Skip to main content

REVIEW Act “Frees Up Billions of Dollars” to Spur Job Growth, Westerman Says

September 21, 2016

WASHINGTON – Congressman Bruce Westerman (AR-04) issued the following statement upon passage Wednesday (September 21) of H.R. 3438, the Require Evaluation before Implementing Executive Wishlists (REVIEW) Act of 2015:

“An overreaching federal government has been hurting workers in Arkansas and the United States for too long,” Westerman said. “The REVIEW Act stops so-called ‘high impact rules’ that will cost more than $1 billion annually from taking effect until all court challenges to the regulations in question are settled. This bill frees up billions of dollars spent on meeting onerous government regulations that instead can be invested in American jobs and growing our local economies.”

According to the American Action Forum, the U.S. government created 79,230 pages of new regulations in the federal register, with a total cost of $98.9 billion in regulatory costs in 2015 alone. Federal regulatory burdens have reached at least an estimated $1.86 trillion, which adds up to approximately $15,000 annually per U.S. household. According to the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, if the United States’ regulatory system were a country, it would be the world’s ninth-largest economy behind India.