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Of thousands of people worldwide. The virus, unfortunate, could cause additional early deaths down the road due to the unemployment and poverty that it could cause. To stave off those avoidable deaths, America Needs to reinnovate the booming economy we had before covid19. To do so we put on this presentation to listen today from United States senators ted cruz and mike lee. Each one has ideas about Regulatory Reform that will kickstart our economy as well as keep it going strong on a longterm basis. I would now like to invite senator cruz and senator lee to join me. Before we start todays discussion, i want to get each senator the opportunity to offer some introductory remarks. Senator cruz, you are up at first. Well good morning. Its a pleasure to join you. Thank you for taking the time to participate. And paul, its good to see you. Mica, its good to see you and what a testament to the wonders of technology that were able to have an intimate conversation thousands of miles apart, and im pretty sure that through the electrons this qualifies as social distancing. You know, the fact that were able to do this so seamlessly, so effortlessly is really a testament to the opportunities that have been presented by this enormous crisis. As an issue when facing two simultaneous crises, a Public Health crisis, the coronavirus pandemic has killed over 300,000 people, and an economic crisis over 36 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 the cause of some fundamental weakness in the economy or its not a recession that was driven by the misallocation of capital. Instead, the direct result of Government Policies that were put in place to fight the pandemic. And we are seeing now millions of americans out of work, over 20 of the American Workforce has lost their job in the last two months. That is unprecedented in our lifetimes. You have to go back to the Great Depression to find a comparable economic catastrophe that a struck the American Economy. Not only that but we have millions of Small Businesses that have either gone out of business or on the verge of bankruptcy. And so the crisis level is enormous. But that being said, that also means the task Going Forward is enormous. Mike and i all the members of the senate, we have worked together on four separate piece of legislation, all of which passed overwhelmingly with overwhelming bipartisan support. Those pieces of legislation, theyre often referred to as stimulus legislation but thats not, in fact, what i think they are. I dont call them stimulus and affect what i call that is relief legislation because they were designed to provide immediate relief, shortterm emergency bridge loans to individuals and families and Small Businesses to help them get through the immediate crises that were facing. The state we are at now, theres some of the democratic side of the aisle who want to continue shoveling money, and i will tell you the quantity of money that congress has been in the last two months in response to this crisis takes your breath away. For both mike and i we are at times literally unable to breathe given the quantity of debt that our nation is taken to try to get through this crisis. The next stage, however, when we are now i believe the next legislation should be recovery legislation it should be focused not on relief, not on spending more money and you shoveling money at the problem. We cant fix it that way. Instead the next stage should be focused on tax reform and Regulatory Reform. In other words, lesson the burden on Small Business and job graders. The only way out of this mess economically speaking us to get people back to work and that means we need to be working for policy that helps the Small Businesses that are just starting to open up their doors again that are just starting to see customers again, policies that help them survive and we hire their employees and hopefully grow and thrive. Weve got to unleash the engine, the American Free enterprise system. The only string long enough only thing strong enough. On the regulatory side come one good place to start is every regulation, federal regulation, stately galatian, local legislation in the last three months has been suspended because of the crisis to deal with the crisis. We should all start with the presumption that those regulations should stay suspended Going Forward. That it was being helpful for the migration to be suspended during the time of crisis, then it should still be helpful during recovery. I think thats what our focus needs to be, is how do we empower Small Businesses to drive Free Enterprise forward and turn our economy around and get people back to work. Senator lee, do you have any opening remarks . Indeed. Thanks so much. Its an honor and privilege to be with you and to be with my friend senator ted cruz. I agree with every word he just thought it including the words but, and and the. Usually when i hear a sentence like that but its great to be with ted. Look, one of the many things he said that is right and so for our time is a notion that were not going to fix our economy with more government spending. Were not going to fix our economy with more government programs. What we need is to get government out of the way so americans can start helping each other again. Thats why i cosponsored along with senator cruz a bill called the right to test act that this is legislation that would let states approve and distribute diagnostic tests when the state or the federal government has declared a Public Health emergency. Its also why i i cosponsored something called the prime act which will help farmers sell the livestock for higher prices and lower meat prices old way for consumers in Grocery Stores. Right now is a weird bottleneck at meatpacking plants, and what the prime act does is allow states to regulate slaughter facilities or meat sold within the same state. We have two members of the federal was never intended to be this allencompassing regulatory body that would regulate even purely local activities like labor, mining, manufacturing and agriculture. It wasnt meant to be the comprehensive exclusive regulator of things like meatpacking and yet it is the federal commandeering of the meatpacking licensing and regulatory business in this nation that has resulted in this bottleneck, the results for higher price for consumers and lower prices for those who actually produce meat. Thats a problem the prime act would help us deal with that. We also have to protect businesses from the problems that would otherwise arise from, predictive for businesses that want to reopen from trial lawyers. Were trying to make a quick buck. Who are trying to make a quick buck. Falafel what is called animal diversity to section. This would for more businesses to move to federal court where its often easier to defend against trivial lawsuits. The constitution itself in article iii section two sets out the format for that and it says when you got plaintiff for one state and defend us from another state, you ought to be able to have in litigation that would otherwise be pending before state court. Not to be able to access to federal courts because theres a bit more consistency between one federal court and another. I think were