The House Judiciary Committee takes up two bills today designed to tie the hands of federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and others that provide essential public oversight intended to protect us.
The agenda adds to the 168 votes the House already has taken this year alone to undermine those protections, in the single greatest assault ever waged on the foundational safeguards that defend our environment and health.
The House Republicans leading the charge claim these attacks will put Americans to work. "The current regulatory system has become a barrier to economic growth and job creation," asserted committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of what's called the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011, which the panel will debate this morning. Concerned about the costs of regulations, Smith alleged, employers simply "stop hiring."
The bill would impose 32 pages of additional requirements upon agencies seeking to strengthen existing standards or adopt new rules aimed at protecting public health and the environment. Its provisions would supersede or threaten the protections embodied in the Clean Air Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Mine Safety and Health Act, and similarly defensive statutes.
In doing so, the bill would put at risk decades of sound health and environmental protections, “leaving people and the environment unprotected against unreasonable risks,” says the nonprofit Coalition for Sensible Safeguards.
Later, the committee is scheduled to vote on the Regulations From the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011. Commonly called the REINS Act, this bill would require congressional approval of any new rule, standard or regulation that could cost industry $100 million or more. Safeguards not approved within 70 days would automatically die. [UPDATE: The House Judiciary Committee passed the REINS Act on Tuesday. It now goes to the full House for a vote, probably several weeks from now.]
This is the same Congress, remember, that has yet to pass a fiscal 2012 budget, eight months after it was introduced. The REINS Act would permit members to kill needed environmental rules just by dragging their feet a few weeks.
And, what was the justification? Jobs, of course.
“We must put a stop to the reckless and costly anti-free market regulations that are destroying jobs,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., co-sponsor of companion REINS act legislation in the Senate.
It’s a crafty strategy. With 14 million Americans out of work, we’re in the worst jobs market since Ronald Reagan was president. The “job-killing” message resonates.
There is, though, one problem: it’s not true. Government regulations -- of all kinds -- accounted for just three-tenths of one percent of the half-million Americans who lost their jobs in the first six months of the year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
By global standards, in fact, the United States has the most business-friendly regulatory structure of any major country in the world, according to the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank arm that helps countries improve their business practices and investment climate.
Just last week, the IFC issued its annual review of red tape worldwide. The idea is that the easier it is to do business in a country, the more efficiently the economy works. Out of 183 countries, the United States ranked fourth in overall regulatory efficiency. Only Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand ranked higher. (Singapore and Hong Kong -- city-states with international ports administered to serve the global marketplace -- ranked number 1 and 2, respectively. New Zealand -- with output less than 1 percent the size of the U.S. economy -- ranked third.)
For a business-friendly regulatory environment, the United States even beat out large developing countries like India, number 132 in the rankings, and China, ranked number 91.
What's killing jobs is a soft economy and weak demand, not responsible public oversight of activities that threaten U.S. workers, public health, and the environment.
The GOP effort to undermine essential safeguards is not about jobs: it’s about profits. When companies aren’t required to clean up the mess they make, it's good for the bottom line. Everyone knows that; most people just think it’s wrong.
And yet, time and again, House Republicans argue, if only corporations were unfettered by regulations, they'd have more money to hire workers. Really?
Corporate profits are on track to hit a record $1.9 trillion this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. As a percentage of total economic activity, that's 12.9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, currently $15 trillion. That's the highest percentage on record, going back to at least 1947.
By the way, total compensation -- wages, salary and supplements -- is at 55.1 percent of GDP, the lowest level since 1955.
So, to recap: workers are getting the smallest share of the American pie they've received in nearly six decades. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Yet House Republicans say the key to job creation is to let corporations open the pollution floodgates to cut their costs.
They've voted to do that nearly 170 times this year, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. He keeps a tally of each vote on a website entitled "Legislative Database: The Most Anti-Environment House in History." Invariably, the votes are cast as job-creators.
"This is a jobs bill and a public health bill," Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., said in October, after the House passed legislation he penned to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying toxic coal ash as hazardous waste. Coal ash, by the way, contains mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxins and carcinogens. And McKinley receives more money from coal companies than anyone else in Congress: $143,228 so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
So here’s a news flash: Dirty air, polluted water, and poisoned lands impose real economic costs. Environmental protections improve worker productivity, strengthen the economy, and have saved the country trillions of dollars over the past several decades.
In a fact-based world, there’s just no getting around those numbers: Hacking away at essential protections isn’t about jobs, it’s about profits.
