Regulations

Washington, D.C. – With today’s bipartisan passage of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, Congressman Jason Smith stood up for local manufacturers.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act fosters economic growth to allow businesses to thrive in the 21st Century global economy by stepping up enforcement of trade agreements, reducing barriers to legitimate trade, making American exports more competitive, and facilitating small business competition in the global marketplace.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to rein in federal agencies with legislation to bring all new major rules for a Congressional vote before implementation. The bloated Code of Federal Regulations is more than 175,000 pages long, and just last year federal regulators in the Obama administration issued 2,400 new rules. During Barack Obama’s entire presidency, the administration has only issued 17 rules that decreased regulatory burdens, but has added $80 billion in new regulatory costs, according to the Heritage Foundation.

When I talk to my colleagues in Washington, D.C., they do not always understand the burdens rural America faces from unnecessary regulations. During my first week in Congress, an “expert witness” told me it was pure fiction that government regulations affect private industry. It felt like the Twilight Zone and is exactly what’s wrong with Washington. Unelected bureaucrats that have never left five square miles around D.C. are trying to regulate every aspect of our lives.

WASHINGTON – Today, the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 4874 the Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act of 2014, or SCRUB Act, sponsored by Congressman Jason Smith (R-MO). Smith filed the SCRUB Act in an effort to fight ineffective and intrusive federal regulations that are holding back private sector job creation and economic growth.