going to touch on this later but our environmental laws specifically the National Environmental policy act have been weaponized by radical fundamentalists. They been weaponized in order to raise the costs and cause significant delays to all federally funded Infrastructure Projects throughout the country. You want to know why it takes billions of additional dollars and many years longer to complete the same Infrastructure Projects are grandparents built . Sometimes in a very short timeframe, just a few decades ago, nepa is often part of the problem and im working on legislation that would set a shot block on planning in litigation to speed up the Environmental Review process while still protecting the environment. Those things are at odds with each other and when we look at many of our pure nations peer to nations that have aggressive nepa like laws, we stand out like a sore thumb as as a couny that doesnt put any time constraints on this process and get those countries, thinking of countries like canada, are not exactly environmental hellholes. User places the protect the environment and at the same time provide a reasonable set of expectations that consumers and businesses can look forward to in the economy. We ought to look at the rules and regulations that ted referred to that has been suspended during the crisis. Included within these are many of the occupational licensing regulations. We should ask ourselves why it is that his regulations were put in place in the first place if they are appropriate to be dropped during a real emergency. If we can see this crisis as an opportunity for systematic Regulatory Reform, then our economy cant and i believe will come back stronger than ever. I continually our best days as americans remain yet ahead of us. But in order to get we have to make the right choices. Thank you. Senator lee, thank you very much. Let me ask a a question and ths is a tossup to both of you. You both side and may 14 letter to the Senate Minority and majority leaders urging them to support statutory reforms to provide regulatory relief for businesses. In the letter you referred to quote paperwork reduction and removing outmoded compliance requirements. I i know you both mention severl different possibilities of reforms that we should make. Do you have any specific examples in mind . And woody be possible to have those included in legislation that we will see passed into law before the end of this year . Ill start with that if you would like. The most concrete example of an thinking of is my nepa reform legislation. This would do a number of things with the nepa process but the most important reform in it would be to limit the amount of time that can be taken up at each stage of Environmental Review, one of the National Environmental policy act. Because right now theres no limit to it, and so agencies, between a combination of agency action, court action and preparations for those separate venues, its not uncommon in this country to see a project, sometimes its a road or highway. Highway. Sometimes its an Energy Project or something much more pedestrian. But its not all that uncommon these days to see that taking more than a decade, and theres no reason for that. We dont end up with a clean and five as a result of it taking that long. The review process itself can make sure we dont wreak havoc on the environment might otherwise. Theres a reason why that should have to take a decade to discern your i put shot blocks in place and also put in some requirements that would allow the federal government to use corresponding state law document productions as a substitute for what the therapy would otherwise be provided. If a citizen something similar, the federal government ought to get a handle that. This would reduce the overall point of paperwork and it is something that could be put into a vase four leipsic passage, particularly if it ends up being an infrastructure component to that a phase four. Senator cruz, would you like to answer . So i emphatically agree with everything mike said and let me take several different pieces. Nepa reforms, spinning of Environmental Review, mike mentioned the process of building any project can be delayed years or even decades, and the way the system operates that its not designed to protect the environment. Instead what it is time to do is allow activist groups to lose litigation to shut down a a project him to shut and 11. It uses a tool simply to [inaudible] a little over a week ago i had a phone call with elon musk, the ceo and founder of tesla and spacex and elon is hardly a right wing conservative activist. But he is public expressed his displeasure with the headquarters of tesla in california and they shut down their factory there, and hes expressed his displeasure with wanting to open up his factory and he publicly expressed his interest in it california keeps doing this, we may decide to move our tesla headquarters out of california and maybe to texas. I called elon and said, hey, if you want to come to texas, we would love to have you. Texas is real simple. We love jobs. Anyone whos coming and creating jobs, we would love to have you. In addition to tesla, and i think this is a very real possibility, i am hopeful well see tesla come to texas but in addition to tesla, spacex has very substantial operation already in texas. This week today weve got spacex launch, the first launch of u. S. Astronauts on u. S. Soil on a u. S. Rocket in over a decade. Spacex will be launching from cape canaveral, but they also have a launch facility in south texas. The lot and i talked about the desire to substantially expand the launch facility in south texas to create even more jobs in south texas but he said the biggest problem is the Environmental Review, we can expand the operation into a get through the enormous red tape and bureaucracy. So i think speeding that up is incredibly important. To give you a sense of scope, i actually pulled some numbers. So between the year 20002016, the epa issued a total of 22 rules, estimated by omb to cost 1 billion or more. That was a total of 104. 4 billion. Every other federal agency combined issued only 19 of those rules that cost an estimated 34. 