpacker could still petition to force the agency to schedule the rules for the look-back review because the bill's analytical requirements have not been satisfied in every detail. A hostile USDA Secretary in the next administration, by failing to complete the review, could effectively repeal the rules, leaving the public unprotected again. This is a very real worry. There are elements of the meat industry and a number of Republicans who are supporting an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to block the USDA's meat handling and sampling rule. The majority leader, and others, have been embracing this rule in the Senate. But the House Appropriations Committee has voted to send the rule into the limbo of negotiated rulemaking from which it may never emerge. It is important that the Senate speak out in favor of protecting the public from E. coli and other meat and poultry diseases, to ensure this bill does not jeopardize the public health. We can prevent tragedies like Jean Sullivan's from happening, and we have a duty to do so. I urge support for the Daschle amendment. Mr. President, what we talked about during the period of the last day or two has been E. coli, as if this was the only kind of problem. Let me mention briefly why the Daschle amendment is so important not just with regard to the proposal that has been made by the majority leader on the E. coli issue. Under the Dole amendment, the food safety rules can be exempt from the red-tape and delay in S. 343 only if the agency, for good cause, finds that conducting the cost-benefit analysis is impractical due to an emergency of health or safety that is likely to result in significant harm to the public or natural resources. Industry can challenge this finding and block the final rule under the ample judicial review authority in section 625. So even if you find out that a Secretary is able to move into a faster mechanism to try and address E. coli, you still have all the other procedures of S. 343 that can reduce protections for the public. Under section 622, the agency is required to complete the analysis within 180 days of the rule's publication. I understand that that is going to at least be addressed in another amendment, but that is only really a part of the problem. In addition, various meat suppliers and packing houses would be empowered to seek a waiver from the rule's requirements under the new special interest waiver authority in 629. This section allows industry to petition for the so-called alternative method of [[Page S 9747]] compliance. This approach allows the rule to be issued but would dramatically undermine its effectiveness. Once the rule is issued, industry can petition under the rollback authority in the legislation. Industry could seek the weakening of the E. coli rule on the basis that it does not meet the rigorous decision criteria in 624, and the rule automatically sunsets within 3 years if the agency fails to complete the review. Once the rule is issued, industry can also file a petition under the authority of new revisions to section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act that empower special interests to seek repeal of rules. The agency must respond within 18 months. Failure to respond, or a denial, could be litigated immediately under the new legislation. Mr. President, the problem with S. 343, quite frankly, is we are opening up the door for all of the industries in this area. We are interested in their interests, we are interested in their productivity and their financial security, but make no mistake, all of the rules and regulations and the procedures and the look-back procedures are all opening up the door for the industries to come in and alter and change health and safety procedures, the whole se

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COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT
(Senate - July 12, 1995)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S9739-S9770] COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I just want to make a few opening comments on this bill before the Senate. It is a very important bill. I consider it one of the most important bills in the last 60 years. It is going to make a difference as to whether or not we are going to be regulated to death or whether regulators are going to have to meet certain standards and norms of common sense before they overregulate us, or should I say before they regulate us properly. This bill would force them to have to do what is right. It will also force Congress to be a little more specific in its legislation so that we do not always have to rely on regulations. It will make the system more honest. This bill is about common sense, and I think most Americans would agree that the Federal Government is out of control in terms of the burdens it places on them. A lot of people in this country believe that. We know that the [[Page S 9740]] cost of regulations is eating us alive. It is between $6,000 and $10,000 per family in this country. Now, many of them are essential. We acknowledge that. This bill will protect the essential regulations. And that is as it should be. We also know that some of these regulations are restrictive of freedom, some of them are taking properties away from people, some of them are just plain, downright offensive, and some of them are stupid. In that regard, let me give my top 10 list of silly regulations--this is my fourth top 10 list of silly regulations --just to kind of bring home to everybody how utterly ridiculous some of the interpretations of regulations and the regulations themselves are in this country. No. 10. Fining a man $10,000 because he filled out his tax forms with a 10-pitch typewriter instead of a 12-pitch typewriter. That is ridiculous. But that is what happened. No. 9. Medicare will pay for a pacemaker but will not pay for a newer, smaller version of the pacemaker that actually would be less expensive because that specific version has not been approved by the FDA, even though it has been in clinical trials. It is ridiculous. And the old procedure costs a lot more compared to the new one. No. 8. Fining a company $5,000 for accidentally placing the answer to line 17 on line 18 in an Environmental Protection Agency form. Now, who would not be upset with that type of ridiculous assessment by the regulators? No. 7. Prosecuting a rancher for ``redirecting streams'' when he has cleared scrub brush removed from his irrigation ditches. The ditches have been in use since the beginning of the century, and they have cleaned them all the time. But they prosecuted him for ``redirecting the streams.'' Utterly ridiculous. No. 6. Spending nearly $3 million to protect the habitat of the endangered dusty seaside sparrow and then managing the land poorly, thus allowing this sacred bird to become extinct. Spend $3 million, wreck the land, and the bird becomes extinct anyway. Ridiculous. No. 5. A wrecking company's owner was convicted of a felony and sentenced to 3 years in jail. What was his crime? His crime was failing to inform bureaucrats that when his company demolished a building, a total of one single pound of asbestos was released into the atmosphere. Three years in jail. That is more than ridiculous. No. 4 on this top 10 list of silly regulations for today: Requiring a farmer to suspend all economic activity on 1,000 acres of land because one red-cockaded woodpecker was found. I do not know about you, but my goodness gracious, it is time to put an end to this type of silly regulation. No. 3 on the list of the silliest regulations, on our top 10 list for today, fining a business $250 for failing to report that no employee has been injured in the preceding year. No. 2. Withholding approval of a medical waste container for almost a year only to determine that the product did not need FDA review. Ridiculous. Let us look at No. 1 on our list of 10 silly regulations. No. 1. The FDA took 7 years to approve a medical device which helped premature newborn infants breathe. It then made the company withdraw the product from over 250 hospitals because the agency found inadequacies in the company's documentation of its manufacturing practices. None of this documentation affected the safety of the product. Physicians later verified that children who could not get this product died. Now, unfortunately, because of silly regulations, thousands of people are dying in this country, and many, many more people are being oppressed and mistreated in this country. Mr. President, our Nation is being suffocated under a mountain of red-tape. Unnecessary, inefficient, and wasteful regulation stifles business, slows the economy, and costs our fellow Americans their jobs. It has gotten to the point where the words Americans fear most are, ``I am from the Government and I am here to help you.'' Amazingly enough, there are still those who attempt to argue that the Federal bureaucracy is just fine. They are satisfied with the status quo. We are not. Overregulation is often just plain ludicrous. We have had some fun describing some of the goofy rules that the Feds think we just have to have. But the fact is these regulations are frequently not funny at all. They hurt people. They cause deaths--the very people they are ostensibly supposed to be helping. For example, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem struggled for 4 years to get approval for a Head Start program in a newly renovated building. Most of the time was spent arguing with the bureaucrats about the dimensions of rooms that did not satisfy the guidelines. ``An entire generation of Head Starters missed the facility,'' said Kathy Phillips from the church. ``The people in Washington want to tell you this or that can't be done. I told them, `I know you're talking about five pieces of paper, but we're talking about children.''' When regulations hurt children, it is time to change the regulations. In another case, an OSHA inspector noted that a worker wearing a dust mask had a beard, violating a rule that requires a close fit between face and mask. The dust was not heavy or of hazardous content, and even when used over a beard, the mask filtered out most of what there was. But the rule was clear and, like most rules, did not distinguish among differing situations. Nor did it matter that the worker was Amish. Given a choice between abrogating his religious beliefs or quitting his job, this Amish worker quit his job. Thus, in seeking to protect a worker, OSHA really cost him his job. Now, that is ridiculous. The rigid nature of regulations is evident in the example of Tony Benjamin, the father of eight, who after reading about lead poisoning made a mistake to look to the Government for help. He had his children tested and found the youngest had lead levels almost at the danger threshold. He got a lead detection kit and, as is common in old houses, found lead beneath the surface of his walls. The State official said not to worry because Mr. Benjamin had recently painted over the old coat. But the child's test results had been filed with the city health department. One day, unannounced, the city inspectors arrived and stamped the word ``violation'' in red ink on every nick in his paint, and after finding 17 nicks, declared his home a health hazard. Mr. Benjamin was told to move his family out of their home and strip and repaint it in large sections. If he failed to comply immediately, he was told, he could be fined over $8,000. Mr. Benjamin could not afford to do what the inspectors demanded. Certainly he could not vacate his home with his eight children. Where could they go? Meanwhile, the youngest child's lead level dropped well below the level considered dangerous, but the law still required abatement, clearly without exception. When a family can be thrown out of their own home without good reason, no one can tell me that this system is working. Another situation involves a man who tried to defend himself against a grizzly bear. Bears had eaten about $1,200 of the man's sheep in one summer. However, the grizzly bear was listed as endangered, and he could do nothing. One night he heard bears attacking. And in his frustration, he came out of his house with a rifle and shot at the bears. Then another bear he had not seen moved to attack him so he shot it. The next day he went out to look for the dead bear. Instead he found it was very much alive as it started to charge him again. He shot it in self-defense, killing it. As a punishment for defending himself he was fined $4,000 for ``taking'' the bear which had attacked him. Regulations also impose burdensome costs on hard-working people, burdens that make survival almost impossible. In one case an auto parts storeowner failed to display a sign indicating that his store accepts waste motor oil for recycling. For his crime, he faces a $10,000 fine and a 1-year prison term. The owner said that the sign was down because the windows were being washed. Well, think about it for a minute. You own a business. You are up against a fine of 10 grand and a year in jail for failing to post a sign for 1 day while you are washing the windows. What is wrong with this picture? What is happening to us in America? Convicted, violent criminals, murderers and rapists are getting out of prison through the revolving door in [[Page S 9741]] our justice system, yet a regular guy, who happens to be cleaning his window, is treated like a criminal. I say to my colleagues that if we allow this kind of distorted societal value system to continue, our negligence as holders of the public trust far exceeds anything this business owner could be cited for. Other times the immense mountain of paperwork buries business alive. I spoke earlier about Mr. Dutch Noteboom, age 72. He has owned a small meatpacking plant in Springfield, OR, for 33 years. The USDA has one full-time inspector on the premises, one full-time inspector, and another spends over half of his time there. The level of regulatory attention is somewhat surprising since Mr. Noteboom has only four employees. But the rules require there be at least one inspector wherever livestock is slaughtered. Mr. Noteboom said, ``I am swimming in paperwork, but I don't even know a tenth of the rules--you should see all these USDA manuals.'' Now, do we really need an inspector for every two employees? These silly regulations could even stop well-meaning Government employees from being able to exercise common sense. In the late 1980's, Dr. Michael McGuire, a senior research scientist at UCLA found himself in trouble. His lab, which sits on 5 acres, is funded by the Veterans Administration. Its lawn needs to be cut. When the lawnmower broke, Dr. McGuire decided to go out and buy another one. He filled out no forms and got no approvals. During a routine audit, the auditor asked why the lawnmower was different. Dr. McGuire told the truth, and thus launched an investigation that resulted in several meetings with high-level Federal officials. ``I couldn't understand,'' Dr. McGuire notes, ``why important agency officials would spend their time this way.'' No kidding. I do not understand it either. Finally, after months, they rendered their findings. They could find no malice, but they determined Dr. McGuire to be ignorant of proper procedures. He received an official reprimand and was admonished to study VA procedures about the size of an encyclopedia. Oh, one more fact about this case. Dr. McGuire bought the lab's lawnmower with his own money. Now, can anyone believe that this is a useful and productive way to spend taxpayer money--to find fault with Dr. McGuire who did it on his own with his own money to help keep the lawn cut? Well, Mr. President, I want to emphasize that the cost of regulation is not limited to a few unfortunate individuals. These examples of bureaucratic abuse, of mismanagement add up to a staggering cost for all Americans. The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation estimates that the average American works until May 5 just to pay their taxes. However, when the hidden costs of Government, the regulatory costs, are added in, it is not until July 10 that the people even start to earn money for themselves. So we are working from January 1 to July 10 to even make a dime for ourselves. Monday was July 10, Mr. President. Until this week started, this very week, every single day that an average American had spent at work so far this year has been to pay for their Government. It was only this morning that they could expect to keep one penny of what they earned. Such a tremendous drain on hard-working Americans cannot be justified when the money is being spent on some of these ridiculous regulations I have mentioned today. They are just a few of literally the thousands and hundreds of thousands of them that are ridiculous and do not work. This bill will eliminate the wasteful, absurd, and harmful regulations while keeping those that truly protect America. Those regulations that contribute to the greater good will not be affected by this bill. This bill will not summarily overturn environmental laws, antidiscrimination laws, or health and safety laws. Such allegations are pure hogwash. But as we have noted from these few examples, the true worth of many rules should seriously be questioned. That is what this bill does. It requires the Federal Government to justify the rules and regulations they expect us to live by. And, in my book, that is not too much to ask. So I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation. And I appreciate being able to just make this short set of illustrations as to why this legislation is so important here today. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we have had some discussion on both sides of the aisle on various issues. The minority leader would like to call up his amendment. We were first thinking in terms of setting aside these amendments that I have called up on behalf of Senator Roth. But the way we will approach it is this way. I ask unanimous consent that we withdraw those amendments and that the yeas and nays that have been ordered be vitiated. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. So the amendments (Nos. 1498, 1499, 1500, and 1501) were withdrawn. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as I understand it, the parliamentary situation is that the bill is now open for amendment? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mr. HATCH. I yield to the minority leader. Amendment No. 1502 to Amendment No. 1487 (Purpose: To protect public health by ensuring timely completion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rulemaking on ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al., February 3, 1995) Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator from Utah for his cooperation and the accommodation he has shown us in accommodating the interests of all concerned here. I call up an amendment that is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] proposes an amendment numbered 1502 to amendment No. 1487. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 19, line 5, strike out ``or''. One page 19, line 7, strike out the period and insert in lieu thereof a semicolon and ``or''. On page 19, add after line 7 the following new subparagraph: ``(xiii) the rule proposed by the United States Department of Agriculture on February 3, 1995, entitled ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al.).''. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the amendment that we have just offered has one specific purpose, and that is to protect the ability of the Department of Agriculture to issue its proposed rule requiring science- based hazard analysis and critical control point, or HACCP, systems in meat and poultry inspections. The rule is critical, for it will improve the quality of our Nation's food supply and help prevent a repeat of the E. coli bacterial contamination. But it is not just E. coli; it is salmonella, it is listeria, it is a number of other foodborne illnesses that as a result of recent experience has clearly demonstrated the need for a new system. Last year, 2-year-old Cullen Mack, of my home State of South Dakota, fell ill from eating beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria. As a result of experiences like Cullen's, I held a number of hearings in the Agriculture Committee on the tragic 1993 outbreak of E. coli. I held numerous follow-up hearings in which industry, producers and consumers all repeatedly called for improving and modernizing the meat and poultry inspection systems. Later, the Department of Agriculture developed regulations to address recurrences of this problem. The rules would modernize the meat inspection process using sensitive scientific techniques to detect contamination and prevent spoiled [[Page S 9742]] meat from making its way into our food supply. Not only would the public benefit from tough new meat inspection rules, but so would farmers and ranchers who raise the livestock and rely on the assurances that their products will reach the market in the best condition possible. Consumers and agricultural producers should not be asked to delay these essential reforms--reforms the entire agricultural and consumer community have been calling for for several years. Unfortunately, this bill, even with the Dole amendment adopted yesterday, could lead to unacceptable delays in the issuance and implementation of this rule. The problem is really very simple, Mr. President. In an attempt to reform the regulatory process, the bill overreaches and provides numerous opportunities to those who would seek to delay the rule, prevent it from being issued, or attempt its repeal. Such a result is, frankly, unacceptable and, I believe, would lead to the long-term detriment to the American people and American agriculture. Yesterday, we debated the Dole amendment, which purported to address the problem. Unfortunately, it did little in that regard. It simply establishes a 180-day grace period for the regulation, at which point the agency must still comply with all of the provisions of the bill. It says for 180 days the effects of this legislation will not be addressed as it relates to the regulations. But after that, everything the bill calls for is every bit as much in effect as it would have been had the 180-day period not been in existence at all. It delays it for 6 months. It does not exempt the rule from the many requirements of the bill. And, as a result, that delay is really no fix at all. So merely delaying compliance of the burdensome processes of the bill, which ultimately must be met anyway, is no solution. Moreover, once the rule is promulgated, the petition and judicial review processes would still apply. Therefore, the rule will be susceptible to the extensive challenges available through the petition processes and through litigation. All of this for a rule that has already gone through the lengthy rulemaking process, and for a rule that is so essential to protecting public health. In short, Mr. President, a 180-day delay does not solve the problem. In addition to these concerns are those that Secretary Glickman outlined in his letter of July 11. In that letter, Secretary Glickman voiced strong opposition to S. 343 because it would unnecessarily delay USDA's food safety reform, among many other things. The letter explains the Secretary's view that the peer review requirement in S. 343 will delay USDA's food safety reform by at least 6 months. As I read Secretary Glickman's letter, he is concerned that the bill, as amended by the Dole amendment, requires that risk assessments underlying both proposed and final regulations be peer reviewed prior to becoming final. In other words, before USDA can issue a final regulation reforming our meat and poultry inspection systems--a regulation that has been in the works now for more than 2 years and is based on more than 10 years of science-based reform efforts--the bill would require that the rule go through a lengthy review by scientists before it could be issued in its final form. According to the Secretary, this peer review requirement would result, as I said, in a 6-month delay in this essential food safety reform. My good friend and colleague, Senator Johnston, has stated that he believes there are exemptions in the bill to deal with the peer review issue. It is my understanding from reviewing the bill and from discussing the matter with others that it is unclear whether USDA's E. coli rule, the HACCP rule, would fit the exemption and whether it would, therefore, avoid the delays associated with the peer review process. Like any legal ambiguity, this provision invites litigation and should be corrected here on the floor before the bill becomes law. If it is the intent of the authors of this legislation to exempt the E. coli regulation from delay caused by the peer review process--and from the other onerous processes in the bill--then they should simply vote for my amendment. My amendment would solve all of these problems by simply stating that the E. coli recall, the HACCP rule, cannot be considered a major rule for the purposes of this bill. It ensures that the bill cannot be used to delay this important rule. The Department of Agriculture has already gone through a great deal to develop this regulation. USDA published the proposed rule in February of this year with a 120-day comment period. USDA also extended the comment period at the request of a large number of commenters. Given this extensive comment period, if USDA suddenly declared an emergency exemption to avoid the peer review delay, it would simply be opening itself up to certain litigation, and even greater delay. I also note that USDA attempted to publish emergency food safety regulations a couple of years ago. To provide consumers with information on how to avoid food-borne illness from pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, USDA issued emergency regulations requiring safe handling labels on meat and poultry products. These safe handling regulations were issued without notice or comment. USDA was sued and lost and had to go through the rulemaking process before the labels could even be required. The result, then, of that ``emergency'' provision was delay. Mr. President, all we are seeking here is some common sense, some balance, some way in which to ensure that we can accomplish the goals set out in the bill, but to do so with a recognition that there is a sensitivity to many of the rules that are currently about to go into effect, rules that directly affect the public health and safety of millions of Americans, that ought not to be encumbered, that ought not to be thwarted in any way, as we go through what we consider to be reform in rulemaking overall. The Secretary felt so strongly about this issue, Mr. President, that he has issued yet a second letter that I would like to read into the Record. It was submitted by James Gilliland, general counsel at the Department of Agriculture, and was addressed to me. It simply states: Dear Senator Daschle: I am writing relative to the amendment Majority Leader Dole offered to S. 343 on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The amendment, which was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Senate, added ``food safety threat'' to the emergency exemption in the cost-benefit analysis subchapter of S. 343. I appreciate the Majority Leader's efforts to ensure that the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to reform the federal meat and poultry inspection system are not delayed by S. 343. However, the amendment does not provide an emergency exemption for the Department's food safety reform proposal and will not alleviate the delay that S. 343, in its current form, would have on the Department's efforts. So, Mr. President, here again, we have it from the Secretary of Agriculture, from the Department of Agriculture, simply asking us to consider the consequences of what this bill could do to a process for meat inspection that has been under way, under consideration, proposed now for over 24 months. It would stop in its tracks the efforts made by two administrations, really, to put all of the science and the new knowledge and the processes that we have to make food inspection more meaningful and more effective into place. We do not want to do that. I do not believe anybody in the Senate wants to encumber the Secretary's efforts to ensure that meat safety can be provided to an even greater extent than it has been in the past. My amendment will ensure that the Secretary has the latitude to provide for the culmination of this long effort and in a successful way, in a way that we all want. I urge its adoption. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the Senator from South Dakota, the very distinguished leader of the Democratic Party in this body, has to say about bringing common sense and some sensibility to regulation. I do not want to speak just to his amendment. But I think the points he is trying to make are the very basis for the legislation before us. Although I might disagree with his amendment or whether it is needed, I want to give an example, as I have been trying to do each of the last 2 days, of [[Page S 9743]] instances in which regulations have had a very negative impact in my State, a very unfair impact on certain individuals--individuals and small businesses, people that cannot afford to pay the legal fees to fight the harassment they get from Government bureaucrats, or where there is a misapplication of regulation, or where there is what I am going to mention today, disputes between Government agencies. It is one thing to have a very egregious regulation that may be justified making an impact negatively upon what an individual might want or might not want to do. But it is quite another thing to have one Government agency say you can do something and another Government agency come along and say you cannot do it, and then not even be able to get a resolution to the dispute between the two agencies. And then what is even worse--in the case I want to recite for you--is that there are four Government agencies that have four different definitions of what a wetland is, and then you are negatively impacted. Some say you can go ahead and do something, and another Government agency comes along and says ``No, we are going to fine you for what you did,'' and you cannot make use of your land. Then it is really quite perplexing for the farmer who moved ahead on the basis of two Government agencies saying he could do something, and then after a third and a fourth Government agency said he could not do it, one of the first two Government agencies that said he could do it changed their mind and said he could not do it. Now, when I say we ought to have common sense brought to regulation writing and in the enforcement of regulation, the very least that a citizen ought to be able to expect out of his Government is to get an answer and to get a resolution of a problem, and to get a quick resolution of the problem. Persons ought to expect in the first place they would not have two Government agencies, one saying you could do something and one saying you could not do it. Or you would at least think if that is the way it is, those two Government agencies ought to get together and say ``Yes, you can do it,'' or, ``No, you cannot do it.'' We have such a morass of regulation and we have so much conflicting regulation that we actually have citizens of the United States that cannot get a resolution, cannot get agreement among Government agencies, and then it is even difficult to get an answer to your problem when you spend a lot of money on legal fees and appeals. Now, that is the regulatory state on a rampage that is looking out for its own interest and not the interest of the citizens that it is impacting. There is not common sense in a lot of regulation writing, and we, in rural America, have found really a lack of common sense when it comes to Government regulation of wetlands. I want to highlight another case in my State that illustrates this. Remember, yesterday, I spoke about the country cooperative elevators that are impacted from the air quality standards of EPA, where they want to regulate what only occurs about 30 days out of a year as if it were happening 365 days, 24 hours a day, and costing these small cooperative businesses up to $40,000 to fill out a 280-page form that once they get it filled out only 1 percent of the elevators in my State are going to be impacted by the regulation in the first place. The day before, I spoke about how EPA caused a small business in my State--the costs of legal fees and lost business $200,000--to defend himself against a criminal charge that was brought by EPA, by a paid informant who was a disgruntled former employee, and there was not any case there. Misinformation. They came on this businessperson, a quiet morning at 9 o'clock in the morning, with their shotguns cocked, wearing bulletproof vests, sticking the gun in the face of the owner and in the face of the accountant, all on misinformation, and costing the business $200,000. Now, that is what is wrong with regulation. There are people in this body that want Government regulation and they do not care about the adverse impacts upon the small businesses of America and the farmers of America from adverse regulation. This bill before the Senate is to bring common sense to this process--nothing more, nothing less. In the instance I want to recite this morning, it all started in April 1989. A young family purchased a 284-acre farm in Mahaska County, IA. I presume from the description of how this problem evolved, this was probably not a very expensive farm. It was probably a farm that only a young person could afford to purchase. Remember, in my State, less than 5 percent of the farmers are under 30 years of age. We lost a whole generation of farmers because of the agriculture depression in the 1980's. The average age of the farmer in my State is 61 years of age. Do we want young farmers to start farming? Do we want them to start this business where they will produce for the consumer of America the cheapest food of any consumer in the world, because we city slickers only spend 8 percent of disposable income on food? There is no other consumer anywhere in the world that has that cheap of a buy or that quality of a buy. Or do we want corporate farming to take over America, where there are no young farmers who have the ability to get started? We have a harassment by a Government agency here that I am going to give an example of that is an impediment to young people getting into farming, because this farm was in a state of disrepair. That is why it was cheaper for this person to buy. The drainage system needed improvement. There was a stand of timber occupying part of the land. He wanted to make some improvements once he purchased it. He did the right thing. Before messing with Government regulation, because we really cannot understand Government regulation, go to some friends at the Soil Conservation Service and check with them, because for 60 years, the Soil Conservation Service provided technical help to the farmer. The farmer considered the employees of the Soil Conservation Service to be people that would level with or help you. Now, of course, these employees of the Soil Conservation Service are seen as regulators. Farmers do not want them on their farm. You do not go to their office to ask questions any more because some Federal regulator is going to come down on you if there is some suspicion that you might do something that was wrong. Yet we have reduced dramatically the amount of soil erosion in America because of the cooperation between the family farmer and the Soil Conservation personnel. Even in 1989, this farmer did the right thing, because he does not want to do something to his land and have the Government regulator come in and say ``You did this and should not have done it.'' So he did the right thing and checked with them ahead of time before making the necessary improvements to his drainage system and before clearing some of the trees. He checked with the Soil Conservation Service. The personnel at the SCS authorized his plans. Also, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the State agency which issues farmers flood planning permits, also authorized what he wanted to do. With the blessing of two Government agencies representing both State and Federal governments, this young farmer cleared trees and improved the drainage on his new farm. However, in just a few months, October 1989, the Army Corps of Engineers, a Federal agency, visited the farm. They discovered and alleged that a wetland had been filled without a permit. A follow-up letter by the Corps directed the farmer to obtain an after-the-fact permit or be fined up to $25,000 per day. Mr. President, $25,000 per day--that is what the average farmer lives on in Iowa for a whole year. A short time later, the Fish and Wildlife Service visited the farm and determined that more than 100 acres of wetlands had been impacted. Now, of course, this farmer was shocked to discover wetlands on his otherwise dry farm, especially since the Soil Conservation Service had already approved his actions. The farmer agreed to a wetlands delineation by the corps. The corps used what is now not used by the corps, a 1989 wetlands manual, and according to this manual, you had to have water within 4 feet of the ground surface for it to be classified as a wetlands. And at no time has there been water at that [[Page S 9744]] level. However, they did find, under another provision of the wetlands delineation, the presence of hydric soils, and so they declared 95 percent of the farm wetland. Since the farmer thought this conclusion was absurd, he decided to appeal to the Soil Conservation Service, another Federal agency, because of that agency's long history of working with farmers and because they said he could go ahead and make these improvements. Now, this is what is really frustrating to the farmer. This time around, when he went back to the SCS office, he found that the SCS office was more interested in cooperating with the Corps of Engineers than they were with the farmer. Even though they originally said that he could clear the land and improve the drainage system. This time the SCS was not the friend of the farmer. They found his 284-acre farm had 150 acres of wetlands. This determination was made in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. An extensive engineering study on the farm shows that normal flooding fails to inundate the farm for the 7 days required under the 1989 manual--which manual is no longer used. Furthermore, evidence from 23 monitoring holes showed that the water depth on the farm is normally 4 to 5 feet and not the 7 days on the surface that you must have under that manual to have a wetlands delineation. So the farmer used this evidence from this extensive engineering study to appeal, then, to the Soil Conservation Service State office. Although the regulations required the Soil Conservation Service to respond to an appeal request within 15 days, they took more than 150 days to respond. You know, 150 days is a whole cropping season on Iowa farmland--a growing season. They cannot even respond in the 15 days. Then you wonder why we need a regulatory reform act? It ought to be very obvious why we need one. Now, surprisingly, when the SCS, the Soil Conservation Service, did respond, do you know what they said? They said they did not have enough information to make a decision. But the Soil Conservation Service had enough evidence to agree with the Corps of Engineers that 150 acres of this 284-acre farm had wetlands on it--after, months before, they said you can go ahead and make these improvements. They said they did not have any information, after both the Corps and the SCS had already made determinations of wetlands based on the exact same information. Based on this case, it seems to me it is very easy to understand why the American public has become cynical about its Government. All people want for the high taxes they pay in this country, plus all the money we borrow--saddling the next generation of children and grandchildren with a big cost--they may not like the Government they get, and they are not getting what they are paying for, but they would at least like to see their Government work. Instead, what we have is a bureaucracy characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, where one official can authorize an action that another will condemn you for later. There is also a lack of flexibility and common sense in interpreting and enforcing regulations. The average citizen can find himself subject to the whims of a powerful yet irrational Federal bureaucracy. During the last 2 years this young Mahaska County farmer I am referring to here has spent his own time and money attending countless numbers of meetings, hearings and appeals. His farm has been visited by Government officials on 7 different occasions. And he still does not have an answer. This all started in 1989 and here it is 1995. He spent thousands of dollars defending himself against Federal regulators, and the U.S. Government has spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars to deprive this farmer of the economic use of his property, yet this case remains unresolved. The consequences are severe for this young farmer. He was deprived of disaster assistance during the floods of 1993, and is not eligible for Federal crop insurance. So the Government is depriving this farmer of benefits, even though a final resolution of his case has not been decided, and apparently this young man, then, is presumed guilty under these other Federal programs, until he proves himself innocent. This type of overreaching by the bureaucracy must stop. S. 343 will force agencies to more carefully promulgate regulations, paying attention to the costs and benefits of their actions. Maybe this example will help us put in perspective the need for the cost and benefit analysis that is in this legislation. This Government regulation has tremendous costs for this young farmer that I just referred to. There is nothing wrong with a Government agency, if it is going to have a Government policy, to make sure that the costs of that policy are not greater than the benefits. Or, under this legislation, if there is a determination that the cost is still greater than the benefit, at least you ought to choose the least costly method of accomplishing our goals. So, maybe this will cause these agencies to hesitate and contemplate, before they move ahead and infringe on the rights of our citizens. Hopefully, S. 343 will force these agencies to use more common sense in the future, and avoid situations like the one experienced by the young farmer in Mahaska County. If the Corps of Engineers, if the Fish and Wildlife Service, if the Soil Conservation Service, and if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources want to show that they are concerned about the impact their regulations have, if they want to show the public that Government works, if they want to show the public that Government is good, if they want to show the public that Government is responsible, if they want to show the public that Government is cost effective, if they want to show the people that Government is humane, it is very easy to do. Just help this young farmer in Mahaska County, IA, to get a resolution to his problem. Do you know what we think? We think the reason he is not getting his appeals decided is because he is right and the Government is wrong and they do not want to issue an OK to this guy, that he was deprived of something, because it would set a precedent. A politician who does not admit he is wrong is destined to a rude awakening someday. And regulators that fails to admit they are wrong are subject to a rude awakening someday as well. I hope that we have an opportunity through this legislation to give justice to our young farmers of America and justice to all young Americans. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Ohio. Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the minority leader. I have stated several times in the Chamber the importance of regulatory reform and the importance of the legislation that we are considering here. I know it does not get all the inches in the newspaper and all the TV time because it is bland, dry, arcane, all the words you can put together to make it uninteresting. Yet I would say this. I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation--it affects more Americans directly--than any legislation we will take up this year except for probably the appropriations bills. The rules and regulations that are put out pursuant to the laws that we pass here affect every single man, woman and child, every business, every activity that we conduct in this country. I believe very strongly in the need for regulatory reform for every person and business in America, but it must be done sensibly and it must be done with balance. Regulatory reform, to be true reform, should fulfill two principles. First, it should provide regulatory relief for businesses, State and local governments, and individuals. And, second, it also should provide the necessary protections to the safety, health and environment of the American people. Now, that is the balance. S. 343 does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people. That is why in this specific instance I support the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. Now, what is the problem? E. coli, what does that mean? Most people would not even know what you are talking about. Yet, according to USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 3,000 to 7,000 people die each year--not just made ill but 3,000 to 7,000 people [[Page S 9745]] die each year--from foodborne illnesses like E. coli, and another 3 to 7 million people get sick every year from such illnesses. Just from the E. coli bacteria alone, the estimates are, about 500 people die per year, year in, year out, year in, year out--500 fatalities. We have had testimony before our Governmental Affairs Committee; we have heard the stories of those who have lost loved ones to E. coli. Rainer Mueller testified before our committee about his son's death from eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger, painful death. It could have been prevented if we had better inspection standards in the first place. Nancy Donley came to Washington to tell the story of her son Ellis who also died from eating E. coli contaminated meat. The tragedies are real. Now, is anyone immune from this? Other figures indicate that about 4 percent of the ground beef in supermarkets has E. coli bacteria present in it--4 percent. Just on an average, that would be 1 out of every 25 hamburger patties that you pick up or 1 out of every 25 steaks that you pick up out of a supermarket has E. coli bacteria. Why is the problem then not more severe? Because we cook that meat and that kills E. coli. But in the raw state it has E. coli, and if it is not cooked enough you can come down with it. This can cause death, particularly among children. Now, in the State of Washington, we remember the problem out there where 3 children died, 500 were sick from contaminated hamburgers from just one fast food outlet back a couple of years. How do we prevent this? USDA is finally modernizing its inspection methods to be able to detect deadly bacteria like E. coli. The new proposal is called hazard analysis and critical control point [HACCP]. That will be the rule which will bring our Nation's meat and poultry inspection system into the 20th century. Now, the proposed rule, the public comment period for which just closed, was wanted by the meat industry and has wide public support. It was pushed for by the meat industry. And the public certainly wants it. It will prevent deaths and illnesses, and we should not put this off. The minority leader's amendment would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. The situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium that we had before us a short time ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must go back to square one. Forget that the Department of Agriculture has already done a cost-benefit analysis. It now will be subject to all the requirements of S. 343--new rulemaking procedures, new decisional criteria, opportunities for lawyer after lawyer after lawyer to sue the agency and stop the rule, petitions for the agency to review the rule, and so on. Unending legal battles and litigation. The potential delays for this rule are real but so also real are the additional deaths and sicknesses suffered by Americans who thought they were eating safe meat. And, indeed, every American deserves to have the meat they eat be safe. And yesterday the majority leader offered an amendment which was accepted to specifically include food safety rules among those rules covered by the bill's exemption provision. And yesterday the point was repeatedly made that there already was included in the bill an exemption from analysis requirements of the bill for ``health, safety or emergency exemption from cost-benefit analysis,'' which is the title of that section of the bill, but that is only for a 180-day period. Then the rule could be subject to judicial challenge if the agency had not completed all the analysis, and we would, indeed, be back to square one again. The problem is that section does not really exempt anything in the bill. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule, that is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with all the many requirements of this bill and all the legal challenges that can go along with that. And that is it. At the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again, no exemption there---- Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield at that point? Mr. GLENN. No. I would rather finish and then answer questions. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces these prospects? Regardless of the majority leader's amendment, the E. coli rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will be in danger. The minority leader's amendment is a first step in protecting the health of the American people, but it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health and safety and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: Regulatory relief and protection for the American people. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which I believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. Our bill would not shut down important rules such as USDA's meat and poultry inspection rule. Our bill would require cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment, but it would not force agencies to choose the cheapest, least-cost rule. It would not let the lawyers drag the agencies into court over every detail, every step along the way. It would not create several petition processes that could be used to tie up agency resources in litigation. But it would provide for sensible reform and it would allow the agencies to perform their important duties. Let me add that our bill also would not catch rules that are almost final, like the meat and poultry infection rule. Our bill has an effective date of 6 months from enactment, which gives the agencies time to gear up for the many requirements of this legislation. That makes sense. That is what we should be doing here, working toward commonsense reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. But I urge my colleagues to support the amendment put in by the minority leader. Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question? Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to yield for a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is yielding for a question. Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I simply wanted to tell the Senator that I agree with him that on the 180-day period on the emergency situation, the period is too short. We are requesting --I put in a request to the other side of the aisle that we extend that 180 days to 1 year. I think your suggestion is a good one and an appropriate one, and we will deal with that separately. That does not concern this amendment at this point. Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment. Just before making comment on that, I was listening to my good friend from Iowa talk about the rules and regulations going back some years affecting some of his constituents. I think all of us, during the course of this debate, have heard examples of rules and regulations that have been untenable and inexcusable. I think we have to be very careful even in the course of this debate and discussion because often when we go back and review the specific rule, regulation, or enforcement action that has been talked about, that has been addressed and has been altered and has been changed. If you take the examples of OSHA, that performs 100,000 inspections a year, and they are 99.9 percent good inspections--sound, reasonable, rational--you are still going to have 100 that do not make it. I think we understand that. But we have a measure of lives that have been saved and the quality of life that has been improved by OSHA, for example, by work safety regulation, on the other side. So we will have a chance, as we have during the course of this discussion and debate, to consider that factor. [[Page S 9746]] Those regulations that we heard about from the Senator from Iowa, of course, were issued in a previous administration. And I think any of us who, for example, have watched the difference between the administration of OSHA, particularly in the last 2 years under an excellent administrator, Joe Dear, can see the dramatic change, that the focus and attention has not been on the issuance of paper citations and rules and regulations, but really reaching at the core of what OSHA is really all about. I was amused at the start of this debate when before our committee, they were talking about the rules and regulations, and how by and large those rules and regulations had accumulated under previous administrations. And it has been this administration that has been working both to try to reduce the complexity of the rules and regulations, simplify the process, and still move ahead in the areas about which I am most concerned; that is in the health and safety areas--in OSHA, the FDA, and in mine safety. For example, the Delaney clause--I will have more to say about that later--should be updated, not repealed. And OSHA should be helped, not paralyzed, if we want to ensure that we are going to take the best in terms of modern science and industrial techniques in order to make our workplaces safer for American workers. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment, which I hope will serve two purposes: To keep this bill from blocking an important regulation and to illustrate one of the fundamental flaws of S. 343 that is so extreme and antiregulatory that it will block good and essential regulations that Americans want. I would like to begin by telling a story about a constituent of mine, a 40-year-old woman named Joan Sullivan. Earlier this year, on February 4, 1995, Joan Sullivan did something almost every American does many times a year. She ate a hamburger. She did not know that such a simple act would lead her to the edge of death, to weeks of incapacitation, pain, and suffering, and to catastrophic medical expenses. Joan Sullivan had no idea she was risking her life when she sat down to eat that night, but she was. The meat she ate was tainted by a microorganism, E. coli, a bacterium that is found with increasing frequency in the Nation's meat supply. When Joan ate that tainted hamburger she contracted an infection of astonishing virulence that came within a hair's breadth of killing her. Joan Sullivan was admitted to her local hospital emergency room with severe stomach pains, constant diarrhea, and vomiting. When her condition worsened, she was transferred to one of America's greatest medical institutions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where her condition was diagnosed as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Desperate measures to save her were undertaken. A tube was placed into Ms. Sullivan's chest without any anesthetic, according to her testimony, and inserted into one of her heart's major blood vessels in order to administer a blood-cleansing treatment. After a month in the hospital, 20 treatments, and the concentrated efforts of dozens of doctors, nurses, and technicians, Joan Sullivan's life was saved. But the cost in terms of her suffering and her family's time and anxiety and in the dollars spent on her care were enormous. Her medical bills alone have totaled approximately $300,000. What happened to Joan Sullivan has happened to hundreds of other Americans, but many have not been as lucky as she. Many of the victims of E. coli poisoning, especially children, do not survive the infection. Although 5,000 to 9,000 Americans die every year from foodborne diseases, the FDA estimates that another 4 million--4 million--are made ill at a cost to consumers of about $4 billion a year. That is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing a new regulation on meat and poultry handling and microbe sampling. The key to the proposed rule is the requirement that meatpackers and processors carry out microbiological tests once a day to be sure that their handling procedures are effective. USDA estimates that the rule, including its testing requirements, will save consumers $1 to $4 billion a year by preventing salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. This is a rule that is urgently needed and Congress should do whatever it can to expedite. But the pending bill could set back the USDA's efforts by years, blocking the rule until the agency can jump through all of the procedural hoops and red tape associated with the bill's extreme risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, and allowing businesses to challenge the rule after its issuance for failure to meet those requirements. The supporters of this misguided bill keep arguing that they are for common sense. Well, common sense tells me that if the USDA has already done a risk assessment under the Executive order, and has already done a cost-benefit analysis estimating that the benefits will be four times greater than the cost, then it would be foolish, wasteful, and dangerous to make them go back and do the analysis again. How much time and money will the agency waste unnecessarily while Congress forces it to comply with this bill's one-size-fits-all procedures? Is it common sense to demand that the USDA explore the regional effects of the rule or whether it has analyzed the extent to which the industry can control the problem of E. coli contamination through voluntary measures? That is not common sense, that is common nonsense. The bill's overly complex and rigid requirements add nothing at all to the agency's efforts to control this serious threat to public health. The bill's exemption for health and safety threats, as amended, clearly excludes rules dealing with E. coli contamination from the cost-benefit and risk assessment rules, at least when the rules are first promulgated. But it is clear that a meatpacker could still petition to force the agency to schedule the rules for the look-back review because the bill's analytical requirements have not been satisfied in every detail. A hostile USDA Secretary in the next administration, by failing to complete the review, could effectively repeal the rules, leaving the public unprotected again. This is a very real worry. There are elements of the meat industry and a number of Republicans who are supporting an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to block the USDA's meat handling and sampling rule. The majority leader, and others, have been embracing this rule in the Senate. But the House Appropriations Committee has voted to send the rule into the limbo of negotiated rulemaking from which it may never emerge. It is important that the Senate speak out in favor of protecting the public from E. coli and other meat and poultry diseases, to ensure this bill does not jeopardize the public health. We can prevent tragedies like Jean Sullivan's from happening, and we have a duty to do so. I urge support for the Daschle amendment. Mr. President, what we talked about during the period of the last day or two has been E. coli, as if this was the only kind of problem. Let me mention briefly why the Daschle amendment is so important not just with regard to the proposal that has been made by the majority leader on the E. coli issue. Under the Dole amendment, the food safety rules can be exempt from the red-tape and delay in S. 343 only if the agency, for good cause, finds that conducting the cost-benefit analysis is impractical due to an emergency of health or safety that is likely to result in significant harm to the public or natural resources. Industry can challenge this finding and block the final rule under the ample judicial review authority in section 625. So even if you find out that a Secretary is able to move into a faster mechanism to try and address E. coli, you still have all the other procedures of S. 343 that can reduce protections for the public. Under section 622, the agency is required to complete the analysis within 180 days of the rule's publication. I understand that that is going to at least be addressed in another amendment, but that is only really a part of the problem. In addition, various meat suppliers and packing houses would be empowered to seek a waiver from the rule's requirements under the new special interest waiver authority in 629. This section allows industry to petition for the so-called alternative method of [[Page S 9747]] compliance. This approach allows the rule to be issued but would dramatically undermine its effectiveness. Once the rule is issued, industry can petition under the rollback authority in the legislation. Industry could seek the weakening of the E. coli rule on the basis that it does not meet the rigorous decision criteria in 624, and the rule automatically sunsets within 3 years if the agency fails to complete the review. Once the rule is issued, industry can also file a petition under the authority of new revisions to section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act that empower special interests to seek repeal of rules. The agency must respond within 18 months. Failure to respond, or a denial, could be litigated immediately under the new legislation. Mr. President, the problem with S. 343, quite frankly, is we are opening up the door for all of the industries in this area. We are interested in their interests, we are interested in their productivity and their financial security, but make no mistake, all of the rules and regulations and the procedures and the look-back procedures are all opening up the door for the industries to come in and alter and change health and safety procedures, th

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COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT
(Senate - July 12, 1995)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S9739-S9770] COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I just want to make a few opening comments on this bill before the Senate. It is a very important bill. I consider it one of the most important bills in the last 60 years. It is going to make a difference as to whether or not we are going to be regulated to death or whether regulators are going to have to meet certain standards and norms of common sense before they overregulate us, or should I say before they regulate us properly. This bill would force them to have to do what is right. It will also force Congress to be a little more specific in its legislation so that we do not always have to rely on regulations. It will make the system more honest. This bill is about common sense, and I think most Americans would agree that the Federal Government is out of control in terms of the burdens it places on them. A lot of people in this country believe that. We know that the [[Page S 9740]] cost of regulations is eating us alive. It is between $6,000 and $10,000 per family in this country. Now, many of them are essential. We acknowledge that. This bill will protect the essential regulations. And that is as it should be. We also know that some of these regulations are restrictive of freedom, some of them are taking properties away from people, some of them are just plain, downright offensive, and some of them are stupid. In that regard, let me give my top 10 list of silly regulations--this is my fourth top 10 list of silly regulations --just to kind of bring home to everybody how utterly ridiculous some of the interpretations of regulations and the regulations themselves are in this country. No. 10. Fining a man $10,000 because he filled out his tax forms with a 10-pitch typewriter instead of a 12-pitch typewriter. That is ridiculous. But that is what happened. No. 9. Medicare will pay for a pacemaker but will not pay for a newer, smaller version of the pacemaker that actually would be less expensive because that specific version has not been approved by the FDA, even though it has been in clinical trials. It is ridiculous. And the old procedure costs a lot more compared to the new one. No. 8. Fining a company $5,000 for accidentally placing the answer to line 17 on line 18 in an Environmental Protection Agency form. Now, who would not be upset with that type of ridiculous assessment by the regulators? No. 7. Prosecuting a rancher for ``redirecting streams'' when he has cleared scrub brush removed from his irrigation ditches. The ditches have been in use since the beginning of the century, and they have cleaned them all the time. But they prosecuted him for ``redirecting the streams.'' Utterly ridiculous. No. 6. Spending nearly $3 million to protect the habitat of the endangered dusty seaside sparrow and then managing the land poorly, thus allowing this sacred bird to become extinct. Spend $3 million, wreck the land, and the bird becomes extinct anyway. Ridiculous. No. 5. A wrecking company's owner was convicted of a felony and sentenced to 3 years in jail. What was his crime? His crime was failing to inform bureaucrats that when his company demolished a building, a total of one single pound of asbestos was released into the atmosphere. Three years in jail. That is more than ridiculous. No. 4 on this top 10 list of silly regulations for today: Requiring a farmer to suspend all economic activity on 1,000 acres of land because one red-cockaded woodpecker was found. I do not know about you, but my goodness gracious, it is time to put an end to this type of silly regulation. No. 3 on the list of the silliest regulations, on our top 10 list for today, fining a business $250 for failing to report that no employee has been injured in the preceding year. No. 2. Withholding approval of a medical waste container for almost a year only to determine that the product did not need FDA review. Ridiculous. Let us look at No. 1 on our list of 10 silly regulations. No. 1. The FDA took 7 years to approve a medical device which helped premature newborn infants breathe. It then made the company withdraw the product from over 250 hospitals because the agency found inadequacies in the company's documentation of its manufacturing practices. None of this documentation affected the safety of the product. Physicians later verified that children who could not get this product died. Now, unfortunately, because of silly regulations, thousands of people are dying in this country, and many, many more people are being oppressed and mistreated in this country. Mr. President, our Nation is being suffocated under a mountain of red-tape. Unnecessary, inefficient, and wasteful regulation stifles business, slows the economy, and costs our fellow Americans their jobs. It has gotten to the point where the words Americans fear most are, ``I am from the Government and I am here to help you.'' Amazingly enough, there are still those who attempt to argue that the Federal bureaucracy is just fine. They are satisfied with the status quo. We are not. Overregulation is often just plain ludicrous. We have had some fun describing some of the goofy rules that the Feds think we just have to have. But the fact is these