Regulations and the endangered species act are hurting the economy and should be repealed. Covid 19 has killed hundreds thousands of people road d worldwide. Theo virus, unfortunately, could call additional early deaths down the road into the off those unemployment and poverty that it could to stave off those avoidable deaths, America Needs to renovate the booming economy before we had covid19. To do so, we have put on this presentation. To listen today from the United States senator ted cruz andla mike lee. Eachtory tha one has ideas about Regulatory Reform proposals will kickstart our economy as well as keep it going strongo on the long term basis. I would now like to invite senator cruz and senator lee to join me. Before we start todayssenator discussion, i want to give each senator the opportunity to offer introductory remarks. Wsenator cruz, you are up at that first. Joi good morning. It is a pleasure to join you. Thank you for taking the time participate. Paul, it is good to see you. Mike it is good to see you. What a testament to the wonders of technology that we are able to have an intimate conversation thousands of milesh apart. I am pretty sure that through the electorals this fall qualifies a social distance. This so seamlessly,e able to do effortlessly, is really a testament to the opportunitiesse that have been presented bywo this enormous crisis. Healthas a nation, we are facino simultaneous crises, a Public Health crisis, the coronavirus pandemic was killed over 300,000 people, and an economice crisis. Over cono36 Million People have lost their jobs as the economy has ground to a halt. And unusually, in terms of economic crises, this one is not r the cause of some o fundamental weakness in the economy. It is not a recession that was drivent by the misallocation ofo capitalism. Insteadht, the direct result of pa Government Policies that were put in place to fight the pandemic. We are seeing now, millions of americans out of work. Over 20 of the American Workforce has lost their jobs two months. T economicg unprecedented in our lifetime. You have to go back to the Great Depression to find a comparable economic catastrophe thatmall has struck the American Economy. Not only that, and so thave millions of Small Businesses that have either gone out of businessmous or on the verge of bankruptcy. The crisis level is enormous. Gi that being said, that also means the task Going Forward isd enormous. Miketogeth and i and all the mes of the senate, we have workedssd together on four separate of legislation. All of which passed overwhelmingly with overwhelming bipartisan support. Of legislation they are often referred to aa but it isegislation, not what i think they are. I do not call them stimulus. What i call them is relief legislation. Were designed to provide immediate relief, short term emergency bridge loans, that we individuals and families and Small Businesses to help them the sta some of the the immediate crises that we are facing. Whothe stage we are at now, the are some on the i democratic sie of theity aisle who want to continuen in shoveling money ant will tell you, the quantity of money r that congress has spent in the last w two months in response to this crisis takeso away and for both de mike and i, we are at timesn isk literally unable to breathe, given the quantity of death hown that our nation is taking in trying to get through this crisis. The next stage, however where we it are now, i believe the net money ation should be recovery legislation. It should be focused not on relief, spending more money, or just. Shoveling money at the problem. We cannot fix it that way. Be focused on tax reform and leo Regulatory Reform. Other words, lessening the burdens of Small Businesses and job m creators, because the only way out of this messo economically speaking, is to get people back to work, andes that means we need tha to beng looking t for policies that help Small Businesses there that are just starting to open up their doors again. They are just starting to see customersrshire again. Gro policies that help them survive and really hired their employees and will hopefully grow and thrive. We have got to unleash the engine, for the American Enterprise system. The only thing Strong Enough to up to overcome the economic catastrophe. I will say one good place to startocal is every regulation, with the state, local legislation, that the last cris. Three months, has been suspended because of the crisis, to deal with the crisis. La tii think we should all start with the presumption that those regulations should stay helpfulr suspended Going Forward, thathen if it was deemed helpful for that h regulation to be suspendd during the time of crisis, that be still helpful during recovery. I dont think our focus needs to be on how do we empower Small Businesses to drive Free Enterprise forward and turn our economy forward and get our people back to work. Senator lee, do you have anyo opening remarks . Be indeed. Wthank you so much. It really is an honor and just privilege to be with you and my friend, senator ted cruz. I agree with every word he justn uttered, i including the words but, tha and, and the. T when i use a sentence like that its great to be here with ted. Orone of the many things that he said we that is so right and appropriate e for our time is tn notion that we are not going tor fix our economy with more government spending. We are not going to fix ourram spending with more government program. What we needr ag is to get government c out of the way so s americans can start helping each other again. And that is why i cosponsored along with called the right to test act. This is app legislation that wod lethen states approve and declared a distribute diagnostic testso wh when the state or federal government has declared a Public Health p emergency. It is also why i cosponsored something called the prime math, which will help farmers sellricd their livestock for higher prices and lower meat prices ultimately for consumers and Grocery Stores. Heres a weird bottleneck at meatpacking plants. With the prime act does to membs allow states to regulate slaughterd facilities for meat sold within the same state. Passwein have to remember that e federal w ougovernment was never intended to be this la allencompassing regulatory body. Actuthat would regulate purely local activitiess mining, manufacturing and agriculture. Lator oit certainly was not meao be the comprehensive, exclusive regulator of things like a