4 billion. So to put it in perspective, epa alone issued more of those rules and every other agency and more than three times as costly to the economy. So i think speeding at that review, and i think the administration has made positive steps in that regard, and was interesting, mike and i both serve on the commerce committee, Judiciary Committee together your when you bring in local mayors, when you bring in local elected officeholders, elected democrats, inevitably the express frustration with their want to build public come to want to build a bridge and they say its a most impossible to do the review. It goes on and on and on, and i know mike and i both have those conversations with elected democrats will be similar, its your party thats putting all of those roadblocks in the way. And if you think this is an opportunity to speed that up and is an opportunity we should take advantage of. Senators, it seems possible one of the reasons Environment Impact statements that get written resemble war and peace in terms of the magnitude and the amount of time it takes to write them is that agencies might be afraid that unless they do work of that length, the courts will strike it down. That brings up some general Regulatory Reform questions. There have been a variety of largescale proposals, such as a requirement that congress adopt any rule that has more than a 100 billion 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 as businesses can start hiring people again . Whether by limiting environmental or others. Senator cruz, story, thats fine. I thought i would let senator cruz gophers this time. Mike, go ahead. If i had, given the power to pass any single piece of legislation now pending, over the wave a magic wand, and it would be the reins act, and i can stands for regulations in need of scrutiny. Does what you just described, which is anytime a federal regulation deemed economically significant costing over 100 million to comply with were put in place they could not be selfexecuting. Wouldnt take effect as long until such time as both houses of congress had affirmatively passed it and submit it to the present for signature or veto. If we were to pass Something Like that it would do a couple of important things. Number one it would restore the letter and spirit of article one, section one clause one, the very first clause says all legislative power granted shall be vested in congress in the United States which shall consist of a senate and a house of representatives. Article one section seven goes on to explain the legislative formula for enacting federal law. You cannot do it without something passing the house and the senate and being submitted to the president for signature or veto and, of course, give it a seat if they can only if twothirds of both houses decide to overturn it. My point is this. Over the last few Decades Congress has become increasingly reliant on the passing actual laws of passing platitudes, and passing laws that say things like we shall have good laws in very expertly delicate to commission or agency or department. The task of writing and interpreting and enforcing. The problem with these laws is not only are they put in place through a constitutionally suspect mechanism but theyre to suspect as a matter of policy and public acceptability for the same reasons that they violate the letter and spirit of the constitution. Meaning these many women who inhabit our federal agencies can our federal departments, the federal bureaucrats to write these laws are well educated, well intentioned, hardworking and highly specialized, but they dont work for you. You can fire your congressman every two years. You can file your senators every six years. You cannot fire a bureaucrat. They dont stand for election. They are not accountable to anyone who does intern stand for election. This is really something that we need to do. It, neither republican or democrat. This is a constant semantic we we are to be fulfilling. And it also has the added benefit because of the fact it would bring elected officials back into the accountability chain of lawmaking. Of making sure we do something, put something in place in federal law, its going to be really expensive, that somebody who stand is on the ballot is going to be on the line for putting that there. The use bruce ohr system cost the American Economy about 2 trillion for you. Some say it is more of, its very difficult to ascertain but those are not born something by large bluechip corporations or by billionaires. Each of the Monopoly Game piece figures. They are born really disproportionally by americas poor middleclass who pay higher prices of goods and services and pay through diminished wages, underemployment and a point. If we put a a place reform like the reins act, well be in a much better place because once again we would have the American People being in charge of their own government. Senator cruz . So mike is exactly right on that when it comes to the reins act. He and i have both fought for years trying to press congress to pass it. When mike talked about the lack of accountability in the current system, sadly for many career politicians in washington, both democrats and republicans, thats not above, that the future. That enables rules to be promulgated with no accountability. And from the perspective of the citizenry, from the perspective of we the people, thats exactly backwards. Look, neither mike and i, and i expect only else on this call, is an anarchist. We actually that there is a need for government, that the constitution establishes the government, that there are some regulations, that are needed. But if there is to be a rule or regulation that has the consequence of destroying someones job, the person who implements that rule needs to be accountable to the voters here the power of the reins act symphysis structurally in economic relation that is going to cost 100 million or more has to be affirmative approval from congress. And that means maybe its the case that, that, that there is a particular role that is justified, that needs to be in place to prevent, look, nobody wants the air and water pours in. We dont want our kids killed. There are certainly rules when it comes to pollution, air and water and the like that we would all agree upon are good rules but as a matter of democratic accountability, if your job is going to be taken away as a result, you didnt be able to look me in the eye, you need to be able to look miking eye and ask why did you go to take away my job. If you dont like the answer, you want to have the ability to throw the bums out. And that check is incredibly important. Right now the Election Officials did to say gosh, i cant help you. Its just the unelected bureaucracy that destroyed your jobs, and mike is exactly right also that the people whose jobs are impacted the most are workingclass americans. Our bluecollar americans are the men and women with calluses on their hands. One of the most dramatic lyrical ships in the last decade is the modern Democratic Party chose between two political groups that were typically favored children of the democrats. They chose between california environmentalist billionaires, or union bosses and union members. And what democrats a dent in the last decade is they decided he wanted the money from the california billionaires more than the jobs for the bluecollar union members. And they count the union bosses to with the votes so they could vote to take away the jobs and millions of steelworkers, there is a will fieldworkers, millions of truckers, millions of construction workers, millions of men and women who work for a living. Thats those workers, i believe as republicans come we ought to be the part of jobs. We ought to be the people fighting for those men or women who want to provide for the family, want to provide for the kids. Let me make one of the point on this. You know who also sort by all these regulations . The environment. Lets take a example the endangered species act. So endangered species act, its got a great name and its got a great purpose. Listen, all of us would like to protect endangered species. I dont know anyone who sits around twirling their mustache and laughing at species being driven off planet earth. These are all gods creations and we should be good stewards of the earth. Heres the irony. If a particular