104th Congress > House > Vote 192
Clerk session vote number: 199
Description: Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act of 1995
Bill summary: TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Division A: Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
Division B: Private Property Protection Act of 1995
Division C: Regulatory Reform and Relief Act
Title I: Strengthening Regulatory Flexibility
Title II: Regulatory Impact Analyses
Title III: Protections
Division D: Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Act of 1995
Title I: Risk Assessment and Communication
Title II: Analysis of Risk Reduction Benefits and Costs
Title III: Peer Review
Title IV: Judicial Review
Title V:
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Plan
Title VI: Priorities
Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act of 1995 -
Division A
- Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 - Amends the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 to: (1) extend its purview to educational and nonprofit institutions, Federal contractors, and tribal governments; (2) revise the authority and functions of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), specifying information dissemination and related agency oversight responsibilities; and (3) require OMB to conduct pilot projects to test alternative policies and procedures, and to develop a government-wide strategic information resources management plan.
(Sec. 102) Requires the OIRA Director to establish an Interagency Council on Statistical Policy.
Requires each Federal agency to: (1) establish a process, independent of program responsibility, to evaluate proposed collections of information; and (2) ensure that the public has timely, equal, and equitable access to information products and services.
Prohibits agencies, except where specifically authorized by statute, from: (1) establishing exclusive, restricted, or other distribution arrangements that interfere with timely and equitable public availability; (2) restricting or regulating the use, resale, or redissemination of public information by the public; (3) charging fees or royalties for resale or redissemination of public information; or (4) establishing user fees that exceed the cost of dissemination.
Specifies actions agencies must take with respect to information technology.
Replaces the Federal Information Locator System with an agency-based electronic Government Information Locator Service to identify the major information systems, holdings, and dissemination products of each agency.
Reauthorizes appropriations for OIRA.
Division B
- Private Property Protection Act of 1995 - Requires the Federal Government to compensate a property owner whose use of that property has been limited by an agency action, pursuant to a specified regulatory law, that diminishes the fair market value of that property by 20 percent or more, for that diminution in value. Requires the Government to buy at fair market value any portion of a property whose value has been diminished by more than 50 percent.
(Sec. 203) Declares that property with respect to which compensation has been paid under this Act shall not thereafter be used contrary to the limitation imposed by the agency action, unless: (1) the action is later rescinded or vitiated; and (2) the property owner refunds the amount of the compensation to the Treasury.
(Sec. 204) Provides that if a use is a nuisance as defined by State law or local zoning ordinance, no compensation shall be made under this Act with respect to a limitation on that use.
(Sec. 205) Prohibits compensation from being made under this Act with respect to: (1) an agency action the primary purpose of which is to prevent an identifiable hazard to public health and safety or damage to specific property other than the property whose use is limited; or (2) an agency action pursuant to the Federal navigational servitude, except as such servitude is applied by U.S. courts to wetlands.
(Sec. 206) Sets forth the procedures by which a property owner may seek compensation under this Act.
(Sec. 207) Subjects any payment under this Act to the availability of appropriations.
(Sec. 208) Requires any agency taking an action limiting private property use to give appropriate notice of rights and compensation procedures to the property owners.
(Sec. 209) Declares that: (1) nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit any right to compensation under the Constitution or other Federal law; and (2) payment of compensation shall not confer on the Federal Government any rights other than the use limitation resulting from the agency action.
Division C
- Regulatory Reform and Relief Act -
Title I: Strengthening Regulatory Flexibility
- Amends Federal civil service law to revise Federal provisions regarding judicial review of regulatory flexibility analyses.
(Sec. 311) Authorizes an affected small entity to petition for judicial review within one year after the effective date of a final rule which an agency certified would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities or for which an agency prepared a final regulatory flexibility analysis.
Requires that, where an agency delays the issuance of a final regulatory flexibility analysis, a petition for judicial review shall be filed not later than one year after the analysis is made available to the public.
Authorizes the court, where the agency: (1) certified that such rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, to order the agency to prepare a final regulatory flexibility analysis if the court determines that the certification was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; and (2) prepared a final regulatory flexibility analysis, to order the agency to take corrective action if the court determines that the analysis was prepared without observance of proper procedure.
Authorizes the court to stay the rule or grant such other relief as appropriate, if by 90 days after the court order (or such longer period as the court may provide) the agency fails to prepare the required analysis or to take corrective action.