meatpackingnd and yet it is the federal commandeering of the packing licensing and regulatory business in this lower nation that has resulted in bottleneck. The results is higher prices for consumers, lower prices for those whoeal actually produce meat. That is a problem the prime act will help us to deal with that. We also hadd to protect businesses from the problems that would otherwise arise. Protect those very businesses that want to a reopen from trial lawyers who are trying to make a quick buck. And so i support the idea of reforming to allow for what is called itasie would allow for more businesses to move to federal court, where it is often easier to defend against trivia law suits. The fconstitutionort itself an article three section sets up the formula for that oug and says that when youve got t plaintiffs from one state and defendants from another state, you ought to be able to have int litigation, that would federa otherwise be pending before state court, you ought to be able to have access to federal courts because there is a little more consistency between one federal court and another. I think we are going to touch on this a little bit later, but our environmental laws, specifically the National Environmentaladical policy act,d been weaponized by radical environmentalists. Theyve been weaponized inin order to raise the cost and cost significant delays to off federally funded Infrastructure Projects throughout the country. You want to know why takes billionsany of additional dollas and many years longer to complete the sameho infrastructurert projects that our grandparents built . Sometimes in a very short time, would a few decades ago, it is often part of the problem. N im working on legislation that would send those thianning and litigation,o speed up the environmental many o review process while still protecting the environment. Those things are not at oddss with each other. We looktot hav at many of our pr nations that have aggressive as Environmental Protection laws. We stand out like a thorn a sore thumb law as a country that does not put any timeot constraints on this process. Those countries like canada, the are not exactly environmental hell holes. These are places that protect the environment. Hat cthey provide a reasonable t of expectations. Consumers and businesses can look forward to in the economy. We had a look at rules and the included withiat ted refer to that have been suspended during theicen crisis. Included within these are manyns of the occupational w licensing regulations. We should ask ourselves, why is it that these regulations were put in to place in the first place. Rgifen they are appropriate to t trump during a real emergency . If we can see this crisis as an opportunity for systematic stron Regulatory Reform, then our economy can and i believe well come back stronger than ever. Ier continue to believe that our best days as americans remain yet ahead of us. In order to do, that we have got to make the right choices. Sk thank you. A q senator lee, thank you y much. Let. Me ask a question. This may 1 is a tossup to bothf you. You both signed amy 14 letter to the senate in minority and leaders, urging them to support statutory reform to provide regulatory relief forrkd businesses. In the letter, you refer to quote, paperwork reductionentiol unquote, and rule removing out compliance requirements. You both s mentioned severalexas different possibilities of mind . Reforms that we should make. You have any specific examples in mind and would it be possible to have those included in legislation that will see passed into law before the end of thish tha year . I will start with that if you would like. The most concrete example that im thinking of is the legislation that im finalizing right now that i will be i introduced into the senate very soon. This would do a number of things with the process the moststti important reform it would be to limit the amount ofl time that can be taken up at eachenviro stage of environmentd review, National Environment betw policy act. Right omnow there is no limit ti it. Agencies between a combination of agency action, court action,c preparationsom for those two separate venues. It is not uncommon in this country to see a project, e sometimes it is a road or highway. Sometimes its an energythese do project or something much more pedestrian, but it is not all that uncommon these days to seet that taking more than a decade. There is no o reason for that. Long. We dont end up with a clr environmenture as a result of it taking that long. The review process itself, makee sure we t do not wreak have it n the environment that we might have otherwise. There is no reason why thats should have to take a decade to discern. I put in place requirements that would allow the federal governmentumen to use correspong state law document productionsee as a substitute for with the federal government with handle that. Otherwise be providing. If the state has alreadyould doe something very similar, the federal government ought to be able to handle that. They should reduce paperwork. It is something that could be put it into a phase four legislative package, particularly if their ends up being an infrastructure component you to that. Senator cruz, would you lie to answer . In facttal equally, i agree with everything mike said. Let me take several different pieces. Speeding up environmental reviews. Pro mike mentioned that the process of building any project can be n delayed years or even decades. The way the system operates now, it is do not designed to actualy protect the environment. Instead, what it is designed too do his allow activist groups to use litigation to shut down a sm project. To shut down development. It is used as a tool simply to kill a project. A little over a week ago i had a phone call with elon musk. The ceo and founder of tesla w and spaceing acts. Acelon is hardly a rightwing conservative activist, but head hasqu publicly expressed his displeasure with the headquarters of tesla and california. Theype shut down theirn factory there. He has expressed hisxpressed his displeasure with wanting to open up his factory, and he had publicly expressed an interest,s if california keeps doing this, andorni we may just have to move our teslalate headquarters out f california and maybe to texas. So i called elon and said hey, if you want to come to texas we would love to have you. Otexas is real simple. We love jobs. Anyone that is coming and creating jobs, wed love to have