species is listed as an endangered species, that is about the worst thing that can happen to that species. The odd subdivides dramatically that species is going to go from endangered to extent. Why . Because our current registry system creates Enormous Economic incentive to get rid of that little critter. Because the endangered species act, all right, if youve got a proposal, you want to pump the oil and gas, building a home development, fly spacex, expand the space port, if theres an activist group that wants to stop it, only have to do is go search that area and fine one trader, one snail, one little fish, one bird, when lizard, any critter and list it. And they can stop the entire Development Period and by the way, the economic and city you create is for any land owner, if you find one of those animals, your instinct is to get rid of it, kill that dancing because its going to stop in Economic Development you want to do. Heres reform legislation ive long advocated. Create economic incentives to grow endangered population are this is something the lawn and i discussed as well. Ive drafted a safe harbor to the endangered species act this is if theres endangered species act and the project and if the developer of the land owner mitigates, in other words, grows the population not just to the current level but expands the population even more, so west texas has been repeated, litigation try to shut oil and gas drilling based on a little lizard that is out there. I said look, we ought to have an incentive. Fine, if we have diminishing violation of lizards, bring the lizards. I joked, put up a disco ball, play some very white and let the little lizards do what comes naturally. You have to growth the population. Now, i dont think the critter has necessarily an taliban to be on that exact square inch of land. It may be that you find a suitable habitat nearby and you invest real money. You invest real money to okay, lets expand the lizard population. Lets expand whatever population it is angrily. That actually would help the environment. An interesting thing is the activists who bring these lawsuits are not interested in solutions that grow the population. Their objective is to stop the Economic Development. That is a radical objective and it is contrary to what we need right now which is jobs and Economic Growth spurt senators, let me ask about the flip side of the problem that you just been speaking about. Which is when thats been printed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has created some doctrines that say and agencies to petition of the law. Sometimes has to be accepted by the courts. They did this in the same as chevron case and they reaffirmed that within the last year in the case called kaiser. If is that a problem . And if that is a problem how do you and congress go about addressing that . The way it is now, courts cant often since issued the final decision on in matter. Its up to the agency. If congress is given to agency extraordinary authority in the delegations, you are just aggravating the problem that it is no longer governance by congress. How do we address that aspect of the problem . I can go. Theres ledges of proposal, separation of powers restoration act that i develop a couple of years ago. I dont member who ended up filing it is either me or Chuck Grassley who was the first in other was listed second. Interpretation of the law, of its own regulations and statutes enacted by congress. This is a bad doctrine. Its not good to tell judges they cant use the tools that judgesordinarily employ in order to interpret federal law. So it ought not be the case that federal agencies of all litigants who appear before courts ought to be given unprecedented deference. There is an argument in favor of keeping chevron, im just not a bigfan of it because its not a very good argument. The argument is well without chevron it would bemore difficult for the courts to keep up and at the end of the day this is congresses problem that Congress Needs to fix. On the first point, the federal courts are more than up to the challenge of undertaking some additional work in order to interpret statutes and not blindly deferring to a federal agency unless its obviously wrong. As to the second i think theres a point there, it just doesnt mean we should cling to the chevron doctrine because its wrong. What it does mean is members of congress ought to be more conscientious in an acting legislation so that we actually provide enough legislative teeth rather than just deferring to Agency Discretion on everything. Part of the problem is for decades youve had members of congress of both houses in both political parties, senate, white house and representatives of every partisan combination who been willing to defer entire questions off to an agency and that needs to stop. Its one of the things thats perpetuating the chevron doctrine but we can do that without even waiting for the courts to themselves abandon thedoctrine by enacting separation of powers restoration act. I fear many of the concerns that have been raised by chevron, we see more and morediscussion about chevron deference and reversing that decision. Although at the same time on one that doesnt think that reversing chevron would be a panacea. That it would solve all the problems. At the end of the day our system of government only works when you have elected officials who are accountable to the people in an active and engagedcitizenry. The system works better when elected officials take responsibility for their decisions. Thats the reason why i support Something Like the rain because it puts people whose names are on the ballot in the difficult position of making a choice. Without chevron , it matters greatly what kind of judges you have on the bench so chevron itself was a reaction and it was a judicial reaction to judicial activists. To article 3 judges who were engaged in policymaking, who were themselves resolving policy issues and trying to take the place of the elected legislature and we have seen judicial activism really start to rise up in the courts starting in the 1960s and 1970s and thats not the role of the judiciary. Both mike and i are passionate about nominating and confirming strong constitutionalists to the federal bench. If you have judges who themselvesare going to exercise restraint, who are not going to step in and decide policy questions on their own , then getting rid of chevron as some real benefits because it makes the hard policy Decision Making occur in the legislative branch. If you dont have constitutionalists on the court, if you have activists on the court, getting rid of chevron can be quite problematic. We have seen for example during the last 3 and a half years, the Trump Administration practically every step the executive has taken including steps that are clearly and explicitly authorized in federal law and given to the executive to make almost inevitably are challenged in litigation and weve seen activist judges try to strike down step after step the administration is taking. If you look at the area of immigration, congress has given the president wide authority on immigration and yet especially the ninth circuit which has long been the most leftwing activist court of appeals in the country weve