(Sec. 312) Sets forth guidelines governing agency transmittal of proposed rules and initial regulatory flexibility analysis to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration. Authorizes such official to transmit to the agency a statement of the effect of the proposed rule on small entities. Requires publication of such statement and the agency's response in the Federal Register. Exempts from such requirements proposed rules issued by an appropriate Federal banking agency, the National Credit Union Administration, or the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight relating to the implementation of monetary policy or the safety and soundness of certain federally insured banking institutions or government sponsored housing enterprises.
(Sec. 313) Expresses the sense of the Congress that such official should be permitted to appear as amicus curiae in any action or case brought in a U.S. court for the purpose of reviewing a rule.
Title II: Regulatory Impact Analyses
- Amends the Administrative Procedure Act to define a major rule as one likely to result in: (1) an annual effect on the economy of $50 million or more; (2) a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, government agencies, or geographic regions; or (3) significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or on the ability of U.S.-based enterprises to compete with foreign-based enterprises in domestic and export markets.
(Sec. 322) Requires: (1) publication in the Federal Register of notices of intent to engage in major rulemaking at least 90 days before publication of the general notice; (2) a hearing for any major proposed rule, and an extension of the comment period, if more than 100 interested persons acting individually request such things; and (3) each agency to prepare a regulatory impact analysis for each major rule promulgated by the agency.
(Sec. 324) Prohibits an agency from adopting a major rule unless the final regulatory impact analysis for the rule is approved or commented upon by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
(Sec. 325) Requires the head of an agency, to the extent practicable, to seek to ensure that any proposed major rule or regulatory impact analysis of such a rule is written in a reasonably simple and understandable manner and provides adequate notice of the content of the rule to affected persons.
(Sec. 326) Exempts from certain rulemaking requirements of such Act certain regulations: (1) pertaining to emergency situations; (2) for which consideration under such Act would conflict with deadlines imposed by statute or by judicial order; (3) connected with implementation of monetary policy or the safety and soundness of certain federally insured banking institutions or government sponsored housing enterprises; and (4) connected with imposition of trade sanctions against any country engaging in illegal trade activities injurious to U.S. technology, jobs, pensions, or general economic well-being. Exempts also from such rulemaking requirements any agency action limited to interpreting, implementing, or administering U.S. internal revenue laws.
(Sec. 327) Requires the OMB Director to report to the Congress an analysis of rulemaking procedures of Federal agencies and an analysis of the impact of those procedures on the regulated public and regulatory process.
Title III: Protections
- Directs the President to prescribe regulations for employees of the executive branch to ensure that Federal laws and regulations shall be administered consistent with the principle that any person shall, in connection with the enforcement of such laws and regulations, be protected from abuse, reprisal, or retaliation, and be treated fairly, equitably, and with due regard for such person's rights under the Constitution.
Division D
- Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Act of 1995 - Declares that this Act shall not apply to: (1) an emergency situation, in which case the agency head shall comply with this Act within as reasonable a time as is practical; (2) activities necessary to maintain military readiness; (3) any individual food, drug, or other product label, or any risk characterization appearing on any such label, if the individual product label is required by law to be approved by a Federal department or agency prior to use; and (4) Federal agency approval of State programs or plans.
(Sec. 404) Provides that nothing in this Act shall, without Federal funding and further Federal agency action, create any new obligation or burden on any State or local government or otherwise impose any financial burden on any State or local government in the absence of Federal funding, except with respect to routine information requests.
(Sec. 406) Requires covered Federal agencies to make existing databases and information developed under this Act available to other Federal agencies, subject to applicable confidentiality requirements, for the purpose of meeting the requirements of this Act.
Title I: Risk Assessment and Communication
- Risk Assessment and Communication Act of 1995 - Applies this title generally to all significant risk assessment and risk characterization documents, except: (1) screening analyses; (2) health, safety, or environmental inspections; (3) facility siting or operation restrictions on permits to discharge dredged or fill material into navigable waters under the Clean Water Act; or (4) the sale or lease of Federal resources or regulatory activities that directly result in collection of Federal receipts.
(Sec. 414) Requires each covered Federal agency head to apply specified principles in order to assure that significant risk assessment documents and all of their components distinguish scientific findings from other considerations and are, to the extent feasible, scientifically objective, unbiased, and inclusive of all relevant data and rely, to the extent available and practicable, on scientific findings.
(Sec. 415) Specifies the requirements that each significant risk characterization document is required to meet.
(Sec. 416) Prohibits any covered Federal agency from automatically incorporating or adopting any recommendation or classification made by a non-United States-based entity concerning the health effects value of a substance without an opportunity for notice and comment.
