Hatch Speaks on Keystone and the Need for Regulatory Reform

Hatch Speaks on Keystone and the Need for Regulatory Reform

Washington, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, senior Republican in the U.S. Senate, spoke on the Senate Floor today following the Senate’s failure to overturn the President’s Keystone Pipeline veto.

 (Via YouTube)

Selected Excerpts

 

On the Keystone XL veto override and a pathway forward:

• It is disappointing that we could not override the President’s veto of this important legislation.  The failure to authorize Keystone demonstrates just how broken our regulatory process is.  I hope we can use this occasion of bipartisan agreement to move forward in ways that can fix our out-of-control bureaucracy and get Washington back to work for the American people.

 

On the bureaucratic problems exposed by the Keystone XL approval process:

• Perhaps the two most troublesome features of the modern administrative state are, first, the size of the regulatory burden on the economy, and second, the lack of accountability in the regulatory bureaucracy.  Both problems have been illustrated by the Keystone XL project, but they manifest themselves across the board throughout the regulatory process.

 

On reducing the regulatory burden holding back economic growth:

• Every President from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama has embraced the notion that outdated, unsuccessful, or otherwise ineffective regulations should be repealed. Nevertheless, the cumulative regulatory burden has continued to expand year after year. To address this growing problem, I will be partnering with Congressman Jason Smith to sponsor the Senate version of the SCRUB Act—Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome.
• The SCRUB Act transforms a longstanding bipartisan commitment to retrospective regulatory review from mere rhetoric into meaningful reality.  It would result in lower prices, higher wages, and more job opportunities for hardworking Americans.  All the while, such common-sense regulatory review poses no risk to our health, our safety, or our environment. It’s the kind of legislation that can earn support from both sides of the aisle—and for which there is a realistic path to having it enacted into law.

 

On restoring accountability to the regulatory bureaucracy:

• Given the broad authorities Congress has ceded to administrative agencies, the courts often stand as the only true independent check on increasingly out-of-control regulators.  But recent abuses by the political branches have created serious challenges for effective and appropriate judicial review of the regulatory process. By writing vague laws, Congress has created extraordinary flexible grants of authority that are both unwise and constitutionally troublesome.  Judicial deference to agency interpretations of the law has magnified this power to an extreme degree.  Although originally intended as a means of curtailing judicial activism, Chevron deference and its associated doctrines have resulted in a gross misallocation of lawmaking authority.  Such doctrines have consigned courts to be rubber stamps, rather than effective checks on administrative overreach.
• Restoring the constitutionally proper judicial role is vital to returning accountability to the regulatory process. In reviewing agency actions, courts should hear only real cases and controversies, where litigants have concrete interests at stake. But when they do rule, they should say firmly what the law is, and not simply ratify what the regulatory agencies argue that the law should be.  Legislation to ensure meaningful reform on these fronts —and to thereby bring the administrative state more in line with the Constitution—will be one of my top priorities in this Congress.

The full text, as prepared for delivery is below:

Mr. President, I also want to address today’s vote to override President Obama’s veto of the bipartisan Hoeven-Manchin bill to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our economy and North America’s energy security would greatly benefit from building this pipeline. It would increase our GDP by approximately $3.4 billion annually. And the State Department, which has provided clear-headed analysis of the benefits of this project, has found that Keystone would support roughly 42,000 jobs during the construction phase alone. It would provide refineries with up to 830,000 barrels a day of North American oil.

Moreover, the Keystone XL pipeline would be an environmentally sound way to transport this oil. The State Department’s extensive Environmental Impact Statement concluded that building the pipeline would actually be better for the environment than not building it.

We have to be clear here: this oil is going to go to market no matter what. Building Keystone would take oil off of the tracks and off of the roads, transporting it in a way that is safer, more efficient, more environmentally sound, and better for creating good-paying American jobs.

In his veto message, President Obama suggested that an issue such as this is somehow too important be left to the legislative process, and that we should trust in the integrity of the regulatory process.

Mr. President, this is exactly the sort of debate that we should be having in the Senate. This is the body that is supposed to debate the important issues of the day. And when a project as important as this is stalled without meaningful justification for so long, our involvement is even more important.

In our consideration of this bill, we legislated according to the best traditions of this body, including robust debate, an open amendment process, and regular order. After years of mismanagement, our consideration of this bill showed how the Senate is back at work on behalf of the American people under our new leadership.

While I certainly hope that we will find another means of approving the Keystone XL pipeline, I am naturally disappointed that we came just a few votes short of overriding the President’s veto and enacting this bill into law. Furthermore, I can certainly understand why many Americans will view this occasion as yet another example of how Washington is broken.

In many respects, I share this same frustration. Nevertheless, we cannot allow ourselves to slouch toward pessimism and disillusionment about every institution. Indeed, I think my fellow colleagues on both sides of the aisle merit praise for their responsible handling of this bill. Instead, we should shine a light on where exactly the problem is and offer real solutions to make Washington work on behalf of the American people.

At the end of the day, the Keystone pipeline and so many other bureaucratic failures demonstrate that our regulatory bureaucracy is broken. After all, this project is now in its sixth year of limbo, waiting for a single permit to be issued. This debate has gone on longer than an entire term of a United States Senator.

It should not take years and years of navigating the federal bureaucracy only to have the government decide not to make a decision. This new Congress is focused on helping to create jobs and getting our economy back on the right track, which is why regulatory reform must be a key part of our agenda over the next two years. We must strive not only to approve this particularly important project, but also to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future.

Perhaps the two most troublesome features of the modern administrative state are, first,