seen judges that have basically joined the resistance. Theyve decided to hate trump so never mind what the statutes say, theyre going to step in and say this is bad immigration policy. Probably the most ludicrous example of that is the litigation over daca, amnesty that they had asked would obama grant amnesty to those here illegally based on executive fiat and obama said over and over i dont have the power to do that, i dont have the authority to do that. He said i am not a king and suddenly i guess his political advisers decided it was good for him to do that and he became a king and he agreed for a certain subset of people here illegally that executive would not enforce the laws, disregard the laws adopted by congress and the executive would essentially risk fraudulent workpapers for people here illegally the statute says cannot work here illegally, the executive would give them a document that purports to authorize them to work illegally so that was challenged in court so fast forward to the Trump Administration, one of the decisions the president makes, the right decision is to suspend daca. Were no longer going to refuse to enforce immigration law, instead the executive will follow the laws on the books and in a true alice in wonderland through the looking glassmoment , the ninth circuit proceeds to say it is illegal for the president to follow the law. That trump cannot say he will follow the law, instead he must continue to abide by obamas statement to ignore the law. And that is still in litigation now but it is an example of theres no basis based on federal statutes, based on anything resembling law to say the executive cannot followthe law. His jumbled idiocy to even make that argument and yet it is where resistance judges find themselves so the chevron issue is complicated. I support reigning in the chevron but without good judges , we dont get to the outcome we want which is democratically elected and accountable officials making hard and important Public Policy decisions. Senators, i want to turn in a minute or two to questions from the audience but i would like to just commend you for your remarks about trying to make sure that the economy takes care of Little People. As a matter of personal privilege i thought if it werent for the people working in Grocery Stores and pharmacies or the people driving trucks, to fill the shelves and Grocery Stores and pharmacies, the nation would now be in chaos and its the Little People that are probably the greatest benefit we have going out and one of the least i think appreciated. Everyone knows that the Healthcare Professionals are putting their lives at risk but these little bluecollar people, the people that get their hands dirty deserve a great deal of credit and one area where often times they are hurt his occupational licenses. I know senator lee and senator cruise, an area you wouldlike to see reformed. That brings up this question and its a question dealing with telemedicine because the state generally license the practice of medicine. But given whats happened over the last two months, is telemedicine an idea whose time has finally come . Physiology is the same in all 50 states. Surgical procedures are the same in all 50 states. The singles on the same in all 50 states and all graduates have to pass the name Name National exam. Is it time for congress to examine telemedicine and if so what should we do as a nation tomake it happen . I want to remind you physiology is the same in all 50 states. Just remember everything is bigger in texas. My bad. With that notableexception , youre right. Its not like it would be in court where if you had to admit someone to practice law in one part of the country they had to be admitted somewhere else. An argument can be made even there but with regard to medicine, theres no reason why somebody practicing in massachusetts or new york should be able to treat somebody in wyoming or montana and in fact, one of the big divides that now exists in this country could be taken down, not just economically but also geographically. People in some parts of the country always have access to as many doctors or specialists in an area that they might reallyneed. And so i think this is an idea whose time has come and hasprobably been here for a few years , we just havent noticed it. But this is part of the trend that americans throughout the country are waking up the to the fact that in many instances, a lot more instances than not , occupational licensing serves to entrench incumbents more than it does to protect the public. I had a constituent point out to me that the more important the license or the more, the less you would want somebody performing a certain procedure without adequate training, the less likely it is that the license it self will be the distinguishing characteristic for the end user. For example this poor person pointed out that in one sense the license to fly an airplane that anyone could get could allow somebody to operate a small cessna or a 747 jumbo jet. Its up to the owner of the jumbo jet to decide whether or not that person who has the pilots license operates the jumbo get. So too with physicians. Once somebody has a medical degree and is a Board Certified medical doctor he or she may be able to undertake certain procedures but if youre getting a specific type of surgery, youre looking not to whether that person as an occupational license as a medical doctor but the experience and the training and the recommendations that person has. So i think in the case of telemedicine thats especially important. Consumers can do a good job. Im not suggesting abolishing occupational licensing standards although its debatable whether that would be a benefit or a quorum to the country but we dont have to go that far. When it comes to telemedicine we need access to it now especially given that they are afraid to go out in public for fear of contaminating others were being contaminated themselves. Occupational licensing i think often serves as a barrier to opportunity and it hurts the most vulnerable among us. In a prior life, back 20 years ago in the early 2001 to 2003, i was the head of policy at the federal trade commission in the george w. Bush administration and the ftc is charged with defending consumers and defending competition and so i chaired a series of public earrings on barriers toecommerce and we look at 10 Different Industries. Every one of the industries, we look at telemedicine and education, we look at contact lenses, look at funerals and caskets. We look at your and why. Those are five of them off the top of my head and every one of themhad the identical path. It is the existing bricks and mortar competitors. Would go to the state and local regulators and say protect us against these new competitors. Ecommerce thats coming in area there was a report that was written i think in 1999 by the policy institute which is the think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council so the sort of bill clinton democratic think tank and they were a report called revenge of the this intermediate which is essentially the middleman between the producer and consumer area middlemen do a good job of getting local regulations protected and insist youve got to go through me and they put all