you. In addition to tesla and i well think it is a very reale possibility, i am hopeful that we will see tesla come to texas. In addition to tesla, spacex has very substantial operations in texas. This week today, we have spacex launch the first launch of u. S. Astronaut from u. S. Soil on a u. S. Rocket in over a decade. Spacex also will be launching fm the l Cape Canaveral but theyve also got the a launch facility in soh texas. A line and i talked about thee desire to j substantially expand the the launch facility in south texas to create, even more jobs and ope south texas. The biggest problem is the environmental review, we cannot expand the operation until we get through the enormous red tape and bureaucracy. I think speeding night up is sc, incredibly important. To give you a sense of scope, ir actually pulled some numbers. Between the year 2000 and 2016, the epa issued a total of 22 rules, estimated by omb to cost one billion dollars or more. That was a total of 104. 4 billion dollars. Every other federal agency those combined issued only 19 of those rules that cost an estimated 34. 4 billion dollars. Put it in perspective, epa alone issued more of those rules than every other agency ts and more than three times as costly to the economy. Tionive been speeding up that review, i think the administration has made positive steps in that regard, and what is interesting, mike in and i both serve on the commerce and judiciaryolders, committee together. When you bring in local mayors,l when you bring in local electedn officers, democrats. Uildinevitably, they expressth frustratione with, they want to build a road, a bridge, and they say its almost impossible because of the review, theersate delays, getting a permit, on and on. I partyknow mike and i both hae those conversations with like the democrats where we say looky it is yourou party that is putting all of those roadblocks in the way. Iortu do think this is an opportunity to speed that up. It is an opportunity we should take advantage of. Senators, it seems possible that one of the reasons the impact statements that get written itresemble wat and peace in terms of their magnitude, the amount of time it takes to write them. Woris that agencies might ben. Afraid that unless they do work at thate length, the court will strike it down. Thatn brings up some general Regulatory Reform questions. Large scale proposals such as a requirement that congress adopt any rule that has more than a o 100 Million Dollar impact on the economy. Could you each address what you think the best way of trying to deal with these broader, general regulatory issues are, so that businesses can actuallyg start hiring people again. Whether by eliminating obstacles senator cruz, and senator lee if you want to do that, that is fine. I just senator cruz go first. I feel confident we agree with this. Mike, go ahead. If i had given the power to pass any single piece of legislation now pending, or with the wave of a magic wand, it would be the act. It is an acronym. A nytiit does exactly what you jut described witches anytime federal regulation deanomply economically significant, costing , were put in place. It could not be self executing. I would not take effect as to t operative lot until such time as both houses of congress would affirmatively pass it ando send it to the president for signature or veto. Oneif we were to pass Something Like that, it would do a couple things. Tantle number one, it would restorest the spirit of article one section one, clause one. Sl the veryat first clause, for section ofch the article ofof constitution. All legislative powers shall consist of a senate and an houseg representative. Article one section seven says the actingnd b federal law. An you cannot do it without passing the house andf they senate and being submitted to the president for signature or my point i veto. If it is vetoed you can pass few only if two thirds above houses to decide to overturn it. Asinglmy point is over the lastw decades, congress has become reliantpa on not passing actual laws but platitudes, and o passing laws thatr a say thingse have good laws that we dare hair by delegate agencies the task of writing and interpreting and enforcing. Rules carrying general applicable law that are good now maket o it so. The problem with these laws isiu that not only are they put in place through a constitutionally suspecthe mechanism, but they are also suspect as a matter of policy and t public acceptability for the same reasons that they violate the letter and spirit of the constitution. These men and women who inhabit our federal agencies, federal departments, federal bureaucrats who write these laws, they are well but educate, wellintentioned, hardworking and highly specialized, but they do not work for you. You can fiery congressman every. Two years. Ey dyou can fire your senators every six years. Cannot fire a bureaucrat. They do not stand for election. They are not accountable to anyone who does intern stand for election. This is really something that we need to do. We really need a republican or e democratic either liberal or this is a constitutional mandate that we ought to be fulfilling. Also has the added benefit, because of the fact that he would bring elected officials back into the accountability change of lawmaking. Make sure that when we doo something, putwh something in place and federal law, it will be reallying t expensive, let somebody whose name is on the ballot will be on the line for putting sys that there. Nomythe u. S. Regulatory system costing the American Economy but about two trillion dollars a year. Some say it is more. It is difficult to ascertain. Those costs are not borne by large bil corporations or by billionaires. Lly picture the Monopoly Game peace figures. They are borneinished disproportionately, why america s poor and middle class. A you pay for through diminished wagesll and employment and once unemployment. We put win placee a reform like the rains act, we get a much better cha place, because once again you have the American People being in charge of their own government. Senator cruz . Mike is exactly right on for that. ,hen it comes to the rains act he and i have both fought for yearsike trying to press congres toy in pass it. When mike talked about the lack of accountability in the current system, sadly for manyot career politicians both democrats and republicans, thatt is not above, it is a feature. Untabiit enables rules to be promulgated with nohe