Lance: Less Regulation, More Job Creation

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-07) voted in favor of H.R. 26, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act – which requires federal regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more to receive congressional approval.  Lance was an original cosponsor of the legislation.

“I have toured many businesses and the consensus is clear: let the American worker innovate, build and create not spend time complying with regulations that are impractical and a waste time and money,” said Lance during debate on the legislation.  “The Obama Administration handed down a record-breaking 600 major new regulations, imposing more than $700 billion in costs on the U.S. economy and millions of hours of compliance busy-work on workers across the country.  The REINS Act fulfills a promise Congress made to American small business owners: to get onerous regulations off the backs of job creators.”   

The REINS Act requires that every new major regulation with an economic impact of $100 million or more (as scored by the Office of Management and Budget) receive a House and Senate vote within 70 legislative days of being introduced.  According to the Small Business Administration, the annual cost of federal regulations is nearly $2 trillion, with hundreds of federal agencies writing thousands of new mandates every year.  One recent study found that federal regulations have reduced the annual growth rate of the US gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly 1 percent.