Specifies as a non-United States-based entity: (1) any foreign government and its agencies; (2) the United Nations or any of its subsidiary organizations; (3) any other international governmental body or international standards-making organization; or (4) any other organization or private entity without a place of business in the United States or its territories.
Requires compliance with this title by any risk assessment document or risk characterization document adopted by a covered Federal agency on the basis of such a recommendation or classification.
(Sec. 417) Directs the President to: (1) issue guidelines for Federal agencies consistent with specified risk assessment and characterization principles; and (2) provide a format for summarizing risk assessment results. Requires such guidelines to include guidance on such subjects such as the evaluation of benign tumors and the use of different types of dose-response models. Requires the President to periodically review and revise such guidelines as appropriate.
(Sec. 418) Directs each covered Federal agency head to do the following for periodic reports to the Congress: (1) regularly and systematically evaluate risk assessment research and training needs of the agency; and (2) develop a strategy and schedule for carrying out research and training to meet certain such needs.
(Sec. 419) Requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide for a study using comparative risk analysis to rank health, safety, and environmental risks and to provide a common basis for evaluating strategies for reducing or preventing those risks. Requires the Director to submit to the Congress a report of the National Research Council with recommendations regarding the use of comparative risk analysis and ways to improve the use of comparative risk analysis for decision-making in appropriate Federal agencies.
(Sec. 420) Limits covered Federal agencies to: (1) the Environmental Protection Agency; (2) the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; (3) the Food and Drug Administration; (4) the Consumer Product Safety Commission; (5) the Department of Transportation; (6) the Department of Energy; (7) the Department of Agriculture; (8) the Department of the Interior; (9) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; (10) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; (11) the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; (12) the Mine Safety and Health Administration; and (13) other Federal agencies determined by the President, acting through the OMB Director.
Title II: Analysis of Risk Reduction Benefits and Costs
- Requires the President to require each Federal agency to prepare specified analyses for each new major rule within a program designed to protect human health, safety, or the environment.
(Sec. 422) Requires that certain certifications be made in order for a final rule subject to this title to be promulgated.
(Sec. 423) Directs OMB to issue guidance consistent with this title: (1) to assist the agencies, the public, and the regulated community in the implementation of this title, including any new requirements or procedures needed to supplement prior agency practice; and (2) to govern the development and preparation of analyses of risk reduction benefits and costs.
(Sec. 424) Provides that for purposes of this title, any determination by a Federal agency to approve or reject any proposed or final environmental clean-up plan for a facility the costs of which are likely to exceed $5 million shall be treated as a major rule generally subject to this title.
Title III: Peer Review
- Requires each Federal agency head to develop a systematic program for independent and external peer review for regulatory programs designed to protect human health, safety, or the environment in connection with any risk assessment or cost analysis forming the basis of any rule likely to result in an annual increase in costs of $100 million or more. Exempts from such requirement: (1) any rule or other action taken by an agency to authorize or approve any individual substance or product; and (2) any data or method which has been previously subjected to peer review or any component of any analysis or assessment previously subjected to peer review.
Authorizes the OMB Director to order that peer review be provided for any major risk assessment or cost assessment likely to have a significant impact on public policy decisions.
Directs the President to appoint National Peer Review Panels to review annually for a report to the Congress the risk and cost assessment practices of each Federal agency for programs designed to protect human health, safety, or the environment.
Title IV: Judicial Review
- Provides for judicial review under this Act.
Title V: Plan
- Requires each covered Federal agency to publish a plan to review and, where appropriate, revise significant risk assessment or characterization documents if the agency head determines that application of the appropriate specified principles for risk assessment and risk characterization and communication would be likely to alter significantly the results of the prior risk assessment or characterization. Provides for public participation and consultation in plan development.
Title VI: Priorities
- Directs the President, in order to assist in the public policy and regulation of risks to public health, to identify specified opportunities to reflect priorities within existing Federal regulatory programs designed to protect human health in a cost-effective and cost-reasonable manner.
(Sec. 461) Requires the President to issue biennial reports to the Congress recommending priorities for modifications to, elimination of, or strategies for existing Federal regulatory programs designed to protect public health. Requires an agency to consider the priorities set forth in the report, and priorities developed and submitted by State, local, and tribal governments, when preparing a budget or strategic plan for any such regulatory program.
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Bill titles: To create jobs, enhance wages, strengthen property rights, maintain certain economic liberties, decentralize and reduce the power of the Federal Government with respect to the States, localities, and citizens of the United States, and to increase the accountability of Federal officials.
Links for more info on the vote: congress.gov