accountability. M t from the perspective of the citizenry, from the perspective of we the people, that is this exactly neither mike nor i expect nobody else on this call is an gove anarchist. Weha tactually believe that thee is a need for government and constitution establishes government. Regulations that are needed. If there is to be a rule or regulation that has theson who consequence of destroying someones job, the person who he implements that rule needs to at be accountable to the voters. The power of reins the act is anything that will cost 100 Million Dollars or more has toha be affirmativelyt, approved by congress. Maybe its the case that there is a particular rule that is justified, that needs to be inre place to prevent nobody wants the air and water poison. We r a tdont want our kids kil. There are rules that when it comes tod pollution air, water, we all agree upon the good rules. But as oba matter of democratic about accountability, beif your be job is going to be taken away as able to look me in the eye, yout mike in the eye and ask why didd you vote to take if you do not like the answer, you ought to have the ability toow t throw the bums out. Its just is incredibly important. Right now the Election Officials get to say gosh, i cannot help you. Brioche chrissy that destroyedhe your chops. The people whose jobs are impacted the most are working class thethey are blue collar americs where men and women with calluses on their hands one of the mostmo dramatic politicalemoc shifts in the last decade is the modern democratic party. Shows between two political groups that bet were typically favored children of the democrats. They chose between california environmentalist billionaires,la for union bosses and union the members. And what democrats have done ine the last decade as theyvebl decided theyue wanted the money from thenion m california b billionaires more than the jobs for the Blue Collar Union members. They counted on the union bosses to whipobs the boats, so of truckers,ote to take away the jobs of millions of steel workers, oil field workers, truckers, millions of construction workers. Millions of men and women who work for a living. Those workers, i believe as or w republicans, we ought to be the party of jobs. We ought to be the peoplet fighting for m those men and women who want to provide for their families and kids. Ortlet me make another point on this. Do you know who has also hurt by all these ngerthe environment. Ies a let us take for example the great endangered species act. The endangered species act has a great name. Great purpose. All of us would like to protect endangered species. There is nobody is twirling their mustacheions isnt laughing at species being driven off planet or. They are all gods creation we should be all good stewards of year. Heresst the irony. Ed aif a particular species is as an endangered species, that is about the worst thing that can happen to thatpecies is species. Oingthe aunts suddenly rise dramatically. Thaturre species will go from endanger to extinct. Why . Re atatincebecause our current regy system creates Enormous Economic incentive to get rid of that little critter. He endangered species act all right, if youve got a proposal, you want to drill for oil and gas, build a new homethe development. You porwant to buy spacex orrea expand the space port. If there is an activist group oe that wants to stop it, they search that go areahen and find one critter. A snail, a fish, a bird, a lizard. Whatever they can find. Any critter. T list it. Mic aand they can stop the entil development, and by the way, the economic incentive in ukraine is as a landowner, if one of those animals, your incentive is get rid of, it kill it, because it will stop any Economic Development you want to do. Heres the reforming legislation i belong advocate. Ethicreate economic instead of o grow endangered populations. It is something that a lot and i discussed as well. L. Endangered species act. Bor for d if there islope an endangered ws species act and process, thehe developer of the land ownerel bt mitigates, in other words grows the population, not just to the current level, but expands the population even more. West texas, there has been repeated litigation, trying to shut down oil and gas drilling n based on a little lizard that is out there. I i said look, we all saw we have to have an incentive. Play some va diminishing population of lizards, breed the lizards. Put up at the school let ball, y let the little desserts do what they come naturally. Grow the population. Cti dont think the critter has an entitlement to be on that exactat n square inch of land. If maybe you find a suitable habitat nearby, and you invest real the money. Expinvest real money to expande lizard population. Lets expand whatever population it is and grow with. Soat would help the environment. The interesting thing is, the activists who bring thesepulati. Lawsuits are not interested inoc solutions to grow the population. Their objective is to stop the Economic Development. That j is a radical objective ad it is contrary to what we need right now, which is jobs and economic growth. The flip sid senators, let me ask you about the flip side of thet problem you haves just been speakingd b about, which is one that has been created by the tht Supreme Court. Thend Supreme Court has created doctrines that say, and agencies interpretation of the law d, sometimes has to be accepted by the courts. Yeathey did this and this famos case cal chevron case and reaffirmed it within the last year in a cases called a kaiser. If that is that a problem . If that is a problem, how do yous and congress go about decisi addressing that . Attecourts can not oftentimes ie the final decision on a matter. It is up to theutho agency. If congress is also giving aggravat agency extraordinary authority and theeho delegations who are just aggravating the problem, and its no longer governance by congress. How do we dress that aspect . Who wants to go first . It is a fielders choice. Rati i will go. Legislative proposal called thep separation of powers or restoration act that ive developed a couple years ago. I do not remember winded up filing it. It was either me or was chuck wo is listed first. The other was listed second. Separation of powers restoration act would eliminate the chevron doctrine named by the Supreme Court decision. In the mid 19 eighties called chevron versus Natural Resources defense council. The chevron decision resulted in the Supreme