The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ACCOUNTABILITY OF CONGRESS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S2539-S2540 on April 28, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ACCOUNTABILITY OF CONGRESS
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, of the words the American people frequently use to describe Congress today--at least one of the words that is appropriate to repeat on the Senate floor--one of the most common and accurate is ``unaccountable.''
Year after year, hard-working men and women across this great country bristle under dysfunctional, costly, and burdensome laws made right here in Washington, DC, and day after day, many of them do what Americans have always done when faced with an out-of-touch government. They contact their elected lawmakers to voice their concerns about those laws and to push for change of those laws and the process by which they are made.
Ask anyone who has ever called, written, or emailed their Member of Congress what happens next. It is consistent. It is predictable. Blame is shifted; fingers are pointed; scapegoats of every variety imaginable are brought forth to defend those who are charged with making the laws from the consequences of their own handiwork. This is the very definition of unaccountability, and it pervades the culture of Washington, DC, because Congress has allowed it to infect our laws and our institutions--the very institutions by which those laws are made.
Many Americans assume that they are being lied to when their elected lawmakers blame someone else for the laws that are raising the cost of living, eating away at their paychecks, and generally making it harder for individual Americans and families to realize the American dream. But the truth is actually even more troubling than that. Most of the items on the Federal Government's interminable list of do's and don'ts governing nearly every activity of human life are not in fact written, debated, discussed, and passed by Congress; rather, they are imposed unilaterally by unelected bureaucrats in one of the executive branch's administrative agencies. This is true even for what are called major rules, which are regulations that cost the American people more than
$100 million each year in compliance costs.
For instance, look at the Department of Energy, whose appropriations we are currently considering. In a single year, 2015, the costs of the regulations issued by the Department of Energy exceeded $15 billion--
$15 billion. In 1 year, it cost the American people $15 billion to comply with the regulations issued by this single bureaucratic agency--
by this single Federal Department, the U.S. Department of Energy.
Even if we were to agree with every cent of that very onerous regulatory burden, we should all be able to recognize the danger of allowing one group of people, consisting of individuals who never have had to stand for election, to squeeze $15 billion out of the pocketbooks of the American people. That is why I have submitted this amendment, No. 3856, which would restrict the Department of Energy from spending any funds to implement or enforce regulations whose compliance costs exceed $100 million, unless specifically approved by Congress.
Unfortunately, regrettably, tragically, this amendment was blocked from consideration by one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for reasons that appear to be completely unrelated to the merits of this amendment.
Nevertheless, I would like to take a moment to explain how my amendment works. This amendment would have provided immediate, much needed financial relief to the budgets of hard-working families and businesses all across the country. It would protect them from the costs of two major rules recently proposed by the Department of Energy--rules that impose new energy-efficiency standards on ceiling fans and commercial packaged boilers.
Just like the Department of Energy's ban on incandescent light bulbs, under these rules, Americans would no longer be able to buy ceiling fans or commercial boilers that do not adhere to the government's strict new standards. Proponents of the rules think this is a good thing. As former Energy Secretary Steven Chu said about the light bulb ban back in 2011, ``We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.''
This government-knows-best approach to regulation is not only arrogant--it is not only off-puttingly paternalistic--it is detached from the economic realities of American life today. Most Americans may buy less energy-efficient ceiling fans than most Washington bureaucrats, not because they are less intelligent or less concerned about saving energy or less concerned about protecting the environment but because it is what they can afford. The additional costs of these energy-efficiency standards are not insignificant. In fact, it is estimated that these two rules would cost American families and businesses more than $3 billion.
Today, the Department of Energy has the power to impose these rules on the public, and there is very little Congress can do about it. But under my amendment, the two rules would not go into effect unless and until Congress voted to approve them--unless and until Congress affirmatively enacted them into law and allowed them to be signed into law by the President. This simple, commonsense reform is modeled on the REINS Act, a bill that requires congressional approval for all major rules issued by all executive agencies across the entire Federal Government.
Last July, the House of Representatives passed the REINS Act by a strong vote of 243 to 165, and it currently has 37 cosponsors in the Senate. Support for the legislation is growing because it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the moral and material problems of hiding the regulatory process in the nameless, faceless bureaucracy. Everyone here knows the regulatory burden in America has become untenable. Every single day, each of us hears from our constituents about how stifling government regulations have become.
The data tell the same story. Just today we saw that the first quarter of 2016 was the third in a row in which private domestic investment has shrunk. This is disappointing, but it is not surprising.
According to a recent study by the Mercatus Center, in 2012, ``the economy was $4 trillion smaller than it would have been in the absence of regulatory growth since 1980.'' That works out to about $13,000 of lost earnings for every man, woman, and child in America.
Some of my colleagues may think the costs of our regulatory system are defensible. I certainly don't. But I know there are different opinions out there, and that is exactly the point of the REINS Act. That is exactly the point of this amendment--this amendment which has been improperly blocked.
Under the broken status quo, Members of Congress can claim innocence--and they regularly do--when an executive agency imposes a costly and controversial regulations on the country. In fact, many Members of Congress not only claim innocence, but they claim almost victim status. They behave almost as if we were a victim, as if we were someone being acted upon. We don't even have to debate it. It just kicks into law by itself. It is self-executing. This may be convenient for those of us in Washington, but it is fundamentally and unacceptably unfair to the American people. We don't make the law this way in this country, but that is now how our system is set up. It is time that we change it.
If Congress is ever going to win back the trust of the American people, we must prove that we are in fact trustworthy--trustworthy to do what we are supposed to do and trustworthy to make law--because that is why we exist as a part of our government. The best way to do that is to make ourselves once again accountable for making the laws, passing the laws, and standing accountable for the laws of this country. This amendment would be a significant step toward making Congress accountable again.
I regret--I deeply regret--that it was blocked, but I look forward to advancing similar reforms in the future because the idea of making Congress accountable isn't just a good idea; it is burned deeply, indelibly within our constitutional system.
It is no accident that the very first clause of the first section of the first article of the Constitution says, ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.'' All legislative powers--that means all Federal law in this system is vested in a Congress of the United States. We are not supposed to delegate that to someone else.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
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