thesebarriers to entry. What was fascinating, we had hearings in all 10 industries. Every single one of the industries there was at least one witness who said i look at these other barriers and the other Nine Industries while these are terrible. These hurt consumers. A drive up costs. There are terrible but our industry is different. Theres a reason to protect our industry. One of the more ludicrous ones, i mentioned Funeral Directors and caskets. There are states that state to sell a casket you must be a licensed mortician. You must be able to do involving and prepare a body and the problem is look, Funeral Homes make all their markup on caskets. Thats where the cash is is selling caskets and do you really love grandma . Then you need the special deluxe. The problem was Funeral Homes have started to see competition from other competitors, online competitors selling caskets much cheaper because theres a massive markup in caskets. Pause to think whether in order to sell a pine box you need to know how to involve someone. I recognize if youre going to involve someone you want to know how to embalm someone if youre trying to sell a pine box theres no reason you should have to know how to embalm someone. One example but its all about the market. Contact lenses in my state, one 800 contacts is based in utah. They got time contacts online. The optometrist hates this because their markup, they do an eye exam but they make all their money selling you contact lenses much higher than the cost so they dont want the competition. The institute for justice in bc does a fabulous job of bringing litigation on behalf of of people, Small Business owners who want to compete are being prevented. Care raters are a great example where you have hospitality boards that shutdown and if you want, you got a lot of instances of africanamerican young women want to start a business hair braiding and yet they have to go through sometimes a year or two years of training and certification and its a barrier to entry whereas if youve got a single mom, youve got to be your kids, you may not have a year or two to devote all this training. You may know how to braid hair and last i checked the market contest that. Its not like theres a Massive Public safety issue if you braid hair wrong. I have to say my daughter is braiding my wifes hair most nights. If you do it wrong your customers will leave. I think i focusing on removing barriers to Small Businesses and entrepreneurs is very powerful in terms of unleashing the economy. Two thirds of all new jobs come from Small Businesses and occupational licensing serves as a barrier to make it more expensive or more Small Businesses to enter. I think as conservatives, as libertarians, as believers and economic liberty we ought to be fighting forthe rights of entrepreneurs. It helps the little guy, it helps young people and africanamericans and hispanics and a single moms and those without vast resources. To be able to start a business and compete and i think thats very powerful. Let me turn to questions from the audience. The first question actually deals withSmall Businesses. We had businesses large and small that has shifted production lines. From the rigid that they ordinarily make over to the production of various types of Safety Equipment and the like that are necessary to respond to the pandemic. And it takes a while to shift over production lines and when we no longer need those sorts of pieces of equipment and the numbers that are being produced, these companies will shift back. During that period when the ship back and will be able to sell. Because theyre in the process of just equipping the facilities. The question is what sort of situation we will have. Will there be another leg. Where businesses turned down as their shipping out of equipment for the pandemic and back to the their own equipment . What if anything can be done about this and hopefully this will go rather quickly but is that going to slow downthe overall recovery . So ill jump in on this one. Its a good question. It depends on the circumstances in which the business changed their production line. But let me take a slightly different tack on this question you i think the most important and farreaching foreignpolicy consequence of this pandemic is going to be a fundamentalreassessment of the United States relationship with china. That china, the communist government of china their enormous responsibility and culpability for this pandemic. They live. They covered it up. They suppressed, they punished the heroic chinese whistleblowers that tried to stop this pandemicearly on. And one of the things this crisis as illustrated is incredible vulnerability the United States has the chinain terms of our supply chain. And the Critical Infrastructure. Lets take for example medical equipment. Ppe, an enormous percentage of the peace in the world that produced in china whether its masks or downs or gloves. Pharmaceuticals are in the Chinese Communist government systematically, strategically and deliberately targeted pharmaceuticals and they did so not from an Economic Perspective but from a National Security perspective where they created cartels to go after specific pharmaceuticals and essentially to bankrupt us production of those pharmaceuticals so right now a massive percentage of americas pharmaceuticals and the ingredients for pharmaceuticals are manufactured in china whether youre talking about antibiotics or one pressure medication, heart medication, cancer medication. And high anxiety medication and antidepressant medication. All sorts of medicines that we rely on china is getting more and more of a monopoly on producing area and the vulnerability of that was highlighted during this pandemic when one state owned newspaper in china explicitly threatened to cut off pharmaceuticals from the United States as a tool of Economic Warfare. Now, if they were to do that, thats not just Economic Warfare at actual real warfare, needed medicines literally threatening the lives potentially of millions ofamericans. Personally i think it is foolish to allow ourselves to be so dependent on china for our supply chain that the lives of americans hang in the balance of the winds of the communist government of china. And i fully expect over the next coming week and months and years we are going to have an extended debate about how to decouple our economies and how to ensure that Critical Infrastructure is here in the United States. That means more Pharmaceuticals Production so the question about lives that had been shifted over to ppe or pharmaceuticalproduction , im hopeful some of those lines 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 actually survive in the United States and withstand chinas assault. I can tell you oneexample of legislation i just introduced. Looking at where Rare Earth Minerals that are needed for a number of ourdefense technologies for a number of our hightech technologies. To a large extent, weve almost entirely not producing them, stop buying them in the United States both regulatory costs are so high also china has moved in to be capitalized and monopolized Rare Earth Minerals introduced legislation that would create strong beneficial tax treatment to developing Rare Earth Minerals herebecause it china. , we