Court adopting a rule that says basically, as long as an agency hasnt acted in a way that is really really wrong, it is obviously wrong, clearly wrong. We the courts, are not going to use the tools that our disposal to interpret the law. We are going to differ instead to a federal agencys interpretation of the law of its own regulations and of statutes and acted by congress. This is bad doctrine. It is not good to tell judges that they cannot use the tools that judges would ordinarily employ in order to interpret federal law. It ought not be the case that federal agencies who appear before courts ought to be givene unprecedented deference. There is an argument in favorev of keeping chevron. Im just not a big fan of it because it is not a very good argument. The argument as well, we have chevron, would be more difficult chevfor the courts to keep up. At the end of the day this isobe congress this problem and it needs to fix it. A reon the first point, federal courts are more than up to the challenge of undertaking some additional work in order toet interpret statutes and notin blindly deferringg to a federal agency unless its obviously wrong. Second point. There is a point. Thit doesnt mean that we should claim to chevron doctrine because it is wrong. To be what it does mean is membf congress ought to be more conscientious in enacting legislation so that we actually provide enough legislative keith rather than refer to legislation discretion on everything. For decades weve had a Member Congress of both houses and political questions of willing to defer entire questions off to an agency. That needs to stop. Perpetuatingf nee the things tht perpetuates the chevron doctrine. Can do that without even waiting for the the courts to themselves abandon the doctrine by acting and separation of powers restoration. I share many of the concerns that have been raised by chevron who see more and more discussion about chevronsi deferenceon and reversing that decision. Although, at the same time, i that it hat does not think that reversing chevron would be agove panacea,rn and it would solve al the problems. At the end of the day, our system of government only worksa when you have elected officials for that are active in engaged citizenry. Theted take system works bettern elected officials take responsibility for their decisions. That is the reason why ihe reas support Something Like reinsosi act because it puts people on the ballot that have difficulty making a choice. Without chevron,n, it matters w greatly, what kind of judges you have on the bench. Chevron itself was a reaction, it was a judicial reaction to judicial activists to article to three judges who were engaged in policy making. Isswho were themselves resolvig policy issues and trying to take thejudi place of the electd legislature. We have seen judicial activism really start to rise and of the court1960s starting in the 19 d 1970s. Natethat is not the role of the judiciary. Both mike and i are passionate about nominating and confirming strong constitutionalist to the federal bench. If you have judges withto the themselves are going tofederal c exercise restraint, were notre, going to step in and decide policy questions on their own,f then getting rid of chevron has someaking real benefits becaust makes the hard policy decision occur in the legislative branch. If you do not have, gett constitutionalist on the court. H if you haveev activists on the court, getting rid of chevron can be quite problematic. We during the last three and a half years in the trump administration. Practically every step of the executive that has was taken, steps that were clearly andtica explicitly authorizing federal the executiveto that almost inevitably aren to t challenged in litigation and weve seen activist judges try to strike down step after stepte thep administrations take. Ep tif you look at the area of immigration. Congressss has given the president wide authority on nin immigration and yet, especially which has long been the most left wing activist of the country, we have seen judges that have basically joined the resistance. They decided they hate trump and soul, never mind with the say. Soss to step in aep in and say no, this is bad immigration policy. T probably the most ludicrous example of that is the litigation over daca. Executive amnesty that president obama decreed for years, executives asked obama when he ran amnesty d based on executive fiat and obama said over and over again said, i dont have the to do that. Not a king. Cal suddenly, i guess his politl advisers decided it was good for him to do that. And he became a king. He decreed that for a certain subset of people, illegally thea executive wouldin not enforce te laws, theyythe would the executive with essentially print fraudulent work papers for people here illegally thatst would giveys cannot work here illegally. The cumeexecutive would give thh document that reports them to work legally. That was challenged in court. Fast forward to the trump administration,n, one of the decisions the president s make makes. Its to suspend that law. We are no longer to refuse to enforce immigration laws. Instead the executive is going to follow the laws of the book. Wonow in a true alice in wonderland through the Looking Glass moment, the ninth circuit proceeds to say, it is illegal for the president to follow thee law law. Trump cannot say he will follow the law. Instead, he must continue to abide by obamas statement to law. E the that is still in litigation now, but it is an example that there no basis based on anything resembling law, to say the executive cannot follow the law. That is jumbled idiocy to evenwh make that argument, and yet it is where resistant judges find themselves. Chevron issue iswe dont get t complicated. Ii support raining in chevron,at butic without good judges, we d not get to the outcome we want, which is democratically elected and accountable officials making important Public Public policy decisions. I want to turn in a minute or two from questions from the audience. I would like to commend you for your remarks about trying to make sure that the economy takes care of Little People. S asca a matter of personalter of privilege, i thought if itpr werent for theiv people working in grocerythe stores andmaciese pharmacies or the people driving trucks, to fill the shelves and Grocery Stores andl pharmacies, the nation would now be in chaos. It sees Little People that are probably the greatest benefit we have