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Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) recently introduced legislation to establish a House Committee with the sole purpose of reviewing federal regulations that trample on businesses, kill jobs, and force businesses and local governments to pick up the costs of excessive regulations. The bill, H. Res. 1649, amends the rules of the House of Representatives to establish the Committee on Regulatory Review and American Jobs.
 
“In the last 14 years, 53,000 rules have been issued by federal bureaucrats and thus far only 1 has been blocked by Congress,” said Congressman Posey. “Clearly, a fundamental problem with Congress is that it is not structured so that it can curtail out of control federal regulators that are killing American jobs. Federal regulatory mandates cost the average small business about $7,647 per employee. That is unacceptable, is hindering job creation, and forcing American businesses to move overseas.”
 
Currently, the Congressional committee structure is geared toward passing legislation which consequently creates more regulations.  Congress is not structured to conduct effective oversight of federal agencies and curb their excessive regulation. The only way to successfully address this issue is to have a House Committee whose sole focus is to exercise direct oversight of the more than 4,000 new regulations issued each year with an extra focus on the nearly 200 rules that have significant economic impacts. 

“Committees get distracted with other issues and unfortunately oversight of regulations gets pushed to the back burner,” added Posey.  “That won’t happen with this Committee because that will be their only job.”
 
Last year, the total cost to the U.S. economy of complying with federal rules reached $1.187 trillion according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The federal government spends an estimated $54.3 billion annually to enforce the 163,333 pages of federal regulatory code. “A review of this sort may be the only way to get government out of the way of businesses looking to grow and create jobs here in America,” concluded Posey.