dont want our National Security to be vulnerable to the winds of communist china. I believe that china represents the single greatest geopolitical cracks the United States over the next injury and i think were going to have their extensive discussions about how to make sure china doesnt have a stranglehold on the ability of the United States to defend itself. But he asked historically, the Supreme Court has allowed iris and the states pretty much to regulate states as they see fit. We dont treat economic liberty as being as valuable as other personal liberties. Given the fact that we now have to get millions ofpeople back to work , is timefor that to change . Is it time for the Supreme Court to reexamine the low level of protection it gives economic liberties seeing as how we have millions of people out of work and we need to get them back to be productive members of the economy . State laws that are arbitrary therefore only hurt the entire nation in this regard and is it time for the exSupreme Court to examine economic liberties or is it time to take a more aggressive approach in preempting burdensome state and local regulations and this is a tossup. This is a question from an audience member and its for either of you. Insofar as the questioner is referring to the Supreme Courts 1904 decision locker versus new york i would not favor a return tothat. Thats a dangerous form of jurisprudence that looks to what we now call substantive due process as a tool for the federal judiciary to tell face what they cant do. I understand the point, ima huge believer in economic liberty and its something that factors into every decision that i may. I also think its important to keep the federal courts and congress for that matter focus on federal issues, issues that are covered by the us law or by the u. S. Constitution i think one of the ways, the most profound way federal lawmakers and federal jurists had and then protect economic liberty is by focusing on restoring the twins structural protections of the constitution. A lot of times when we think about constitutional protections we think about substantive limitations. The mouse shall not of the constitution. Its every bit as important i would argue like justice scalia, before he passed away a few years ago used to say that substantive protections in the constitution are worth anything, theyre not worth more than the paper theyre printed on unless you have a dualism separation of powers in place, the vertical production of federalism keep most of the power of the state and local level and the protection of separation of powers is within the federal government were going to have one branch interpreted in one branch that enforces that. We ended badly from federalism and separation of powers over the last 80 years and our only from federalists has helped perpetuate our drift away from separation of powers. We would have much less economic interference by government in general if we started to restore these things we had assistance of the courts in for example this or that doesnt belong in the federalgovernment because it securely vocal economic activity. But likewise if they would start enforcing operational powers by not allowing congress any longer to just open ended late delegate to an executive branch agency, the task of making law, that you would have the effect of opening up economic liberty. We have only about a minute left so i want to get interviewed 30 seconds to sort of offerany final remarks. Senator cruz, your first. Im going to use my 30 seconds to emphatically echo what might just. I am passionate abouteconomic liberty. But im equally passionate about cultural constraints in our constitution federalism. Enables all 50 states to be what Supreme Court Justice Louis brandeis laboratories of democracy. Means so i think lockerbie was wrong, i dont think if new york wants to set minimum wage rules for bankers, i think thats a bad policy idea and i think new york has Constitutional Authority to do it. If california wants to and ask socialized medicine at thermal policy and yet california as a Constitutional Authority to do it in the beauty of federalism is if you dont like it you can pack up and move and come to a place to protect your economic liberty so i dont think we should have judges making policy decisions even if its striking down bad policy. Instead it ought to be democratic accountabilitywith constraints that are in the constitution. Senator lee. Federalism and separation of powers tend when we follow them to give more americans access to more of the kind of government they want and less of the kind of government they dont want. When we hear people in this day and age talking about how unfortunate it is that its grown so contentious in washington it should be no surprise to them that this has occurred as a result of our concentration of power excessively in the hands of the few within washington dc. You put all the eggs in that basket have contention like you had a homeowners position was in charge of transforming all lighting in the common areas, once it starts expanding and deciding what kind of grass and flowers you can plant in your yard and then starts telling you how many servings of green leafy vegetables your children happy every single day , the broader expensive authority, the more contentious and sustainable that association is going to be. The federal government has exceeded its mandate. Its up to the American People and those they elect to the senate and house of representatives and the white house to restore the balance that we relinquished long ago. Senator cruz, senator lee, on behalf of the Heritage Foundation i want to thank you are taking the time to join with us today to give us your views and fighting for the freedoms and liberties that you both have described rid of you very much. You very much, god bless. Coming up shortly White House Press secretary kaylee mcinerney will brief reporters want live coverage at 2 00 eastern here on cspan2, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free radio. Governors from across the country, plus joining the conversation on a live call in program, washington journal and if you miss any of our live coverage, watch anytime on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. The president , from Public Affairs available now in paperback and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians, from best to worst. And features perspectives into the livesof our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website , cspan. Org the president to listen learn more about each president and historian features and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. From the rotunda, were joined now by Virginia Republican ben klein. Congressman, good morning. With every state now in some form of reopening, can you just start by explaining where virginia is in that process as we hear a little bit of background noise there , that Office Building is a bit of Construction Zone is morning. Theres always something going on on capitol hill and ill try to talk over the noise. Virginia is in a phase i situation. Where most of the states are beginning to open back up again but our governor has played a large number of qualifications and conditions on things like restaurants