going now and one of the least appreciated, i think. Everyone knows that the Health Care Professionals are putting their lives at risk. These little blue collar people, those whos at get their hands dy they deserve credit. T deal of whenhanddeserv area or oftentimy are hurt, isl licensing. Alr cr reia know senator lee and senar cruz, it is an area you would like to see reformed. That brings up to mind this question. It is a question dealing withth telemedicine. Because the states generally license the practice of medicine. Given what has happened over the last two months, itss the l telemedicine and idea whose time has finally come . Physiology is the same in all 50 states. Surgical procedures are the same in all l 5050 states,gradua pharmaceuticals are the same in all 50 states and all School Graduates have to pass the nation to e for congress to examine telemedicine and if so, what should we do as a nation to make it happen . N all paul, i want to remind that physiology is the same and all 50 cents. Just remember all 50 states. Bigger in texas. L physiology is my bad. With that notable exception, you are right. It is not like it would be in w courtsou where you had to admit someone to practice law in onewr part of the country. Admittedto bebe somewhere else. An argument could be made even there. With regard to medicine, thereso is no reasonmebo why somebody practicing in massachusetts or new york should not be able to in wyoming ore montana. In fact, one of the big divides that now exists in this country could be taken down, not justbe economically, but alsopeople inm geographically. People in some parts ofhe thean country dont always havey access to his manysp doctors or manyed. Specialists in an area that they might really need. So, i think this is an idea whose time has come and is. But probably been here for a few years. We just havent noticed it. This is part of the trend that americans throughout the coun country are waking up to thee fact that, in many manyinstancea instances, a lot more instances than not, occupationalotect the licensing serves to entrenchent incumbents more than it does to protect the public. Ihe m had constituent point outo me recently that the more important the the license or the more the less you would want somebody performing a certain procedure without adequate that training, the less likely it is that the license itself is going to be the distinguishing characteristic for the end user. For example, this person pointed out to me that in one sense, the license to fly an airplane, that anyone could geto could allow somebody to operate either a small cessna or a 7 47 jumbo jet. It is up to the owner of the jumbo jet to decide whether or not that person who has the pilots license operates the jumbo jet. Withith physicians. Edicwhen somebody has a medicaly degree and is a board certifiedt medical doctor, here she may be able to undertake certain procedures, but if you arewh getting a specificet type of youre looking not to whether that person has an occupational license as a medical doctor,cal do but the experience and recommendations that that person has. In the case of telemedicine, especially important. Consumer can do a good job. Im not suggesting abolishing all wou occupational licensing standards. It is debatable whether that would be a net benefit or harm to the country. We do not have to go that far. Es certainly when it comes to telemedicine. This in place. American people need access to it now. Specially given they are afraid to go out and public for fear of contaminating others or being contaminated themselves. Occupational licensing, i think, often serves as a barrier to opportunity. It hurts the most vulnerable among uso in. In a prior life, back 20 years ago, early 2001 and 2003, i was the head of policy at the federal trade commission in the george w. Bush administration. The ftc is charged withi chaire defending consumers and defending competition, and so, i chaired a series of public hearings on barriers to ecommerce. We looked at ten different industries. Every one of the industries telemedicine, education, contact lenses, funerals and caskets. E to we looked at beer and wine. E. Those are five of them just off the top of and my head. Every one of them had the identical path. Which is the existing bricks mortar competitors. Would go to their state and local regulators and say,commer protect us against these new was competitors. Ecommerce that isthin coming i. Polthere was a report that wast written inic 1999 by the policy institute. The think tank of the democratic leadership council, so the sort of centrist billreve clinton democratic think tank. They wrote a report called essentially the middleman, througn theloca producer and the consumer, middlemen do a very good job of getting localrs to. Regulations to protect them and insist you have to go through me. They put all of these barriers toascina entry. What was fascinating, we had hearings and all ten industries. Everys who single one of the industries there was at least one witness who said, i looked at these other barriers and the other Nine Industries and wow, these aredriv terrible. These hurt consumers. Theyrrible drive up costs. Theyre terrible. Thbut our industries different. There is a reason to protect our industry. Is ludicrous ones. The more Funeral Directors and caskets. Of states thatt say,ed mo to sell a casket you t in be able to be a licensed morticians. You have to be able to embalm and prepare a body. The problem is, Funeral Homes make all their markup onandma . Caskets. That is where the cash is. Selling of caskets. Do you really love grandma . Then you need the special. Eluxexe the problem was, Funeral Homes have started to see competition from other competitors, online competitors selling caskets much cheaper. A massive markup and caskets. Pasta thing for a second. O knwhether in order to sell a u box, you need to know how to embalm someone. Iif y recognize it. If you will box embalm someoneu have to know how to embalm someone. But if you are trying to sell a pine box, there is no reasonout you should have to know how to embalm someone. That is one example, but it is all about the markup. Contact lenses in mikes state. A lot of it is based in utah. They sell contacts online. We have time interests hate it they are their markup, they do an eyeg yo exam but they make other money selling you want tthat much higher than they cost. They do not want the competition. The institute for justice based in d. C. Does