Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, again I rise in opposition to another amendment by the distinguished gentleman from California which, unfortunately, would also gut some of the provisions we have worked so hard to establish in this legislation dealing with risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis.

I would like to also share with my colleagues the fact that this amendment, just like the other amendment offered, again by the distinguished gentleman, was soundly rejected by our committee. This amendment has really a grab bag of provisions in it and changes, some of which there is good news for and some bad news for. Unfortunately, most of the news presented in this amendment is bad news.
Let me say, for instance, that the one good thing in this proposed amendment is that it would clarify that risk comparisons should include a discussion of differences between the nature of risks being compared. However, this is already addressed in section 324(b)(2)(C) on page 177, but it does not really hurt to misstate as the champion of this particular amendment has offered.

Now, that is the good news. Now, my colleagues, let us look at the bad news, and there are a number of areas that fall into that category. Unfortunately, the majority of the changes proposed in the rest of this amendment are all undesirable, and I want to highlight a couple of these.

First, the amendment would change the cost-benefit criterion for maximizing net benefits to a weaker standard. The benefits must be `reasonably related to the cost.'

This is a standard that already exists under certain sections of the Clean Water Act, such as section 302(b)(2)(A), and would be less than vigorous at weeding out unnecessary and really inept rules.

Further, this standard, since it does not address cost effectiveness, conflicts with the regulatory review criteria adopted by the House in H.R. 1022 this year that passed earlier by a wide margin.

Second, the amendment would greatly restrict the risks that EPA could use for comparison purposes. Under the amendment, EPA could only compare risks if they have already been regulated by EPA and result from comparable activities and exposure pathways. This would greatly diminish the benefit of risk comparisons.
For instance, part of the value of performing these comparisons is to see whether there may be other unregulated risks that deserve more immediate attention. This would not be possible under the amendment proposed by my good colleague.

Finally, and unfortunately, this amendment would wipe out the modest retroactive provisions of this bill. Let me say, I would like to see much more retroactive attention to all of these regulatory matters, even in this legislation.

For instance, the retroactive coverage has been described and misquoted, and let me give you one example here, by the National Wildlife Federation, as repealing `23 years of existing major Clean Water Act standards by requiring extensive cost-benefit and risk assessment reviews for all major existing standards within an impossible deadline of 18 months.'

This is simply untrue and misleading. In fact, H.R. 961, our legislation, requires EPA to review only those regulatory requirements and guidelines issued after February 15, 1995, that would result in costs of $100 million or more per year. Such reviews must be completed within 18 months of enactment of this section.

Thus far, only one requirement, the Great Lakes Initiative, issued in March 1995, would need to be reviewed under this subsection. Further, since rules costing $100 million or more already are required to be evaluated by EPA and the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Order 12866, the committee expects that the retroactive review required by sections 323 and 324 will place little or no additional burden on EPA, assuming EPA has complied with the Executive order.

These are only three of the serious problems with the grab bag of changes proposed under this amendment, and any one of them is in fact enough for my colleagues to come forth and vote against this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, on the basis of just these three points, I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] has expired.

(On request of Mr. Volkmer, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Mica was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, let me say I appreciate the extension of time, and also the opportunity to talk about risk assessment, because this is probably the last frontal attack on risk assessment before the House of Representatives.

As my colleagues know, this issue came before the House in the last Congress and we were denied an opportunity to bring this forth in the form of a complete piece of legislation. It was never voted on as far as affecting all regulatory items before the Congress.

Now we have the first individual bill, a regulatory bill, a regulatory reform bill, and we have an opportunity to pass good cost-benefit risk assessment language. This is in fact going to be the last assault, I believe, on risk assessment.

So many of the colleagues who have come here on many occasions to vote for risk assessment will have that opportunity today. Many of the people who have come here and asked for cost-benefit analysis in the way we pass regulations in this Congress and through the agencies, the Federal Government, will have an opportunity to vote today. And once and for all we can bring common sense to a process, a regulatory process, that has been out of control, out of hand, put people out of work, out of business, out of jobs.

So I urge my colleagues to come to the floor this afternoon, defeat this final amendment that proposes a frontal assault on good risk assessment language and also on cost-benefit language that is so essential to have in this clean water bill. This is what this is all about, bringing common sense, bringing some light into an area of darkness in the regulatory processes of this country.

I thank the gentleman for the additional time.