regulations are frequently not funny at all. They hurt people. They cause deaths--the very people they are ostensibly supposed to be helping. For example, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem struggled for 4 years to get approval for a Head Start program in a newly renovated building. Most of the time was spent arguing with the bureaucrats about the dimensions of rooms that did not satisfy the guidelines. ``An entire generation of Head Starters missed the facility,'' said Kathy Phillips from the church. ``The people in Washington want to tell you this or that can't be done. I told them, `I know you're talking about five pieces of paper, but we're talking about children.''' When regulations hurt children, it is time to change the regulations. In another case, an OSHA inspector noted that a worker wearing a dust mask had a beard, violating a rule that requires a close fit between face and mask. The dust was not heavy or of hazardous content, and even when used over a beard, the mask filtered out most of what there was. But the rule was clear and, like most rules, did not distinguish among differing situations. Nor did it matter that the worker was Amish. Given a choice between abrogating his religious beliefs or quitting his job, this Amish worker quit his job. Thus, in seeking to protect a worker, OSHA really cost him his job. Now, that is ridiculous. The rigid nature of regulations is evident in the example of Tony Benjamin, the father of eight, who after reading about lead poisoning made a mistake to look to the Government for help. He had his children tested and found the youngest had lead levels almost at the danger threshold. He got a lead detection kit and, as is common in old houses, found lead beneath the surface of his walls. The State official said not to worry because Mr. Benjamin had recently painted over the old coat. But the child's test results had been filed with the city health department. One day, unannounced, the city inspectors arrived and stamped the word ``violation'' in red ink on every nick in his paint, and after finding 17 nicks, declared his home a health hazard. Mr. Benjamin was told to move his family out of their home and strip and repaint it in large sections. If he failed to comply immediately, he was told, he could be fined over $8,000. Mr. Benjamin could not afford to do what the inspectors demanded. Certainly he could not vacate his home with his eight children. Where could they go? Meanwhile, the youngest child's lead level dropped well below the level considered dangerous, but the law still required abatement, clearly without exception. When a family can be thrown out of their own home without good reason, no one can tell me that this system is working. Another situation involves a man who tried to defend himself against a grizzly bear. Bears had eaten about $1,200 of the man's sheep in one summer. However, the grizzly bear was listed as endangered, and he could do nothing. One night he heard bears attacking. And in his frustration, he came out of his house with a rifle and shot at the bears. Then another bear he had not seen moved to attack him so he shot it. The next day he went out to look for the dead bear. Instead he found it was very much alive as it started to charge him again. He shot it in self-defense, killing it. As a punishment for defending himself he was fined $4,000 for ``taking'' the bear which had attacked him. Regulations also impose burdensome costs on hard-working people, burdens that make survival almost impossible. In one case an auto parts storeowner failed to display a sign indicating that his store accepts waste motor oil for recycling. For his crime, he faces a $10,000 fine and a 1-year prison term. The owner said that the sign was down because the windows were being washed. Well, think about it for a minute. You own a business. You are up against a fine of 10 grand and a year in jail for failing to post a sign for 1 day while you are washing the windows. What is wrong with this picture? What is happening to us in America? Convicted, violent criminals, murderers and rapists are getting out of prison through the revolving door in [[Page S 9741]] our justice system, yet a regular guy, who happens to be cleaning his window, is treated like a criminal. I say to my colleagues that if we allow this kind of distorted societal value system to continue, our negligence as holders of the public trust far exceeds anything this business owner could be cited for. Other times the immense mountain of paperwork buries business alive. I spoke earlier about Mr. Dutch Noteboom, age 72. He has owned a small meatpacking plant in Springfield, OR, for 33 years. The USDA has one full-time inspector on the premises, one full-time inspector, and another spends over half of his time there. The level of regulatory attention is somewhat surprising since Mr. Noteboom has only four employees. But the rules require there be at least one inspector wherever livestock is slaughtered. Mr. Noteboom said, ``I am swimming in paperwork, but I don't even know a tenth of the rules--you should see all these USDA manuals.'' Now, do we really need an inspector for every two employees? These silly regulations could even stop well-meaning Government employees from being able to exercise common sense. In the late 1980's, Dr. Michael McGuire, a senior research scientist at UCLA found himself in trouble. His lab, which sits on 5 acres, is funded by the Veterans Administration. Its lawn needs to be cut. When the lawnmower broke, Dr. McGuire decided to go out and buy another one. He filled out no forms and got no approvals. During a routine audit, the auditor asked why the lawnmower was different. Dr. McGuire told the truth, and thus launched an investigation that resulted in several meetings with high-level Federal officials. ``I couldn't understand,'' Dr. McGuire notes, ``why important agency officials would spend their time this way.'' No kidding. I do not understand it either. Finally, after months, they rendered their findings. They could find no malice, but they determined Dr. McGuire to be ignorant of proper procedures. He received an official reprimand and was admonished to study VA procedures about the size of an encyclopedia. Oh, one more fact about this case. Dr. McGuire bought the lab's lawnmower with his own money. Now, can anyone believe that this is a useful and productive way to spend taxpayer money--to find fault with Dr. McGuire who did it on his own with his own money to help keep the lawn cut? Well, Mr. President, I want to emphasize that the cost of regulation is not limited to a few unfortunate individuals. These examples of bureaucratic abuse, of mismanagement add up to a staggering cost for all Americans. The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation estimates that the average American works until May 5 just to pay their taxes. However, when the hidden costs of Government, the regulatory costs, are added in, it is not until July 10 that the people even start to earn money for themselves. So we are working from January 1 to July 10 to even make a dime for ourselves. Monday was July 10, Mr. President. Until this week started, this very week, every single day that an average American had spent at work so far this year has been to pay for their Government. It was only this morning that they could expect to keep one penny of what they earned. Such a tremendous drain on hard-working Americans cannot be justified when the money is being spent on some of these ridiculous regulations I have mentioned today. They are just a few of literally the thousands and hundreds of thousands of them that are ridiculous and do not work. This bill will eliminate the wasteful, absurd, and harmful regulations while keeping those that truly protect America. Those regulations that contribute to the greater good will not be affected by this bill. This bill will not summarily overturn environmental laws, antidiscrimination laws, or health and safety laws. Such allegations are pure hogwash. But as we have noted from these few examples, the true worth of many rules should seriously be questioned. That is what this bill does. It requires the Federal Government to justify the rules and regulations they expect us to live by. And, in my book, that is not too much to ask. So I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation. And I appreciate being able to just make this short set of illustrations as to why this legislation is so important here today. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we have had some discussion on both sides of the aisle on various issues. The minority leader would like to call up his amendment. We were first thinking in terms of setting aside these amendments that I have called up on behalf of Senator Roth. But the way we will approach it is this way. I ask unanimous consent that we withdraw those amendments and that the yeas and nays that have been ordered be vitiated. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. So the amendments (Nos. 1498, 1499, 1500, and 1501) were withdrawn. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as I understand it, the parliamentary situation is that the bill is now open for amendment? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mr. HATCH. I yield to the minority leader. Amendment No. 1502 to Amendment No. 1487 (Purpose: To protect public health by ensuring timely completion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rulemaking on ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al., February 3, 1995) Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator from Utah for his cooperation and the accommodation he has shown us in accommodating the interests of all concerned here. I call up an amendment that is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] proposes an amendment numbered 1502 to amendment No. 1487. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 19, line 5, strike out ``or''. One page 19, line 7, strike out the period and insert in lieu thereof a semicolon and ``or''. On page 19, add after line 7 the following new subparagraph: ``(xiii) the rule proposed by the United States Department of Agriculture on February 3, 1995, entitled ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al.).''. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the amendment that we have just offered has one specific purpose, and that is to protect the ability of the Department of Agriculture to issue its proposed rule requiring science- based hazard analysis and critical control point, or HACCP, systems in meat and poultry inspections. The rule is critical, for it will improve the quality of our Nation's food supply and help prevent a repeat of the E. coli bacterial contamination. But it is not just E. coli; it is salmonella, it is listeria, it is a number of other foodborne illnesses that as a result of recent experience has clearly demonstrated the need for a new system. Last year, 2-year-old Cullen Mack, of my home State of South Dakota, fell ill from eating beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria. As a result of experiences like Cullen's, I held a number of hearings in the Agriculture Committee on the tragic 1993 outbreak of E. coli. I held numerous follow-up hearings in which industry, producers and consumers all repeatedly called for improving and modernizing the meat and poultry inspection systems. Later, the Department of Agriculture developed regulations to address recurrences of this problem. The rules would modernize the meat inspection process using sensitive scientific techniques to detect contamination and prevent spoiled [[Page S 9742]] meat from making its way into our food supply. Not only would the public benefit from tough new meat inspection rules, but so would farmers and ranchers who raise the livestock and rely on the assurances that their products will reach the market in the best condition possible. Consumers and agricultural producers should not be asked to delay these essential reforms--reforms the entire agricultural and consumer community have been calling for for several years. Unfortunately, this bill, even with the Dole amendment adopted yesterday, could lead to unacceptable delays in the issuance and implementation of this rule. The problem is really very simple, Mr. President. In an attempt to reform the regulatory process, the bill overreaches and provides numerous opportunities to those who would seek to delay the rule, prevent it from being issued, or attempt its repeal. Such a result is, frankly, unacceptable and, I believe, would lead to the long-term detriment to the American people and American agriculture. Yesterday, we debated the Dole amendment, which purported to address the problem. Unfortunately, it did little in that regard. It simply establishes a 180-day grace period for the regulation, at which point the agency must still comply with all of the provisions of the bill. It says for 180 days the effects of this legislation will not be addressed as it relates to the regulations. But after that, everything the bill calls for is every bit as much in effect as it would have been had the 180-day period not been in existence at all. It delays it for 6 months. It does not exempt the rule from the many requirements of the bill. And, as a result, that delay is really no fix at all. So merely delaying compliance of the burdensome processes of the bill, which ultimately must be met anyway, is no solution. Moreover, once the rule is promulgated, the petition and judicial review processes would still apply. Therefore, the rule will be susceptible to the extensive challenges available through the petition processes and through litigation. All of this for a rule that has already gone through the lengthy rulemaking process, and for a rule that is so essential to protecting public health. In short, Mr. President, a 180-day delay does not solve the problem. In addition to these concerns are those that Secretary Glickman outlined in his letter of July 11. In that letter, Secretary Glickman voiced strong opposition to S. 343 because it would unnecessarily delay USDA's food safety reform, among many other things. The letter explains the Secretary's view that the peer review requirement in S. 343 will delay USDA's food safety reform by at least 6 months. As I read Secretary Glickman's letter, he is concerned that the bill, as amended by the Dole amendment, requires that risk assessments underlying both proposed and final regulations be peer reviewed prior to becoming final. In other words, before USDA can issue a final regulation reforming our meat and poultry inspection systems--a regulation that has been in the works now for more than 2 years and is based on more than 10 years of science-based reform efforts--the bill would require that the rule go through a lengthy review by scientists before it could be issued in its final form. According to the Secretary, this peer review requirement would result, as I said, in a 6-month delay in this essential food safety reform. My good friend and colleague, Senator Johnston, has stated that he believes there are exemptions in the bill to deal with the peer review issue. It is my understanding from reviewing the bill and from discussing the matter with others that it is unclear whether USDA's E. coli rule, the HACCP rule, would fit the exemption and whether it would, therefore, avoid the delays associated with the peer review process. Like any legal ambiguity, this provision invites litigation and should be corrected here on the floor before the bill becomes law. If it is the intent of the authors of this legislation to exempt the E. coli regulation from delay caused by the peer review process--and from the other onerous processes in the bill--then they should simply vote for my amendment. My amendment would solve all of these problems by simply stating that the E. coli recall, the HACCP rule, cannot be considered a major rule for the purposes of this bill. It ensures that the bill cannot be used to delay this important rule. The Department of Agriculture has already gone through a great deal to develop this regulation. USDA published the proposed rule in February of this year with a 120-day comment period. USDA also extended the comment period at the request of a large number of commenters. Given this extensive comment period, if USDA suddenly declared an emergency exemption to avoid the peer review delay, it would simply be opening itself up to certain litigation, and even greater delay. I also note that USDA attempted to publish emergency food safety regulations a couple of years ago. To provide consumers with information on how to avoid food-borne illness from pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, USDA issued emergency regulations requiring safe handling labels on meat and poultry products. These safe handling regulations were issued without notice or comment. USDA was sued and lost and had to go through the rulemaking process before the labels could even be required. The result, then, of that ``emergency'' provision was delay. Mr. President, all we are seeking here is some common sense, some balance, some way in which to ensure that we can accomplish the goals set out in the bill, but to do so with a recognition that there is a sensitivity to many of the rules that are currently about to go into effect, rules that directly affect the public health and safety of millions of Americans, that ought not to be encumbered, that ought not to be thwarted in any way, as we go through what we consider to be reform in rulemaking overall. The Secretary felt so strongly about this issue, Mr. President, that he has issued yet a second letter that I would like to read into the Record. It was submitted by James Gilliland, general counsel at the Department of Agriculture, and was addressed to me. It simply states: Dear Senator Daschle: I am writing relative to the amendment Majority Leader Dole offered to S. 343 on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The amendment, which was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Senate, added ``food safety threat'' to the emergency exemption in the cost-benefit analysis subchapter of S. 343. I appreciate the Majority Leader's efforts to ensure that the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to reform the federal meat and poultry inspection system are not delayed by S. 343. However, the amendment does not provide an emergency exemption for the Department's food safety reform proposal and will not alleviate the delay that S. 343, in its current form, would have on the Department's efforts. So, Mr. President, here again, we have it from the Secretary of Agriculture, from the Department of Agriculture, simply asking us to consider the consequences of what this bill could do to a process for meat inspection that has been under way, under consideration, proposed now for over 24 months. It would stop in its tracks the efforts made by two administrations, really, to put all of the science and the new knowledge and the processes that we have to make food inspection more meaningful and more effective into place. We do not want to do that. I do not believe anybody in the Senate wants to encumber the Secretary's efforts to ensure that meat safety can be provided to an even greater extent than it has been in the past. My amendment will ensure that the Secretary has the latitude to provide for the culmination of this long effort and in a successful way, in a way that we all want. I urge its adoption. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the Senator from South Dakota, the very distinguished leader of the Democratic Party in this body, has to say about bringing common sense and some sensibility to regulation. I do not want to speak just to his amendment. But I think the points he is trying to make are the very basis for the legislation before us. Although I might disagree with his amendment or whether it is needed, I want to give an example, as I have been trying to do each of the last 2 days, of [[Page S 9743]] instances in which regulations have had a very negative impact in my State, a very unfair impact on certain individuals--individuals and small businesses, people that cannot afford to pay the legal fees to fight the harassment they get from Government bureaucrats, or where there is a misapplication of regulation, or where there is what I am going to mention today, disputes between Government agencies. It is one thing to have a very egregious regulation that may be justified making an impact negatively upon what an individual might want or might not want to do. But it is quite another thing to have one Government agency say you can do something and another Government agency come along and say you cannot do it, and then not even be able to get a resolution to the dispute between the two agencies. And then what is even worse--in the case I want to recite for you--is that there are four Government agencies that have four different definitions of what a wetland is, and then you are negatively impacted. Some say you can go ahead and do something, and another Government agency comes along and says ``No, we are going to fine you for what you did,'' and you cannot make use of your land. Then it is really quite perplexing for the farmer who moved ahead on the basis of two Government agencies saying he could do something, and then after a third and a fourth Government agency said he could not do it, one of the first two Government agencies that said he could do it changed their mind and said he could not do it. Now, when I say we ought to have common sense brought to regulation writing and in the enforcement of regulation, the very least that a citizen ought to be able to expect out of his Government is to get an answer and to get a resolution of a problem, and to get a quick resolution of the problem. Persons ought to expect in the first place they would not have two Government agencies, one saying you could do something and one saying you could not do it. Or you would at least think if that is the way it is, those two Government agencies ought to get together and say ``Yes, you can do it,'' or, ``No, you cannot do it.'' We have such a morass of regulation and we have so much conflicting regulation that we actually have citizens of the United States that cannot get a resolution, cannot get agreement among Government agencies, and then it is even difficult to get an answer to your problem when you spend a lot of money on legal fees and appeals. Now, that is the regulatory state on a rampage that is looking out for its own interest and not the interest of the citizens that it is impacting. There is not common sense in a lot of regulation writing, and we, in rural America, have found really a lack of common sense when it comes to Government regulation of wetlands. I want to highlight another case in my State that illustrates this. Remember, yesterday, I spoke about the country cooperative elevators that are impacted from the air quality standards of EPA, where they want to regulate what only occurs about 30 days out of a year as if it were happening 365 days, 24 hours a day, and costing these small cooperative businesses up to $40,000 to fill out a 280-page form that once they get it filled out only 1 percent of the elevators in my State are going to be impacted by the regulation in the first place. The day before, I spoke about how EPA caused a small business in my State--the costs of legal fees and lost business $200,000--to defend himself against a criminal charge that was brought by EPA, by a paid informant who was a disgruntled former employee, and there was not any case there. Misinformation. They came on this businessperson, a quiet morning at 9 o'clock in the morning, with their shotguns cocked, wearing bulletproof vests, sticking the gun in the face of the owner and in the face of the accountant, all on misinformation, and costing the business $200,000. Now, that is what is wrong with regulation. There are people in this body that want Government regulation and they do not care about the adverse impacts upon the small businesses of America and the farmers of America from adverse regulation. This bill before the Senate is to bring common sense to this process--nothing more, nothing less. In the instance I want to recite this morning, it all started in April 1989. A young family purchased a 284-acre farm in Mahaska County, IA. I presume from the description of how this problem evolved, this was probably not a very expensive farm. It was probably a farm that only a young person could afford to purchase. Remember, in my State, less than 5 percent of the farmers are under 30 years of age. We lost a whole generation of farmers because of the agriculture depression in the 1980's. The average age of the farmer in my State is 61 years of age. Do we want young farmers to start farming? Do we want them to start this business where they will produce for the consumer of America the cheapest food of any consumer in the world, because we city slickers only spend 8 percent of disposable income on food? There is no other consumer anywhere in the world that has that cheap of a buy or that quality of a buy. Or do we want corporate farming to take over America, where there are no young farmers who have the ability to get started? We have a harassment by a Government agency here that I am going to give an example of that is an impediment to young people getting into farming, because this farm was in a state of disrepair. That is why it was cheaper for this person to buy. The drainage system needed improvement. There was a stand of timber occupying part of the land. He wanted to make some improvements once he purchased it. He did the right thing. Before messing with Government regulation, because we really cannot understand Government regulation, go to some friends at the Soil Conservation Service and check with them, because for 60 years, the Soil Conservation Service provided technical help to the farmer. The farmer considered the employees of the Soil Conservation Service to be people that would level with or help you. Now, of course, these employees of the Soil Conservation Service are seen as regulators. Farmers do not want them on their farm. You do not go to their office to ask questions any more because some Federal regulator is going to come down on you if there is some suspicion that you might do something that was wrong. Yet we have reduced dramatically the amount of soil erosion in America because of the cooperation between the family farmer and the Soil Conservation personnel. Even in 1989, this farmer did the right thing, because he does not want to do something to his land and have the Government regulator come in and say ``You did this and should not have done it.'' So he did the right thing and checked with them ahead of time before making the necessary improvements to his drainage system and before clearing some of the trees. He checked with the Soil Conservation Service. The personnel at the SCS authorized his plans. Also, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the State agency which issues farmers flood planning permits, also authorized what he wanted to do. With the blessing of two Government agencies representing both State and Federal governments, this young farmer cleared trees and improved the drainage on his new farm. However, in just a few months, October 1989, the Army Corps of Engineers, a Federal agency, visited the farm. They discovered and alleged that a wetland had been filled without a permit. A follow-up letter by the Corps directed the farmer to obtain an after-the-fact permit or be fined up to $25,000 per day. Mr. President, $25,000 per day--that is what the average farmer lives on in Iowa for a whole year. A short time later, the Fish and Wildlife Service visited the farm and determined that more than 100 acres of wetlands had been impacted. Now, of course, this farmer was shocked to discover wetlands on his otherwise dry farm, especially since the Soil Conservation Service had already approved his actions. The farmer agreed to a wetlands delineation by the corps. The corps used what is now not used by the corps, a 1989 wetlands manual, and according to this manual, you had to have water within 4 feet of the ground surface for it to be classified as a wetlands. And at no time has there been water at that [[Page S 9744]] level. However, they did find, under another provision of the wetlands delineation, the presence of hydric soils, and so they declared 95 percent of the farm wetland. Since the farmer thought this conclusion was absurd, he decided to appeal to the Soil Conservation Service, another Federal agency, because of that agency's long history of working with farmers and because they said he could go ahead and make these improvements. Now, this is what is really frustrating to the farmer. This time around, when he went back to the SCS office, he found that the SCS office was more interested in cooperating with the Corps of Engineers than they were with the farmer. Even though they originally said that he could clear the land and improve the drainage system. This time the SCS was not the friend of the farmer. They found his 284-acre farm had 150 acres of wetlands. This determination was made in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. An extensive engineering study on the farm shows that normal flooding fails to inundate the farm for the 7 days required under the 1989 manual--which manual is no longer used. Furthermore, evidence from 23 monitoring holes showed that the water depth on the farm is normally 4 to 5 feet and not the 7 days on the surface that you must have under that manual to have a wetlands delineation. So the farmer used this evidence from this extensive engineering study to appeal, then, to the Soil Conservation Service State office. Although the regulations required the Soil Conservation Service to respond to an appeal request within 15 days, they took more than 150 days to respond. You know, 150 days is a whole cropping season on Iowa farmland--a growing season. They cannot even respond in the 15 days. Then you wonder why we need a regulatory reform act? It ought to be very obvious why we need one. Now, surprisingly, when the SCS, the Soil Conservation Service, did respond, do you know what they said? They said they did not have enough information to make a decision. But the Soil Conservation Service had enough evidence to agree with the Corps of Engineers that 150 acres of this 284-acre farm had wetlands on it--after, months before, they said you can go ahead and make these improvements. They said they did not have any information, after both the Corps and the SCS had already made determinations of wetlands based on the exact same information. Based on this case, it seems to me it is very easy to understand why the American public has become cynical about its Government. All people want for the high taxes they pay in this country, plus all the money we borrow--saddling the next generation of children and grandchildren with a big cost--they may not like the Government they get, and they are not getting what they are paying for, but they would at least like to see their Government work. Instead, what we have is a bureaucracy characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, where one official can authorize an action that another will condemn you for later. There is also a lack of flexibility and common sense in interpreting and enforcing regulations. The average citizen can find himself subject to the whims of a powerful yet irrational Federal bureaucracy. During the last 2 years this young Mahaska County farmer I am referring to here has spent his own time and money attending countless numbers of meetings, hearings and appeals. His farm has been visited by Government officials on 7 different occasions. And he still does not have an answer. This all started in 1989 and here it is 1995. He spent thousands of dollars defending himself against Federal regulators, and the U.S. Government has spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars to deprive this farmer of the economic use of his property, yet this case remains unresolved. The consequences are severe for this young farmer. He was deprived of disaster assistance during the floods of 1993, and is not eligible for Federal crop insurance. So the Government is depriving this farmer of benefits, even though a final resolution of his case has not been decided, and apparently this young man, then, is presumed guilty under these other Federal programs, until he proves himself innocent. This type of overreaching by the bureaucracy must stop. S. 343 will force agencies to more carefully promulgate regulations, paying attention to the costs and benefits of their actions. Maybe this example will help us put in perspective the need for the cost and benefit analysis that is in this legislation. This Government regulation has tremendous costs for this young farmer that I just referred to. There is nothing wrong with a Government agency, if it is going to have a Government policy, to make sure that the costs of that policy are not greater than the benefits. Or, under this legislation, if there is a determination that the cost is still greater than the benefit, at least you ought to choose the least costly method of accomplishing our goals. So, maybe this will cause these agencies to hesitate and contemplate, before they move ahead and infringe on the rights of our citizens. Hopefully, S. 343 will force these agencies to use more common sense in the future, and avoid situations like the one experienced by the young farmer in Mahaska County. If the Corps of Engineers, if the Fish and Wildlife Service, if the Soil Conservation Service, and if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources want to show that they are concerned about the impact their regulations have, if they want to show the public that Government works, if they want to show the public that Government is good, if they want to show the public that Government is responsible, if they want to show the public that Government is cost effective, if they want to show the people that Government is humane, it is very easy to do. Just help this young farmer in Mahaska County, IA, to get a resolution to his problem. Do you know what we think? We think the reason he is not getting his appeals decided is because he is right and the Government is wrong and they do not want to issue an OK to this guy, that he was deprived of something, because it would set a precedent. A politician who does not admit he is wrong is destined to a rude awakening someday. And regulators that fails to admit they are wrong are subject to a rude awakening someday as well. I hope that we have an opportunity through this legislation to give justice to our young farmers of America and justice to all young Americans. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Ohio. Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the minority leader. I have stated several times in the Chamber the importance of regulatory reform and the importance of the legislation that we are considering here. I know it does not get all the inches in the newspaper and all the TV time because it is bland, dry, arcane, all the words you can put together to make it uninteresting. Yet I would say this. I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation--it affects more Americans directly--than any legislation we will take up this year except for probably the appropriations bills. The rules and regulations that are put out pursuant to the laws that we pass here affect every single man, woman and child, every business, every activity that we conduct in this country. I believe very strongly in the need for regulatory reform for every person and business in America, but it must be done sensibly and it must be done with balance. Regulatory reform, to be true reform, should fulfill two principles. First, it should provide regulatory relief for businesses, State and local governments, and individuals. And, second, it also should provide the necessary protections to the safety, health and environment of the American people. Now, that is the balance. S. 343 does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people. That is why in this specific instance I support the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. Now, what is the problem? E. coli, what does that mean? Most people would not even know what you are talking about. Yet, according to USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 3,000 to 7,000 people die each year--not just made ill but 3,000 to 7,000 people [[Page S 9745]] die each year--from foodborne illnesses like E. coli, and another 3 to 7 million people get sick every year from such illnesses. Just from the E. coli bacteria alone, the estimates are, about 500 people die per year, year in, year out, year in, year out--500 fatalities. We have had testimony before our Governmental Affairs Committee; we have heard the stories of those who have lost loved ones to E. coli. Rainer Mueller testified before our committee about his son's death from eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger, painful death. It could have been prevented if we had better inspection standards in the first place. Nancy Donley came to Washington to tell the story of her son Ellis who also died from eating E. coli contaminated meat. The tragedies are real. Now, is anyone immune from this? Other figures indicate that about 4 percent of the ground beef in supermarkets has E. coli bacteria present in it--4 percent. Just on an average, that would be 1 out of every 25 hamburger patties that you pick up or 1 out of every 25 steaks that you pick up out of a supermarket has E. coli bacteria. Why is the problem then not more severe? Because we cook that meat and that kills E. coli. But in the raw state it has E. coli, and if it is not cooked enough you can come down with it. This can cause death, particularly among children. Now, in the State of Washington, we remember the problem out there where 3 children died, 500 were sick from contaminated hamburgers from just one fast food outlet back a couple of years. How do we prevent this? USDA is finally modernizing its inspection methods to be able to detect deadly bacteria like E. coli. The new proposal is called hazard analysis and critical control point [HACCP]. That will be the rule which will bring our Nation's meat and poultry inspection system into the 20th century. Now, the proposed rule, the public comment period for which just closed, was wanted by the meat industry and has wide public support. It was pushed for by the meat industry. And the public certainly wants it. It will prevent deaths and illnesses, and we should not put this off. The minority leader's amendment would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. The situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium that we had before us a short time ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must go back to square one. Forget that the Department of Agriculture has already done a cost-benefit analysis. It now will be subject to all the requirements of S. 343--new rulemaking procedures, new decisional criteria, opportunities for lawyer after lawyer after lawyer to sue the agency and stop the rule, petitions for the agency to review the rule, and so on. Unending legal battles and litigation. The potential delays for this rule are real but so also real are the additional deaths and sicknesses suffered by Americans who thought they were eating safe meat. And, indeed, every American deserves to have the meat they eat be safe. And yesterday the majority leader offered an amendment which was accepted to specifically include food safety rules among those rules covered by the bill's exemption provision. And yesterday the point was repeatedly made that there already was included in the bill an exemption from analysis requirements of the bill for ``health, safety or emergency exemption from cost-benefit analysis,'' which is the title of that section of the bill, but that is only for a 180-day period. Then the rule could be subject to judicial challenge if the agency had not completed all the analysis, and we would, indeed, be back to square one again. The problem is that section does not really exempt anything in the bill. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule, that is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with all the many requirements of this bill and all the legal challenges that can go along with that. And that is it. At the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again, no exemption there---- Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield at that point? Mr. GLENN. No. I would rather finish and then answer questions. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces these prospects? Regardless of the majority leader's amendment, the E. coli rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will be in danger. The minority leader's amendment is a first step in protecting the health of the American people, but it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health and safety and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: Regulatory relief and protection for the American people. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which I believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. Our bill would not shut down important rules such as USDA's meat and poultry inspection rule. Our bill would require cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment, but it would not force agencies to choose the cheapest, least-cost rule. It would not let the lawyers drag the agencies into court over every detail, every step along the way. It would not create several petition processes that could be used to tie up agency resources in litigation. But it would provide for sensible reform and it would allow the agencies to perform their important duties. Let me add that our bill also would not catch rules that are almost final, like the meat and poultry infection rule. Our bill has an effective date of 6 months from enactment, which gives the agencies time to gear up for the many requirements of this legislation. That makes sense. That is what we should be doing here, working toward commonsense reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. But I urge my colleagues to support the amendment put in by the minority leader. Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question? Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to yield for a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is yielding for a question. Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I simply wanted to tell the Senator that I agree with him that on the 180-day period on the emergency situation, the period is too short. We are requesting --I put in a request to the other side of the aisle that we extend that 180 days to 1 year. I think your suggestion is a good one and an appropriate one, and we will deal with that separately. That does not concern this amendment at this point. Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment. Just before making comment on that, I was listening to my good friend from Iowa talk about the rules and regulations going back some years affecting some of his constituents. I think all of us, during the course of this debate, have heard examples of rules and regulations that have been untenable and inexcusable. I think we have to be very careful even in the course of this debate and discussion because often when we go back and review the specific rule, regulation, or enforcement action that has been talked about, that has been addressed and has been altered and has been changed. If you take the examples of OSHA, that performs 100,000 inspections a year, and they are 99.9 percent good inspections--sound, reasonable, rational--you are still going to have 100 that do not make it. I think we understand that. But we have a measure of lives that have been saved and the quality of life that has been improved by OSHA, for example, by work safety regulation, on the other side. So we will have a chance, as we have during the course of this discussion and debate, to consider that factor. [[Page S 9746]] Those regulations that we heard about from the Senator from Iowa, of course, were issued in a previous administration. And I think any of us who, for example, have watched the difference between the administration of OSHA, particularly in the last 2 years under an excellent administrator, Joe Dear, can see the dramatic change, that the focus and attention has not been on the issuance of paper citations and rules and regulations, but really reaching at the core of what OSHA is really all about. I was amused at the start of this debate when before our committee, they were talking about the rules and regulations, and how by and large those rules and regulations had accumulated under previous administrations. And it has been this administration that has been working both to try to reduce the complexity of the rules and regulations, simplify the process, and still move ahead in the areas about which I am most concerned; that is in the health and safety areas--in OSHA, the FDA, and in mine safety. For example, the Delaney clause--I will have more to say about that later--should be updated, not repealed. And OSHA should be helped, not paralyzed, if we want to ensure that we are going to take the best in terms of modern science and industrial techniques in order to make our workplaces safer for American workers. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment, which I hope will serve two purposes: To keep this bill from blocking an important regulation and to illustrate one of the fundamental flaws of S. 343 that is so extreme and antiregulatory that it will block good and essential regulations that Americans want. I would like to begin by telling a story about a constituent of mine, a 40-year-old woman named Joan Sullivan. Earlier this year, on February 4, 1995, Joan Sullivan did something almost every American does many times a year. She ate a hamburger. She did not know that such a simple act would lead her to the edge of death, to weeks of incapacitation, pain, and suffering, and to catastrophic medical expenses. Joan Sullivan had no idea she was risking her life when she sat down to eat that night, but she was. The meat she ate was tainted by a microorganism, E. coli, a bacterium that is found with increasing frequency in the Nation's meat supply. When Joan ate that tainted hamburger she contracted an infection of astonishing virulence that came within a hair's breadth of killing her. Joan Sullivan was admitted to her local hospital emergency room with severe stomach pains, constant diarrhea, and vomiting. When her condition worsened, she was transferred to one of America's greatest medical institutions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where her condition was diagnosed as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Desperate measures to save her were undertaken. A tube was placed into Ms. Sullivan's chest without any anesthetic, according to her testimony, and inserted into one of her heart's major blood vessels in order to administer a blood-cleansing treatment. After a month in the hospital, 20 treatments, and the concentrated efforts of dozens of doctors, nurses, and technicians, Joan Sullivan's life was saved. But the cost in terms of her suffering and her family's time and anxiety and in the dollars spent on her care were enormous. Her medical bills alone have totaled approximately $300,000. What happened to Joan Sullivan has happened to hundreds of other Americans, but many have not been as lucky as she. Many of the victims of E. coli poisoning, especially children, do not survive the infection. Although 5,000 to 9,000 Americans die every year from foodborne diseases, the FDA estimates that another 4 million--4 million--are made ill at a cost to consumers of about $4 billion a year. That is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing a new regulation on meat and poultry handling and microbe sampling. The key to the proposed rule is the requirement that meatpackers and processors carry out microbiological tests once a day to be sure that their handling procedures are effective. USDA estimates that the rule, including its testing requirements, will save consumers $1 to $4 billion a year by preventing salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. This is a rule that is urgently needed and Congress should do whatever it can to expedite. But the pending bill could set back the USDA's efforts by years, blocking the rule until the agency can jump through all of the procedural hoops and red tape associated with the bill's extreme risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, and allowing businesses to challenge the rule after its issuance for failure to meet those requirements. The supporters of this misguided bill keep arguing that they are for common sense. Well, common sense tells me that if the USDA has already done a risk assessment under the Executive order, and has already done a cost-benefit analysis estimating that the benefits will be four times greater than the cost, then it would be foolish, wasteful, and dangerous to make them go back and do the analysis again. How much time and money will the agency waste unnecessarily while Congress forces it to comply with this bill's one-size-fits-all procedures? Is it common sense to demand that the USDA explore the regional effects of the rule or whether it has analyzed the extent to which the industry can control the problem of E. coli contamination through voluntary measures? That is not common sense, that is common nonsense. The bill's overly complex and rigid requirements add nothing at all to the agency's efforts to control this serious threat to public health. The bill's exemption for health and safety threats, as amended, clearly excludes rules dealing with E. coli contamination from the cost-benefit and risk assessment rules, at least when the rules are first promulgated. But it is clear that a meatpacker could still petition to force the agency to schedule the rules for the look-back review because the bill's analytical requirements have not been satisfied in every detail. A hostile USDA Secretary in the next administration, by failing to complete the review, could effectively repeal the rules, leaving the public unprotected again. This is a very real worry. There are elements of the meat industry and a number of Republicans who are supporting an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to block the USDA's meat handling and sampling rule. The majority leader, and others, have been embracing this rule in the Senate. But the House Appropriations Committee has voted to send the rule into the limbo of negotiated rulemaking from which it may never emerge. It is important that the Senate speak out in favor of protecting the public from E. coli and other meat and poultry diseases, to ensure this bill does not jeopardize the public health. We can prevent tragedies like Jean Sullivan's from happening, and we have a duty to do so. I urge support for the Daschle amendment. Mr. President, what we talked about during the period of the last day or two has been E. coli, as if this was the only kind of problem. Let me mention briefly why the Daschle amendment is so important not just with regard to the proposal that has been made by the majority leader on the E. coli issue. Under the Dole amendment, the food safety rules can be exempt from the red-tape and delay in S. 343 only if the agency, for good cause, finds that conducting the cost-benefit analysis is impractical due to an emergency of health or safety that is likely to result in significant harm to the public or natural resources. Industry can challenge this finding and block the final rule under the ample judicial review authority in section 625. So even if you find out that a Secretary is able to move into a faster mechanism to try and address E. coli, you still have all the other procedures of S. 343 that can reduce protections for the public. Under section 622, the agency is required to complete the analysis within 180 days of the rule's publication. I understand that that is going to at least be addressed in another amendment, but that is only really a part of the problem. In addition, various meat suppliers and packing houses would be empowered to seek a waiver from the rule's requirements under the new special interest waiver authority in 629. This section allows industry to petition for the so-called alternative method of [[Page S 9747]] compliance. This approach allows the rule to be issued but would dramatically undermine its effectiveness. Once the rule is issued, industry can petition under the rollback authority in the legislation. Industry could seek the weakening of the E. coli rule on the basis that it does not meet the rigorous decision criteria in 624, and the rule automatically sunsets within 3 years if the agency fails to complete the review. Once the rule is issued, industry can also file a petition under the authority of new revisions to section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act that empower special interests to seek repeal of rules. The agency must respond within 18 months. Failure to respond, or a denial, could be litigated immediately under the new legislation. Mr. President, the problem with S. 343, quite frankly, is we are opening up the door for all of the industries in this area. We are interested in their interests, we are interested in their productivity and their financial security, but make no mistake, all of the rules and regulations and the procedures and the look-back procedures are all opening up the door for the industries to come in and alter and change health and safety procedures, the whole se

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COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT
(Senate - July 12, 1995)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S9739-S9770] COMPREHENSIVE REGULATORY REFORM ACT The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I just want to make a few opening comments on this bill before the Senate. It is a very important bill. I consider it one of the most important bills in the last 60 years. It is going to make a difference as to whether or not we are going to be regulated to death or whether regulators are going to have to meet certain standards and norms of common sense before they overregulate us, or should I say before they regulate us properly. This bill would force them to have to do what is right. It will also force Congress to be a little more specific in its legislation so that we do not always have to rely on regulations. It will make the system more honest. This bill is about common sense, and I think most Americans would agree that the Federal Government is out of control in terms of the burdens it places on them. A lot of people in this country believe that. We know that the [[Page S 9740]] cost of regulations is eating us alive. It is between $6,000 and $10,000 per family in this country. Now, many of them are essential. We acknowledge that. This bill will protect the essential regulations. And that is as it should be. We also know that some of these regulations are restrictive of freedom, some of them are taking properties away from people, some of them are just plain, downright offensive, and some of them are stupid. In that regard, let me give my top 10 list of silly regulations--this is my fourth top 10 list of silly regulations --just to kind of bring home to everybody how utterly ridiculous some of the interpretations of regulations and the regulations themselves are in this country. No. 10. Fining a man $10,000 because he filled out his tax forms with a 10-pitch typewriter instead of a 12-pitch typewriter. That is ridiculous. But that is what happened. No. 9. Medicare will pay for a pacemaker but will not pay for a newer, smaller version of the pacemaker that actually would be less expensive because that specific version has not been approved by the FDA, even though it has been in clinical trials. It is ridiculous. And the old procedure costs a lot more compared to the new one. No. 8. Fining a company $5,000 for accidentally placing the answer to line 17 on line 18 in an Environmental Protection Agency form. Now, who would not be upset with that type of ridiculous assessment by the regulators? No. 7. Prosecuting a rancher for ``redirecting streams'' when he has cleared scrub brush removed from his irrigation ditches. The ditches have been in use since the beginning of the century, and they have cleaned them all the time. But they prosecuted him for ``redirecting the streams.'' Utterly ridiculous. No. 6. Spending nearly $3 million to protect the habitat of the endangered dusty seaside sparrow and then managing the land poorly, thus allowing this sacred bird to become extinct. Spend $3 million, wreck the land, and the bird becomes extinct anyway. Ridiculous. No. 5. A wrecking company's owner was convicted of a felony and sentenced to 3 years in jail. What was his crime? His crime was failing to inform bureaucrats that when his company demolished a building, a total of one single pound of asbestos was released into the atmosphere. Three years in jail. That is more than ridiculous. No. 4 on this top 10 list of silly regulations for today: Requiring a farmer to suspend all economic activity on 1,000 acres of land because one red-cockaded woodpecker was found. I do not know about you, but my goodness gracious, it is time to put an end to this type of silly regulation. No. 3 on the list of the silliest regulations, on our top 10 list for today, fining a business $250 for failing to report that no employee has been injured in the preceding year. No. 2. Withholding approval of a medical waste container for almost a year only to determine that the product did not need FDA review. Ridiculous. Let us look at No. 1 on our list of 10 silly regulations. No. 1. The FDA took 7 years to approve a medical device which helped premature newborn infants breathe. It then made the company withdraw the product from over 250 hospitals because the agency found inadequacies in the company's documentation of its manufacturing practices. None of this documentation affected the safety of the product. Physicians later verified that children who could not get this product died. Now, unfortunately, because of silly regulations, thousands of people are dying in this country, and many, many more people are being oppressed and mistreated in this country. Mr. President, our Nation is being suffocated under a mountain of red-tape. Unnecessary, inefficient, and wasteful regulation stifles business, slows the economy, and costs our fellow Americans their jobs. It has gotten to the point where the words Americans fear most are, ``I am from the Government and I am here to help you.'' Amazingly enough, there are still those who attempt to argue that the Federal bureaucracy is just fine. They are satisfied with the status quo. We are not. Overregulation is often just plain ludicrous. We have had some fun describing some of the goofy rules that the Feds think we just have to have. But the fact is these regulations are frequently not funny at all. They hurt people. They cause deaths--the very people they are ostensibly supposed to be helping. For example, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem struggled for 4 years to get approval for a Head Start program in a newly renovated building. Most of the time was spent arguing with the bureaucrats about the dimensions of rooms that did not satisfy the guidelines. ``An entire generation of Head Starters missed the facility,'' said Kathy Phillips from the church. ``The people in Washington want to tell you this or that can't be done. I told them, `I know you're talking about five pieces of paper, but we're talking about children.''' When regulations hurt children, it is time to change the regulations. In another case, an OSHA inspector noted that a worker wearing a dust mask had a beard, violating a rule that requires a close fit between face and mask. The dust was not heavy or of hazardous content, and even when used over a beard, the mask filtered out most of what there was. But the rule was clear and, like most rules, did not distinguish among differing situations. Nor did it matter that the worker was Amish. Given a choice between abrogating his religious beliefs or quitting his job, this Amish worker quit his job. Thus, in seeking to protect a worker, OSHA really cost him his job. Now, that is ridiculous. The rigid nature of regulations is evident in the example of Tony Benjamin, the father of eight, who after reading about lead poisoning made a mistake to look to the Government for help. He had his children tested and found the youngest had lead levels almost at the danger threshold. He got a lead detection kit and, as is common in old houses, found lead beneath the surface of his walls. The State official said not to worry because Mr. Benjamin had recently painted over the old coat. But the child's test results had been filed with the city health department. One day, unannounced, the city inspectors arrived and stamped the word ``violation'' in red ink on every nick in his paint, and after finding 17 nicks, declared his home a health hazard. Mr. Benjamin was told to move his family out of their home and strip and repaint it in large sections. If he failed to comply immediately, he was told, he could be fined over $8,000. Mr. Benjamin could not afford to do what the inspectors demanded. Certainly he could not vacate his home with his eight children. Where could they go? Meanwhile, the youngest child's lead level dropped well below the level considered dangerous, but the law still required abatement, clearly without exception. When a family can be thrown out of their own home without good reason, no one can tell me that this system is working. Another situation involves a man who tried to defend himself against a grizzly bear. Bears had eaten about $1,200 of the man's sheep in one summer. However, the grizzly bear was listed as endangered, and he could do nothing. One night he heard bears attacking. And in his frustration, he came out of his house with a rifle and shot at the bears. Then another bear he had not seen moved to attack him so he shot it. The next day he went out to look for the dead bear. Instead he found it was very much alive as it started to charge him again. He shot it in self-defense, killing it. As a punishment for defending himself he was fined $4,000 for ``taking'' the bear which had attacked him. Regulations also impose burdensome costs on hard-working people, burdens that make survival almost impossible. In one case an auto parts storeowner failed to display a sign indicating that his store accepts waste motor oil for recycling. For his crime, he faces a $10,000 fine and a 1-year prison term. The owner said that the sign was down because the windows were being washed. Well, think about it for a minute. You own a business. You are up against a fine of 10 grand and a year in jail for failing to post a sign for 1 day while you are washing the windows. What is wrong with this picture? What is happening to us in America? Convicted, violent criminals, murderers and rapists are getting out of prison through the revolving door in [[Page S 9741]] our justice system, yet a regular guy, who happens to be cleaning his window, is treated like a criminal. I say to my colleagues that if we allow this kind of distorted societal value system to continue, our negligence as holders of the public trust far exceeds anything this business owner could be cited for. Other times the immense mountain of paperwork buries business alive. I spoke earlier about Mr. Dutch Noteboom, age 72. He has owned a small meatpacking plant in Springfield, OR, for 33 years. The USDA has one full-time inspector on the premises, one full-time inspector, and another spends over half of his time there. The level of regulatory attention is somewhat surprising since Mr. Noteboom has only four employees. But the rules require there be at least one inspector wherever livestock is slaughtered. Mr. Noteboom said, ``I am swimming in paperwork, but I don't even know a tenth of the rules--you should see all these USDA manuals.'' Now, do we really need an inspector for every two employees? These silly regulations could even stop well-meaning Government employees from being able to exercise common sense. In the late 1980's, Dr. Michael McGuire, a senior research scientist at UCLA found himself in trouble. His lab, which sits on 5 acres, is funded by the Veterans Administration. Its lawn needs to be cut. When the lawnmower broke, Dr. McGuire decided to go out and buy another one. He filled out no forms and got no approvals. During a routine audit, the auditor asked why the lawnmower was different. Dr. McGuire told the truth, and thus launched an investigation that resulted in several meetings with high-level Federal officials. ``I couldn't understand,'' Dr. McGuire notes, ``why important agency officials would spend their time this way.'' No kidding. I do not understand it either. Finally, after months, they rendered their findings. They could find no malice, but they determined Dr. McGuire to be ignorant of proper procedures. He received an official reprimand and was admonished to study VA procedures about the size of an encyclopedia. Oh, one more fact about this case. Dr. McGuire bought the lab's lawnmower with his own money. Now, can anyone believe that this is a useful and productive way to spend taxpayer money--to find fault with Dr. McGuire who did it on his own with his own money to help keep the lawn cut? Well, Mr. President, I want to emphasize that the cost of regulation is not limited to a few unfortunate individuals. These examples of bureaucratic abuse, of mismanagement add up to a staggering cost for all Americans. The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation estimates that the average American works until May 5 just to pay their taxes. However, when the hidden costs of Government, the regulatory costs, are added in, it is not until July 10 that the people even start to earn money for themselves. So we are working from January 1 to July 10 to even make a dime for ourselves. Monday was July 10, Mr. President. Until this week started, this very week, every single day that an average American had spent at work so far this year has been to pay for their Government. It was only this morning that they could expect to keep one penny of what they earned. Such a tremendous drain on hard-working Americans cannot be justified when the money is being spent on some of these ridiculous regulations I have mentioned today. They are just a few of literally the thousands and hundreds of thousands of them that are ridiculous and do not work. This bill will eliminate the wasteful, absurd, and harmful regulations while keeping those that truly protect America. Those regulations that contribute to the greater good will not be affected by this bill. This bill will not summarily overturn environmental laws, antidiscrimination laws, or health and safety laws. Such allegations are pure hogwash. But as we have noted from these few examples, the true worth of many rules should seriously be questioned. That is what this bill does. It requires the Federal Government to justify the rules and regulations they expect us to live by. And, in my book, that is not too much to ask. So I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation. And I appreciate being able to just make this short set of illustrations as to why this legislation is so important here today. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we have had some discussion on both sides of the aisle on various issues. The minority leader would like to call up his amendment. We were first thinking in terms of setting aside these amendments that I have called up on behalf of Senator Roth. But the way we will approach it is this way. I ask unanimous consent that we withdraw those amendments and that the yeas and nays that have been ordered be vitiated. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. So the amendments (Nos. 1498, 1499, 1500, and 1501) were withdrawn. Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as I understand it, the parliamentary situation is that the bill is now open for amendment? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mr. HATCH. I yield to the minority leader. Amendment No. 1502 to Amendment No. 1487 (Purpose: To protect public health by ensuring timely completion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rulemaking on ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al., February 3, 1995) Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator from Utah for his cooperation and the accommodation he has shown us in accommodating the interests of all concerned here. I call up an amendment that is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] proposes an amendment numbered 1502 to amendment No. 1487. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 19, line 5, strike out ``or''. One page 19, line 7, strike out the period and insert in lieu thereof a semicolon and ``or''. On page 19, add after line 7 the following new subparagraph: ``(xiii) the rule proposed by the United States Department of Agriculture on February 3, 1995, entitled ``Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems'' (proposed rule, 60 Fed. Reg. 6774, et al.).''. Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the amendment that we have just offered has one specific purpose, and that is to protect the ability of the Department of Agriculture to issue its proposed rule requiring science- based hazard analysis and critical control point, or HACCP, systems in meat and poultry inspections. The rule is critical, for it will improve the quality of our Nation's food supply and help prevent a repeat of the E. coli bacterial contamination. But it is not just E. coli; it is salmonella, it is listeria, it is a number of other foodborne illnesses that as a result of recent experience has clearly demonstrated the need for a new system. Last year, 2-year-old Cullen Mack, of my home State of South Dakota, fell ill from eating beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria. As a result of experiences like Cullen's, I held a number of hearings in the Agriculture Committee on the tragic 1993 outbreak of E. coli. I held numerous follow-up hearings in which industry, producers and consumers all repeatedly called for improving and modernizing the meat and poultry inspection systems. Later, the Department of Agriculture developed regulations to address recurrences of this problem. The rules would modernize the meat inspection process using sensitive scientific techniques to detect contamination and prevent spoiled [[Page S 9742]] meat from making its way into our food supply. Not only would the public benefit from tough new meat inspection rules, but so would farmers and ranchers who raise the livestock and rely on the assurances that their products will reach the market in the best condition possible. Consumers and agricultural producers should not be asked to delay these essential reforms--reforms the entire agricultural and consumer community have been calling for for several years. Unfortunately, this bill, even with the Dole amendment adopted yesterday, could lead to unacceptable delays in the issuance and implementation of this rule. The problem is really very simple, Mr. President. In an attempt to reform the regulatory process, the bill overreaches and provides numerous opportunities to those who would seek to delay the rule, prevent it from being issued, or attempt its repeal. Such a result is, frankly, unacceptable and, I believe, would lead to the long-term detriment to the American people and American agriculture. Yesterday, we debated the Dole amendment, which purported to address the problem. Unfortunately, it did little in that regard. It simply establishes a 180-day grace period for the regulation, at which point the agency must still comply with all of the provisions of the bill. It says for 180 days the effects of this legislation will not be addressed as it relates to the regulations. But after that, everything the bill calls for is every bit as much in effect as it would have been had the 180-day period not been in existence at all. It delays it for 6 months. It does not exempt the rule from the many requirements of the bill. And, as a result, that delay is really no fix at all. So merely delaying compliance of the burdensome processes of the bill, which ultimately must be met anyway, is no solution. Moreover, once the rule is promulgated, the petition and judicial review processes would still apply. Therefore, the rule will be susceptible to the extensive challenges available through the petition processes and through litigation. All of this for a rule that has already gone through the lengthy rulemaking process, and for a rule that is so essential to protecting public health. In short, Mr. President, a 180-day delay does not solve the problem. In addition to these concerns are those that Secretary Glickman outlined in his letter of July 11. In that letter, Secretary Glickman voiced strong opposition to S. 343 because it would unnecessarily delay USDA's food safety reform, among many other things. The letter explains the Secretary's view that the peer review requirement in S. 343 will delay USDA's food safety reform by at least 6 months. As I read Secretary Glickman's letter, he is concerned that the bill, as amended by the Dole amendment, requires that risk assessments underlying both proposed and final regulations be peer reviewed prior to becoming final. In other words, before USDA can issue a final regulation reforming our meat and poultry inspection systems--a regulation that has been in the works now for more than 2 years and is based on more than 10 years of science-based reform efforts--the bill would require that the rule go through a lengthy review by scientists before it could be issued in its final form. According to the Secretary, this peer review requirement would result, as I said, in a 6-month delay in this essential food safety reform. My good friend and colleague, Senator Johnston, has stated that he believes there are exemptions in the bill to deal with the peer review issue. It is my understanding from reviewing the bill and from discussing the matter with others that it is unclear whether USDA's E. coli rule, the HACCP rule, would fit the exemption and whether it would, therefore, avoid the delays associated with the peer review process. Like any legal ambiguity, this provision invites litigation and should be corrected here on the floor before the bill becomes law. If it is the intent of the authors of this legislation to exempt the E. coli regulation from delay caused by the peer review process--and from the other onerous processes in the bill--then they should simply vote for my amendment. My amendment would solve all of these problems by simply stating that the E. coli recall, the HACCP rule, cannot be considered a major rule for the purposes of this bill. It ensures that the bill cannot be used to delay this important rule. The Department of Agriculture has already gone through a great deal to develop this regulation. USDA published the proposed rule in February of this year with a 120-day comment period. USDA also extended the comment period at the request of a large number of commenters. Given this extensive comment period, if USDA suddenly declared an emergency exemption to avoid the peer review delay, it would simply be opening itself up to certain litigation, and even greater delay. I also note that USDA attempted to publish emergency food safety regulations a couple of years ago. To provide consumers with information on how to avoid food-borne illness from pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, USDA issued emergency regulations requiring safe handling labels on meat and poultry products. These safe handling regulations were issued without notice or comment. USDA was sued and lost and had to go through the rulemaking process before the labels could even be required. The result, then, of that ``emergency'' provision was delay. Mr. President, all we are seeking here is some common sense, some balance, some way in which to ensure that we can accomplish the goals set out in the bill, but to do so with a recognition that there is a sensitivity to many of the rules that are currently about to go into effect, rules that directly affect the public health and safety of millions of Americans, that ought not to be encumbered, that ought not to be thwarted in any way, as we go through what we consider to be reform in rulemaking overall. The Secretary felt so strongly about this issue, Mr. President, that he has issued yet a second letter that I would like to read into the Record. It was submitted by James Gilliland, general counsel at the Department of Agriculture, and was addressed to me. It simply states: Dear Senator Daschle: I am writing relative to the amendment Majority Leader Dole offered to S. 343 on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The amendment, which was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Senate, added ``food safety threat'' to the emergency exemption in the cost-benefit analysis subchapter of S. 343. I appreciate the Majority Leader's efforts to ensure that the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to reform the federal meat and poultry inspection system are not delayed by S. 343. However, the amendment does not provide an emergency exemption for the Department's food safety reform proposal and will not alleviate the delay that S. 343, in its current form, would have on the Department's efforts. So, Mr. President, here again, we have it from the Secretary of Agriculture, from the Department of Agriculture, simply asking us to consider the consequences of what this bill could do to a process for meat inspection that has been under way, under consideration, proposed now for over 24 months. It would stop in its tracks the efforts made by two administrations, really, to put all of the science and the new knowledge and the processes that we have to make food inspection more meaningful and more effective into place. We do not want to do that. I do not believe anybody in the Senate wants to encumber the Secretary's efforts to ensure that meat safety can be provided to an even greater extent than it has been in the past. My amendment will ensure that the Secretary has the latitude to provide for the culmination of this long effort and in a successful way, in a way that we all want. I urge its adoption. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the Senator from South Dakota, the very distinguished leader of the Democratic Party in this body, has to say about bringing common sense and some sensibility to regulation. I do not want to speak just to his amendment. But I think the points he is trying to make are the very basis for the legislation before us. Although I might disagree with his amendment or whether it is needed, I want to give an example, as I have been trying to do each of the last 2 days, of [[Page S 9743]] instances in which regulations have had a very negative impact in my State, a very unfair impact on certain individuals--individuals and small businesses, people that cannot afford to pay the legal fees to fight the harassment they get from Government bureaucrats, or where there is a misapplication of regulation, or where there is what I am going to mention today, disputes between Government agencies. It is one thing to have a very egregious regulation that may be justified making an impact negatively upon what an individual might want or might not want to do. But it is quite another thing to have one Government agency say you can do something and another Government agency come along and say you cannot do it, and then not even be able to get a resolution to the dispute between the two agencies. And then what is even worse--in the case I want to recite for you--is that there are four Government agencies that have four different definitions of what a wetland is, and then you are negatively impacted. Some say you can go ahead and do something, and another Government agency comes along and says ``No, we are going to fine you for what you did,'' and you cannot make use of your land. Then it is really quite perplexing for the farmer who moved ahead on the basis of two Government agencies saying he could do something, and then after a third and a fourth Government agency said he could not do it, one of the first two Government agencies that said he could do it changed their mind and said he could not do it. Now, when I say we ought to have common sense brought to regulation writing and in the enforcement of regulation, the very least that a citizen ought to be able to expect out of his Government is to get an answer and to get a resolution of a problem, and to get a quick resolution of the problem. Persons ought to expect in the first place they would not have two Government agencies, one saying you could do something and one saying you could not do it. Or you would at least think if that is the way it is, those two Government agencies ought to get together and say ``Yes, you can do it,'' or, ``No, you cannot do it.'' We have such a morass of regulation and we have so much conflicting regulation that we actually have citizens of the United States that cannot get a resolution, cannot get agreement among Government agencies, and then it is even difficult to get an answer to your problem when you spend a lot of money on legal fees and appeals. Now, that is the regulatory state on a rampage that is looking out for its own interest and not the interest of the citizens that it is impacting. There is not common sense in a lot of regulation writing, and we, in rural America, have found really a lack of common sense when it comes to Government regulation of wetlands. I want to highlight another case in my State that illustrates this. Remember, yesterday, I spoke about the country cooperative elevators that are impacted from the air quality standards of EPA, where they want to regulate what only occurs about 30 days out of a year as if it were happening 365 days, 24 hours a day, and costing these small cooperative businesses up to $40,000 to fill out a 280-page form that once they get it filled out only 1 percent of the elevators in my State are going to be impacted by the regulation in the first place. The day before, I spoke about how EPA caused a small business in my State--the costs of legal fees and lost business $200,000--to defend himself against a criminal charge that was brought by EPA, by a paid informant who was a disgruntled former employee, and there was not any case there. Misinformation. They came on this businessperson, a quiet morning at 9 o'clock in the morning, with their shotguns cocked, wearing bulletproof vests, sticking the gun in the face of the owner and in the face of the accountant, all on misinformation, and costing the business $200,000. Now, that is what is wrong with regulation. There are people in this body that want Government regulation and they do not care about the adverse impacts upon the small businesses of America and the farmers of America from adverse regulation. This bill before the Senate is to bring common sense to this process--nothing more, nothing less. In the instance I want to recite this morning, it all started in April 1989. A young family purchased a 284-acre farm in Mahaska County, IA. I presume from the description of how this problem evolved, this was probably not a very expensive farm. It was probably a farm that only a young person could afford to purchase. Remember, in my State, less than 5 percent of the farmers are under 30 years of age. We lost a whole generation of farmers because of the agriculture depression in the 1980's. The average age of the farmer in my State is 61 years of age. Do we want young farmers to start farming? Do we want them to start this business where they will produce for the consumer of America the cheapest food of any consumer in the world, because we city slickers only spend 8 percent of disposable income on food? There is no other consumer anywhere in the world that has that cheap of a buy or that quality of a buy. Or do we want corporate farming to take over America, where there are no young farmers who have the ability to get started? We have a harassment by a Government agency here that I am going to give an example of that is an impediment to young people getting into farming, because this farm was in a state of disrepair. That is why it was cheaper for this person to buy. The drainage system needed improvement. There was a stand of timber occupying part of the land. He wanted to make some improvements once he purchased it. He did the right thing. Before messing with Government regulation, because we really cannot understand Government regulation, go to some friends at the Soil Conservation Service and check with them, because for 60 years, the Soil Conservation Service provided technical help to the farmer. The farmer considered the employees of the Soil Conservation Service to be people that would level with or help you. Now, of course, these employees of the Soil Conservation Service are seen as regulators. Farmers do not want them on their farm. You do not go to their office to ask questions any more because some Federal regulator is going to come down on you if there is some suspicion that you might do something that was wrong. Yet we have reduced dramatically the amount of soil erosion in America because of the cooperation between the family farmer and the Soil Conservation personnel. Even in 1989, this farmer did the right thing, because he does not want to do something to his land and have the Government regulator come in and say ``You did this and should not have done it.'' So he did the right thing and checked with them ahead of time before making the necessary improvements to his drainage system and before clearing some of the trees. He checked with the Soil Conservation Service. The personnel at the SCS authorized his plans. Also, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the State agency which issues farmers flood planning permits, also authorized what he wanted to do. With the blessing of two Government agencies representing both State and Federal governments, this young farmer cleared trees and improved the drainage on his new farm. However, in just a few months, October 1989, the Army Corps of Engineers, a Federal agency, visited the farm. They discovered and alleged that a wetland had been filled without a permit. A follow-up letter by the Corps directed the farmer to obtain an after-the-fact permit or be fined up to $25,000 per day. Mr. President, $25,000 per day--that is what the average farmer lives on in Iowa for a whole year. A short time later, the Fish and Wildlife Service visited the farm and determined that more than 100 acres of wetlands had been impacted. Now, of course, this farmer was shocked to discover wetlands on his otherwise dry farm, especially since the Soil Conservation Service had already approved his actions. The farmer agreed to a wetlands delineation by the corps. The corps used what is now not used by the corps, a 1989 wetlands manual, and according to this manual, you had to have water within 4 feet of the ground surface for it to be classified as a wetlands. And at no time has there been water at that [[Page S 9744]] level. However, they did find, under another provision of the wetlands delineation, the presence of hydric soils, and so they declared 95 percent of the farm wetland. Since the farmer thought this conclusion was absurd, he decided to appeal to the Soil Conservation Service, another Federal agency, because of that agency's long history of working with farmers and because they said he could go ahead and make these improvements. Now, this is what is really frustrating to the farmer. This time around, when he went back to the SCS office, he found that the SCS office was more interested in cooperating with the Corps of Engineers than they were with the farmer. Even though they originally said that he could clear the land and improve the drainage system. This time the SCS was not the friend of the farmer. They found his 284-acre farm had 150 acres of wetlands. This determination was made in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. An extensive engineering study on the farm shows that normal flooding fails to inundate the farm for the 7 days required under the 1989 manual--which manual is no longer used. Furthermore, evidence from 23 monitoring holes showed that the water depth on the farm is normally 4 to 5 feet and not the 7 days on the surface that you must have under that manual to have a wetlands delineation. So the farmer used this evidence from this extensive engineering study to appeal, then, to the Soil Conservation Service State office. Although the regulations required the Soil Conservation Service to respond to an appeal request within 15 days, they took more than 150 days to respond. You know, 150 days is a whole cropping season on Iowa farmland--a growing season. They cannot even respond in the 15 days. Then you wonder why we need a regulatory reform act? It ought to be very obvious why we need one. Now, surprisingly, when the SCS, the Soil Conservation Service, did respond, do you know what they said? They said they did not have enough information to make a decision. But the Soil Conservation Service had enough evidence to agree with the Corps of Engineers that 150 acres of this 284-acre farm had wetlands on it--after, months before, they said you can go ahead and make these improvements. They said they did not have any information, after both the Corps and the SCS had already made determinations of wetlands based on the exact same information. Based on this case, it seems to me it is very easy to understand why the American public has become cynical about its Government. All people want for the high taxes they pay in this country, plus all the money we borrow--saddling the next generation of children and grandchildren with a big cost--they may not like the Government they get, and they are not getting what they are paying for, but they would at least like to see their Government work. Instead, what we have is a bureaucracy characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, where one official can authorize an action that another will condemn you for later. There is also a lack of flexibility and common sense in interpreting and enforcing regulations. The average citizen can find himself subject to the whims of a powerful yet irrational Federal bureaucracy. During the last 2 years this young Mahaska County farmer I am referring to here has spent his own time and money attending countless numbers of meetings, hearings and appeals. His farm has been visited by Government officials on 7 different occasions. And he still does not have an answer. This all started in 1989 and here it is 1995. He spent thousands of dollars defending himself against Federal regulators, and the U.S. Government has spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars to deprive this farmer of the economic use of his property, yet this case remains unresolved. The consequences are severe for this young farmer. He was deprived of disaster assistance during the floods of 1993, and is not eligible for Federal crop insurance. So the Government is depriving this farmer of benefits, even though a final resolution of his case has not been decided, and apparently this young man, then, is presumed guilty under these other Federal programs, until he proves himself innocent. This type of overreaching by the bureaucracy must stop. S. 343 will force agencies to more carefully promulgate regulations, paying attention to the costs and benefits of their actions. Maybe this example will help us put in perspective the need for the cost and benefit analysis that is in this legislation. This Government regulation has tremendous costs for this young farmer that I just referred to. There is nothing wrong with a Government agency, if it is going to have a Government policy, to make sure that the costs of that policy are not greater than the benefits. Or, under this legislation, if there is a determination that the cost is still greater than the benefit, at least you ought to choose the least costly method of accomplishing our goals. So, maybe this will cause these agencies to hesitate and contemplate, before they move ahead and infringe on the rights of our citizens. Hopefully, S. 343 will force these agencies to use more common sense in the future, and avoid situations like the one experienced by the young farmer in Mahaska County. If the Corps of Engineers, if the Fish and Wildlife Service, if the Soil Conservation Service, and if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources want to show that they are concerned about the impact their regulations have, if they want to show the public that Government works, if they want to show the public that Government is good, if they want to show the public that Government is responsible, if they want to show the public that Government is cost effective, if they want to show the people that Government is humane, it is very easy to do. Just help this young farmer in Mahaska County, IA, to get a resolution to his problem. Do you know what we think? We think the reason he is not getting his appeals decided is because he is right and the Government is wrong and they do not want to issue an OK to this guy, that he was deprived of something, because it would set a precedent. A politician who does not admit he is wrong is destined to a rude awakening someday. And regulators that fails to admit they are wrong are subject to a rude awakening someday as well. I hope that we have an opportunity through this legislation to give justice to our young farmers of America and justice to all young Americans. