Government Regulation

I support the REINS act, but want to underscore the point raised by Mr. Barr. The REINS Act says that any regulation – that is, an act with the force of law – that’s adopted by the executive branch and costs more than $100 million, must then be approved by Congress in order to take effect. As necessary as this bill is in the current environment, I’m afraid we have it backwards. Under the Constitution just read on this floor again today, it is not the role of the executive branch to make laws and for the legislative branch to approve or veto them.

On December 6, Congressman Jim Jordan moved to impeach John Koskinen as IRS commissioner for actions related to the IRS harassment of taxpayer groups based on their political beliefs.

President-elect Trump has many difficult fiscal tasks ahead – one of which is to promote long-overdue infrastructure construction at a time when the national debt exceeds our entire economy and interest costs alone are eating us alive. Some have said that a rebounding economy resulting from tax reform will pay for it. That may be, but it’s not guaranteed; it cannot be accurately forecast; and we’ll need any new revenues to beef up our defenses and reduce our deficit – two other critical objectives of the new administration.

When we talk of PILT funding, we should never lose sight of the fact that it is a very, very poor substitute for revenues generated locally by healthy economic activity. Our ultimate objective should be not to institutionalize PILT funding, but to restore a healthy balance between federal land ownership and productive private ownership of the lands within each county in the nation.

I want to thank Congressman Gohmert for organizing this discussion of federal lands policy, and to highlight the Federal Footprint Map at Naturalresources.house.gov/federalfootprint. Or just google Federal Footprint. When you do, you’ll have a complete picture of how much land the federal government owns and how much of your state and your community is affected. And it may surprise you.