a fabulous job of bringing litigation on behalf of people, Small Business owners who wantater to compete,o are being prevented. Alitharry breeders are a great example. You have causedan want, metalluy boards want, youve got a lot of instances of African American young women who hav want to staa business hair braiding. Yet, they have to go throughbaro some times a year or two year of training of certification and it is a barrier to entry. , single mom, youve gotta feed a your kids. You imay not have a year or c o to develop all this training. You may already know how to hair. D last i checked, the markete the contests that. It is not exactly like there isu a Massive Public safety issue if you braid hair wrong. And that is say, my daughters are braiding most nights. Air if you dong o it wrong, yourpre customers will leave. And i think focusing on removing barriers to Small Businesses and entrepreneurs is very powerful in terms of unleashing the economy. Two thirds of all newd oc jobs e from Small Businesses,sses to e. Occupational licensing serves as a barrier to make it more expensive for more Small Businesses to enter. I think its conservatives, libertarians and believers an economic liberty, we ought to the right tooror entrepreneurs. It helps the little guy, thericn young guy, the young peopled th African Americans, hispanics, single moms. Busithose without vast resource, to be able to start a business and compete and i think that is very powerful. He a nce. Let me turn to some questions from the audience. The first question deals with Small Businesses. We have businesses large and small that have shiftednarily mr production lines from the widgets that they ordinarily over to the production of various types of Safety Equipment and the likes that are necessary to respond to the pandemic. Itthos takes a while to shift or production lines. When we no longer need those sorts of pieces of equipment in the numbers that are being produced, these companies will shift back. Period, when they shift back, they will not be able to sell, because theyre in thef process of reequipping their facilities. My question is, what sort of situation will happen . Will there be another lagt for m period where businesses turned equipms they start shifting out of equipment for the pandemic and back to their old equipments . What if anything can be done about this and hopefully this will go rather quickly, but is that going to slow down thene overall. Recovery . I will jump in on this one. It is a good question. Itprod depends on the circumstas in which the business changed their production lines. Let me take a slightly different take on this question. I think the most important and far reaching Foreign Policy consequence of thisoi ngpandemis going to be a fundamentalhina, s reassessment of the United States this relationship with china. That china, the communist government of china of china c there is anov enormous responsibility and culpability for this pandemic. Theyoic lied, they covered it , they suppressed, they punished. Thetleb heroic chinese whistle blowers that tried to stop this pandemic earlier on. One of the has illustrated is theted state incredible vulnerability th United Statess. Has through chia in terms of our supply chain. And Critical Infrastructure. Lets take for example medicalel equipment. Ppepe, an enormous percentage o ppe in the world is produced in china, whether its masks orine gowns or gloves. The Chinese Communist government very systematically, very strategically and deliberately did targetedpectim pharmaceuticals. They did so not for an Economic Perspective but from a National Security perspective. They created cartels to gofter after specific pharmaceuticals and essentially to bankrupt u. S. S. Production of the pharmaceuticals. Right now, a massive percentage of americas pharmaceuticals and the ingredients for pharmaceuticals wereina manufactured inwh china, whether youreyo talking about antibiotics or blood pressureat medication,io heart medication, cancer medication, all sorts of anti anxiety medication. Anti depressive medication. On sorts of medicines that we rely on, china is getting more and more of a monopoly on producing. Thehe vulnerability of that was highlighted during the pandemic when one state on the newspaper economic s from explicitly thred to cut off pharmaceuticals from the United States as a tool of economicey w warfare. Rfar if they were to do that, that is not just economic. That is actually real warfare. That is cutting off needed medicines and literally threateningh to lives of be entially millions of americans. Personally, i think it is foolish to allow ourselves to be so dependent on china fore b our supply chain, that the next coff americans hang in the balance of the whims of the communist government of china. Monti fully expect over the nexu coming weeks and months and years, we are going to have an extended debate about how to decouple our economies and hown to ensure that critical phar infrastructure is here in the United States. Had beenns more pharmaceutical productions, the questions abouti lines that have been shifted pharmaceutical production. Toryim hopeful some of those ls will stay producing it, but i think we may well be looking at tax and regulatory policy to try to make it easier for Critical Infrastructure to o actually survive in the United States e ii legislation i just introduced,re looking at Rare Earth Minerals that are needed for ourght defenses technologies, h tech technologies. To a large extent, we almosthigh entirely stopped producing and in the United States. Both the regulatory costs are so high, but also china has moved in to capitalize and t monopolize where the mineralsre are. I introduced legislation that would create strong beneficial chat tax treatment to developing Rare Minerals here because of china cuts us off, we do not want our National Security to be vulnerable to the whims of communist china. In gli believe that china represens the single greatest geopolitical threat the United States over the next centuryesn and i think we will have very extensiveve discussions about hw to make sure that china does not have a stranglehold on the ability of the United States to defend itself. Let me ask, historically, the Supreme Court has allowed congressman states pretty much to regulate states as they see fit. We do not treat economic liberty as being as valuable as other personal liberties. Le to get billions of people backk to work, is it time for that