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Ohio. Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the minority leader. I have stated several times in the Chamber the importance of regulatory reform and the importance of the legislation that we are considering here. I know it does not get all the inches in the newspaper and all the TV time because it is bland, dry, arcane, all the words you can put together to make it uninteresting. Yet I would say this. I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation--it affects more Americans directly--than any legislation we will take up this year except for probably the appropriations bills. The rules and regulations that are put out pursuant to the laws that we pass here affect every single man, woman and child, every business, every activity that we conduct in this country. I believe very strongly in the need for regulatory reform for every person and business in America, but it must be done sensibly and it must be done with balance. Regulatory reform, to be true reform, should fulfill two principles. First, it should provide regulatory relief for businesses, State and local governments, and individuals. And, second, it also should provide the necessary protections to the safety, health and environment of the American people. Now, that is the balance. S. 343 does not, in my opinion, provide that essential balance of regulatory relief and protection of the American people. That is why in this specific instance I support the minority leader's amendment on the USDA E. coli meat and poultry inspection rule. Now, what is the problem? E. coli, what does that mean? Most people would not even know what you are talking about. Yet, according to USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 3,000 to 7,000 people die each year--not just made ill but 3,000 to 7,000 people [[Page S 9745]] die each year--from foodborne illnesses like E. coli, and another 3 to 7 million people get sick every year from such illnesses. Just from the E. coli bacteria alone, the estimates are, about 500 people die per year, year in, year out, year in, year out--500 fatalities. We have had testimony before our Governmental Affairs Committee; we have heard the stories of those who have lost loved ones to E. coli. Rainer Mueller testified before our committee about his son's death from eating an E. coli contaminated hamburger, painful death. It could have been prevented if we had better inspection standards in the first place. Nancy Donley came to Washington to tell the story of her son Ellis who also died from eating E. coli contaminated meat. The tragedies are real. Now, is anyone immune from this? Other figures indicate that about 4 percent of the ground beef in supermarkets has E. coli bacteria present in it--4 percent. Just on an average, that would be 1 out of every 25 hamburger patties that you pick up or 1 out of every 25 steaks that you pick up out of a supermarket has E. coli bacteria. Why is the problem then not more severe? Because we cook that meat and that kills E. coli. But in the raw state it has E. coli, and if it is not cooked enough you can come down with it. This can cause death, particularly among children. Now, in the State of Washington, we remember the problem out there where 3 children died, 500 were sick from contaminated hamburgers from just one fast food outlet back a couple of years. How do we prevent this? USDA is finally modernizing its inspection methods to be able to detect deadly bacteria like E. coli. The new proposal is called hazard analysis and critical control point [HACCP]. That will be the rule which will bring our Nation's meat and poultry inspection system into the 20th century. Now, the proposed rule, the public comment period for which just closed, was wanted by the meat industry and has wide public support. It was pushed for by the meat industry. And the public certainly wants it. It will prevent deaths and illnesses, and we should not put this off. The minority leader's amendment would exempt this critically important rule from the burdensome requirements of this bill. I support this amendment in order to show how important rules that are already underway will be delayed and can be stopped by the regulatory reform bill before us. The situation with this rule reminds me of the regulatory moratorium that we had before us a short time ago except now we are calling it regulatory reform. Rules that are in the pipeline and will be final soon must go back to square one. Forget that the Department of Agriculture has already done a cost-benefit analysis. It now will be subject to all the requirements of S. 343--new rulemaking procedures, new decisional criteria, opportunities for lawyer after lawyer after lawyer to sue the agency and stop the rule, petitions for the agency to review the rule, and so on. Unending legal battles and litigation. The potential delays for this rule are real but so also real are the additional deaths and sicknesses suffered by Americans who thought they were eating safe meat. And, indeed, every American deserves to have the meat they eat be safe. And yesterday the majority leader offered an amendment which was accepted to specifically include food safety rules among those rules covered by the bill's exemption provision. And yesterday the point was repeatedly made that there already was included in the bill an exemption from analysis requirements of the bill for ``health, safety or emergency exemption from cost-benefit analysis,'' which is the title of that section of the bill, but that is only for a 180-day period. Then the rule could be subject to judicial challenge if the agency had not completed all the analysis, and we would, indeed, be back to square one again. The problem is that section does not really exempt anything in the bill. It only provides for a 180-day grace period after issuance of the rule, that is, it gives an agency an additional 180 days to comply with all the many requirements of this bill and all the legal challenges that can go along with that. And that is it. At the end of the 180 days, all of the onerous requirements of S. 343 kick in again, no exemption there---- Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield at that point? Mr. GLENN. No. I would rather finish and then answer questions. Just new opportunities for challenges, uncertainty, and delay. What will happen to the implementation of the rule when it faces these prospects? Regardless of the majority leader's amendment, the E. coli rule will be caught in the vise of S. 343 and public health will be in danger. The minority leader's amendment is a first step in protecting the health of the American people, but it certainly is not enough. S. 343 will catch other important rules, and overall it will make the jobs of the agencies to protect health and safety and the environment much more difficult. S. 343 simply does not fulfill my two principles for regulatory reform: Regulatory relief and protection for the American people. That is why I, along with Senator Chafee and many others, have introduced S. 1001, which I believe is a balanced regulatory reform proposal. Our bill would not shut down important rules such as USDA's meat and poultry inspection rule. Our bill would require cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment, but it would not force agencies to choose the cheapest, least-cost rule. It would not let the lawyers drag the agencies into court over every detail, every step along the way. It would not create several petition processes that could be used to tie up agency resources in litigation. But it would provide for sensible reform and it would allow the agencies to perform their important duties. Let me add that our bill also would not catch rules that are almost final, like the meat and poultry infection rule. Our bill has an effective date of 6 months from enactment, which gives the agencies time to gear up for the many requirements of this legislation. That makes sense. That is what we should be doing here, working toward commonsense reform. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I strongly encourage them to take a hard look at our alternative proposal for regulatory reform, S. 1001. It makes amendments like this unnecessary. But I urge my colleagues to support the amendment put in by the minority leader. Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question? Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to yield for a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is yielding for a question. Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I simply wanted to tell the Senator that I agree with him that on the 180-day period on the emergency situation, the period is too short. We are requesting --I put in a request to the other side of the aisle that we extend that 180 days to 1 year. I think your suggestion is a good one and an appropriate one, and we will deal with that separately. That does not concern this amendment at this point. Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment. Just before making comment on that, I was listening to my good friend from Iowa talk about the rules and regulations going back some years affecting some of his constituents. I think all of us, during the course of this debate, have heard examples of rules and regulations that have been untenable and inexcusable. I think we have to be very careful even in the course of this debate and discussion because often when we go back and review the specific rule, regulation, or enforcement action that has been talked about, that has been addressed and has been altered and has been changed. If you take the examples of OSHA, that performs 100,000 inspections a year, and they are 99.9 percent good inspections--sound, reasonable, rational--you are still going to have 100 that do not make it. I think we understand that. But we have a measure of lives that have been saved and the quality of life that has been improved by OSHA, for example, by work safety regulation, on the other side. So we will have a chance, as we have during the course of this discussion and debate, to consider that factor. [[Page S 9746]] Those regulations that we heard about from the Senator from Iowa, of course, were issued in a previous administration. And I think any of us who, for example, have watched the difference between the administration of OSHA, particularly in the last 2 years under an excellent administrator, Joe Dear, can see the dramatic change, that the focus and attention has not been on the issuance of paper citations and rules and regulations, but really reaching at the core of what OSHA is really all about. I was amused at the start of this debate when before our committee, they were talking about the rules and regulations, and how by and large those rules and regulations had accumulated under previous administrations. And it has been this administration that has been working both to try to reduce the complexity of the rules and regulations, simplify the process, and still move ahead in the areas about which I am most concerned; that is in the health and safety areas--in OSHA, the FDA, and in mine safety. For example, the Delaney clause--I will have more to say about that later--should be updated, not repealed. And OSHA should be helped, not paralyzed, if we want to ensure that we are going to take the best in terms of modern science and industrial techniques in order to make our workplaces safer for American workers. Mr. President, I strongly support the Daschle amendment, which I hope will serve two purposes: To keep this bill from blocking an important regulation and to illustrate one of the fundamental flaws of S. 343 that is so extreme and antiregulatory that it will block good and essential regulations that Americans want. I would like to begin by telling a story about a constituent of mine, a 40-year-old woman named Joan Sullivan. Earlier this year, on February 4, 1995, Joan Sullivan did something almost every American does many times a year. She ate a hamburger. She did not know that such a simple act would lead her to the edge of death, to weeks of incapacitation, pain, and suffering, and to catastrophic medical expenses. Joan Sullivan had no idea she was risking her life when she sat down to eat that night, but she was. The meat she ate was tainted by a microorganism, E. coli, a bacterium that is found with increasing frequency in the Nation's meat supply. When Joan ate that tainted hamburger she contracted an infection of astonishing virulence that came within a hair's breadth of killing her. Joan Sullivan was admitted to her local hospital emergency room with severe stomach pains, constant diarrhea, and vomiting. When her condition worsened, she was transferred to one of America's greatest medical institutions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where her condition was diagnosed as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Desperate measures to save her were undertaken. A tube was placed into Ms. Sullivan's chest without any anesthetic, according to her testimony, and inserted into one of her heart's major blood vessels in order to administer a blood-cleansing treatment. After a month in the hospital, 20 treatments, and the concentrated efforts of dozens of doctors, nurses, and technicians, Joan Sullivan's life was saved. But the cost in terms of her suffering and her family's time and anxiety and in the dollars spent on her care were enormous. Her medical bills alone have totaled approximately $300,000. What happened to Joan Sullivan has happened to hundreds of other Americans, but many have not been as lucky as she. Many of the victims of E. coli poisoning, especially children, do not survive the infection. Although 5,000 to 9,000 Americans die every year from foodborne diseases, the FDA estimates that another 4 million--4 million--are made ill at a cost to consumers of about $4 billion a year. That is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing a new regulation on meat and poultry handling and microbe sampling. The key to the proposed rule is the requirement that meatpackers and processors carry out microbiological tests once a day to be sure that their handling procedures are effective. USDA estimates that the rule, including its testing requirements, will save consumers $1 to $4 billion a year by preventing salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. This is a rule that is urgently needed and Congress should do whatever it can to expedite. But the pending bill could set back the USDA's efforts by years, blocking the rule until the agency can jump through all of the procedural hoops and red tape associated with the bill's extreme risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, and allowing businesses to challenge the rule after its issuance for failure to meet those requirements. The supporters of this misguided bill keep arguing that they are for common sense. Well, common sense tells me that if the USDA has already done a risk assessment under the Executive order, and has already done a cost-benefit analysis estimating that the benefits will be four times greater than the cost, then it would be foolish, wasteful, and dangerous to make them go back and do the analysis again. How much time and money will the agency waste unnecessarily while Congress forces it to comply with this bill's one-size-fits-all procedures? Is it common sense to demand that the USDA explore the regional effects of the rule or whether it has analyzed the extent to which the industry can control the problem of E. coli contamination through voluntary measures? That is not common sense, that is common nonsense. The bill's overly complex and rigid requirements add nothing at all to the agency's efforts to control this serious threat to public health. The bill's exemption for health and safety threats, as amended, clearly excludes rules dealing with E. coli contamination from the cost-benefit and risk assessment rules, at least when the rules are first promulgated. But it is clear that a meatpacker could still petition to force the agency to schedule the rules for the look-back review because the bill's analytical requirements have not been satisfied in every detail. A hostile USDA Secretary in the next administration, by failing to complete the review, could effectively repeal the rules, leaving the public unprotected again. This is a very real worry. There are elements of the meat industry and a number of Republicans who are supporting an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to block the USDA's meat handling and sampling rule. The majority leader, and others, have been embracing this rule in the Senate. But the House Appropriations Committee has voted to send the rule into the limbo of negotiated rulemaking from which it may never emerge. It is important that the Senate speak out in favor of protecting the public from E. coli and other meat and poultry diseases, to ensure this bill does not jeopardize the public health. We can prevent tragedies like Jean Sullivan's from happening, and we have a duty to do so. I urge support for the Daschle amendment. Mr. President, what we talked about during the period of the last day or two has been E. coli, as if this was the only kind of problem. Let me mention briefly why the Daschle amendment is so important not just with regard to the proposal that has been made by the majority leader on the E. coli issue. Under the Dole amendment, the food safety rules can be exempt from the red-tape and delay in S. 343 only if the agency, for good cause, finds that conducting the cost-benefit analysis is impractical due to an emergency of health or safety that is likely to result in significant harm to the public or natural resources. Industry can challenge this finding and block the final rule under the ample judicial review authority in section 625. So even if you find out that a Secretary is able to move into a faster mechanism to try and address E. coli, you still have all the other procedures of S. 343 that can reduce protections for the public. Under section 622, the agency is required to complete the analysis within 180 days of the rule's publication. I understand that that is going to at least be addressed in another amendment, but that is only really a part of the problem. In addition, various meat suppliers and packing houses would be empowered to seek a waiver from the rule's requirements under the new special interest waiver authority in 629. This section allows industry to petition for the so-called alternative method of [[Page S 9747]] compliance. This approach allows the rule to be issued but would dramatically undermine its effectiveness. Once the rule is issued, industry can petition under the rollback authority in the legislation. Industry could seek the weakening of the E. coli rule on the basis that it does not meet the rigorous decision criteria in 624, and the rule automatically sunsets within 3 years if the agency fails to complete the review. Once the rule is issued, industry can also file a petition under the authority of new revisions to section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act that empower special interests to seek repeal of rules. The agency must respond within 18 months. Failure to respond, or a denial, could be litigated immediately under the new legislation. Mr. President, the problem with S. 343, quite frankly, is we are opening up the door for all of the industries in this area. We are interested in their interests, we are interested in their productivity and their financial security, but make no mistake, all of the rules and regulations and the procedures and the look-back procedures are all opening up the door for the industries to come in and alter and change health and safety procedures, th