BUSINESSES REPRESENTING VARIED INDUSTRIES TESTIFY ON WORSENING REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT HAMPERING GROWTH AND JOB CREATION

WASHINGTON, FEB. 16, 2012 – “President Obama’s Executive Order 13563, issued just over one year ago, affirmed, among other things that agencies must adopt only those regulatory actions whose benefits justify its costs and are tailored to impose the least burden to society,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.  “Today, we are hearing from the business owners and leaders who operate under the current regulatory environment.”

Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants Inc., testified specifically on the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the uncertainty it raises for businesses.  Stearns asked about the uncertainty for business created by PPACA.  Puzder responded, “If you don’t know what your health care costs are, if you don’t know what your energy costs are, you don’t know what your labor costs are, you don’t know where your taxes are going, it’s very hard to come up with a rational business plan and build and grow…businesses don’t know whether or not they can make a profit, therefore, they aren’t growing.”

Stearns asked Puzder what recommendations he has for his franchisees about meeting the health care costs of PPACA and got this response, “At the moment I don’t because I don’t even have a recommendation for what we should do, you know, it’s very difficulty to figure out at the current time.”

Robert Luoto, President of the commercial logging firm Cross and Crown in Oregon, noted the loss of jobs in the industry, “From 2001 through 2011 the United States logging workforce declined from 73,500 to 48,400 – a loss of almost 25,100 jobs or 35 percent.”  He continued, “When I think of all the causes for the collapse of professional loggers in the United States, I feel that the tremendous volatility and uncertainty created by our regulatory system is one of the most significant.”

Stearns asked Barbara Walz, Senior Vice President for Policy and Environmental Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Inc., about President Obama’s Executive Order on regulatory relief.  Asked Stearns, “Since this last Executive Order, do you perceive a net improvement in the general regulatory climate facing your business or industry more broadly?”  Waltz responded, “I do not see a net improvement; regulations are coming out faster and more furiously.”

Stearns concluded by again referencing figures that the regulatory burden continues to grow under President Obama: “FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, citing numbers provided to Congress in 2011 by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), reports that the estimated cost of federal regulations under Obama from the time he took office to the end of the 2010 fiscal year, not including regulations issued by the independent regulatory agencies, was somewhere between $8 billion and $16.5 billion.  During the same initial stretch under President Bush, the estimated cost of new regulations was between $1.3 billion and $3.4 billion.  (All figures adjusted for inflation).”