to change . Is it time for the supreme reexamine the very low level of protection it gives the economic liberties,em seeing as how we have millions of peoplers o out of work and we need to get them back to be productive members of the economy. State enlaws that are arbitrar, therefore only hurt the entire nation in this regard. Is iis it up to the supreme cout to reexamine the economic liberties of is a time for congress to take a more aggressive approach i. Preempting state and local regulations . This is a tossup. This is a question from an audience member. It is for either of you. O th and so far as the questin is referring to the Supreme Courtss 1904 decision unlockus heart f versus new york, i would not favor a return to that. It is a dangerous form ofubstan jurisprudence that looks to a t what we now call due process as a tool for the federal judiciary to tell states what they cannot do. I understand the point. I am a huge believer in liberty. It is something that factors into every decision that i make. I also think it is important too keep the federalurts courts ande congress for that matter,d by focused on federal issues, and issues that are actuallyly by u. S. Law or by the u. S. Constitution. I think one of the ways, the most profound way that federal lawmakers and federal jurists defend and protect economic liberty, by focusing ont of tim restoring the twin structuralal protections of the about constitution. A lot of times when we think. About constitutional protections we think about. Substantive limitations. Now shall not the constitution. It is every bit as important i woulde pa argue, like Justice Scalia before he passed away, more td substance to protections of the constitution are notha worth anything. Not worth more than the paper they are printed on unless you most opo federalism and separatn of powers in place. Youthe get the federal protectn in place of federalism and get most of the power at the state and local level. And the protection ofat enforce separation of powers within the federal government we have one branch that makes the law, oneen branch that interprets itde ande one branch thatpa raenforces th. Weve 80 drifted weve driftedt badly from federalism and separation of powers over the last eight years. Hapetuadrift away from federalis helped perpetuate a drift away from separation of powers. We would have much lesstore the economic interference by government in general if wethe started to restore these things and have the assistance of the courts doe and saying for examp, this or that does not belong in the. It is purely local economic activity. Likewise, if they would start enforcing separation of powers by not allowing congress any longer to just open and deadly delegate to an executive branch of the agency the task of making law, that too would help the effectct of opening up economic liberty. Gentlemen, we have a minute left. I will give each of you 30 seconds to sort of offer any final remarks that senator cruz. You are up first. Us e i will use my 30 seconds just t emphatically echo what might just said. I am passionate about economic liberty, but im equally passionate about the structural restraints inbe our constituti. Federalism enables all 50 states to be wet Supreme Courtb Justice Lewis brand ice called laboratories of democracy. I think wagner was wrong. Ru i think if new yorks wants to set minimum wage rules for mayut bakers, itho is a really bad cat policy idea. Authority to do it. Nstitutional if california wants to annex ocean lies medicine, that is terrible policy and yet california hasty t the Constitutional Authority to do it. Thefede beauty of federalism if you do notck ulike it, you can pack up and move to come to a place that we sh protects to ecc liberty. I dont think we should have judges making policy decisions even if its striking down bad policy and its instead it ought to be with can structural constraints constitution. E said senator early . Federalism and separation of powers tend, when we followac them, to give more americans access to more of the kind of k government theyind want. Less of the kind of government dont want. When wetalkin hear people in thy and age how unfortunate it is, that is has grown soit should be contentious and washington it. Se should be t no surprise to themo that this is occurred as a result of concentration of hand power excessively in the hands of the few e eggswith in washinn d. C. We put all the eggs in thate of basket you will haveligh confession. If you have a Homeowners Association i was originally in charge of trash removal and lighting in the common areas, once it starts expanding into also deciding what kind of grass and in your yard and then starts telling you, how many servings of green leafy vegetables your children have to eat every single, th day. The broader the more contentious andnable unsustainable that association is goingg to be. Federal has government is likend unto that. Nd has t exceeded its mandate. It is up to the American People house and voters, and those they elect to the senate, house representatives in the white house to restore that balance that we have relinquished a long ago. On behalf of the heritagetor le. Foundation and personally, i want to thank you very much forf taking theor time to join with s today, to give us your views and for fighting for the freedoms and liberties that you both have described. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, god bless. We are adjourned. Centers for Disease Control and prevention director doctor robert red field testifies before a house of reparation subcommittee on the governments coronavirus response. Much light thursday morning at 11 eastern on cspan three online at cspan dot or, or listen live on the free cspan radio act. Coming up, on American History tv, who look at the Great Depression. We begin with a Tennessee Valley authority created in 1933. Its mission was to address Environmental Energy and economical issues in the Great Depression. Its all about the discussion of wages and Wealth Distribution that led to the depression. Then a book about the woman about the new deal policy at the end of the Great Depression. Watch American History tv, now and over the weekend on cspan 3. Next from real america, a National Program in the Tennessee Valley. The 1936 film created by the tv aide to promote their efforts and to show the construction of two massive projects during the Great Depression. Norris dam in tennessee and we learned them in alabama