The House of Representatives continues to focus on job creation by cutting through more costly red tape from government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that have seriously hampered the ability of businesses to grow jobs.

Two prime examples of such red tape include the EPA’s new rules affecting boiler users and the cement industry.  These severe rules will impose billions of dollars in capital and compliance costs on everything from hospitals and colleges to family farms and factories, thereby increasing the costs of many goods and services.  

In Michigan alone, the new boiler rules will threaten 12,621 jobs and could cost companies nearly $1 billion this year alone to make just 78 boilers comply.  The cement rules are actually so excessively stringent they are cost-prohibitive and technically infeasible to achieve.

That’s why this week the House will vote on two bills, H.R. 2250 and H.R. 2681, which put the pause button on these two rules long enough to give the EPA at least 15 months to re-propose and finalize new rules that are actually achievable, will not destroy jobs, and will give employers a realistic chance to catch up and comply.

• Click here to see my speech on the House floor today on how cutting government red tape will help save jobs in the construction and cement industries.

Additionally, the House of Representatives recently passed, and I supported, H.R. 2401, a bipartisan plan to direct the federal government to examine just how many duplicative layers of red tape the EPA has, and their effects on job creation.  Right now, the federal government has no official cost estimate for many of these rules.

I, along with my colleagues in the House, will continue to ensure that government is effectively and efficiently protecting our country’s natural resources, without hurting companies, workers, our country’s global competiveness, or prices of goods and services.

To see the House’s job creation plan, please click here. To see the status of the bills under this plan, please click here.

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