as they open. So it is problematic for many Small Businesses in areas like mine, rural areas where we havent had quite the degree of infections Northern Virginia and richmond have had so were hoping for a more swifter opening where it can be regionally approached in areas like ours can open faster because weve got to get people back to work. These businesses are hanging on by a thread. Many have closed for good and we do need to help those businesses and their employees for working so hard every day. Will hang onwith this interview and tryto talk through some of that noise is much as we can thank you for being with us. Asyoure trying to do that, as youre trying to reopen , what do you need , what your constituents need in the next response bill that comes from capitol hill west and mark. I know that many Small Businesses are struggling the care does help them by implementing the forgivable loan program, the ppe program. We are trying to make improvements with the program regarding the level of employment that you have to haveav, whether its 75 percent , whether thats a hard rule or whether they should be some giveandtake there. As certain Small Businesses retail especially dont need as many employees now they will later towards the Holiday Season in the third quarter. Though theres some giveandtake there and we are going to pass modifying legislation and hopefully that will help our Small Businesses Going Forward. We would like to see liability relief as well because there are a lot of ugly trial lawyers out there waiting to pounce and the lawsuits frivolous lawsuits against many businesses. Trying to make a lot off of this pandemic and thats a sad state of affairs. But im hopeful that the site will pass liability relief and then we can move the bill over here as well but the trial lawyers to have influence over the democrats on both sides of the island out our side of the iso well see where it goes. Hopefully it will pass. Phone numbers and we hope some of that construction noise will pass. The phone number if you want to join in is lit up, 2027 48,000, republicans 2027488000 one area where talking with congressman ben klein, republican of virginia, member of the Judiciary Committee and i want to come back to that last point you were making about liability protection. I would that work and what should employees expect on their employer when they come back to work and what shouldnt they expect as we are trying to reopen on the ipad . Employers are for the most part taking all necessary precautions to stay safe and keep their semployees safe and make sure that they keep the public safe because nobody wants to go into a Business Establishment where they may come into contact with the virus or the rest of contracting the virus so youre going to see employees wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, washing their hands and taking all necessary steps. What you will have is a little bit of difference here and there depending on the establishment, depending on what type of business is real because there are businesses where people do have to come into close contact with each wh other and whether its my hair establishment, nail establishments, Something Like that. Where you will have some close contact. Now if a person is to voluntarily go into that, knowing that theyre going to be in close contact, knowing thats a normal place of business to have a person cutting hair right over your shoulder, if that person does come into contact with the virus and even contract the virus, you would have to have a higher standard legally. Before a lawsuit would be taken against that Business Establishment. Its naturally would be required s negligence on the part of the Business Owner before a customer or someone whos injured or contract the virus over the course of normalbusiness could receive common patient. What were going to try to get you on the phone. This is the beauty of Live Television were going to try to rejoin you in just a second but talk with a few callers as we wait for you to get on the phone we appreciate you working with us over the noise. Talkto sharon right now from warren to north carolina, a democrat. Go ahead with your question or comment and we welcome back to the congressman in just a bit. Donald trump is the antichrist and we are going to die if we listen and live with him and all this and thinks that he is running and raising and rapping about. Hes just an antichrist. He doesnt have any consideration about life at all, no ones life except his at dollar bill. Williams e, next out of houston texas. Good morning to you. Good morning cspan, howis everybody today . The coronavirus is a system that exposes the weakness of the americansystem. Wherein the most needy are facing the work worst outcome of it and it can be stopped and it will be stopped because eventually, not in our generation because im poor but my grandkids and Great Grandkids eventually there will come a day where class will be a past issue. Were all on this line out here but i just pray that someday that the victimless people of most need will never suffer again like this. Holly this is diane out of pocket in new jersey, a republican. Good morning. When i look at everything that has happened with this epidemic im noticing a lot of people who were what you might say are on the dole. Medicare, medicaid, it seems as if they are dying at a much higher rate. When i think poor people, a lot of them are disadvantaged iafricanamericans and hispanic people who live on the fringes. It scares me because it seems almost as if they want to get rid of the people who are poor and i have to turn this television down. Thats okay, i think we got your point and we do have the congressman , we can let him respond to that and perhaps you might have heard one of the other colors as well thank you for joining us phone now. Thanks for having me back. This is much better, go ahead. Y im glad theres work being done on capitol hill. All too often you see it elected officials especially my leadership in the democrat side, Speaker Pelosi and others pulling bills like the fisa bill from the floor that were not even able to work today read many of my colleagues were on the other side giving their proxy vote to members not even coming to washington today. Over 70 members of the Democratic Party and their votes and theyre supposed to be representing their constituents at their home collecting a paycheck while others are voting for them today. This is the first time proxy voting hasbeen tried. Voits a horrible precedent to set. Never been done in over 200 years so im glad theres some work being done on these buildings, at least these constructions going on the legislation is not moving that we need to see happening. In response to the callers important prayers, we all need to be praying during this time and we all need to be doing our part to help our neighbors read last color d talking about folks in hard times. We all need to be doing our part to reach out to our neighbors and make sure everybody getshelp through this pandemic. That bill youre talking about to renew domestic powers, president from saying he would veto the bill last night read this is a suite from yesterday even if the fisa bill gets passed i will veto it, our country has suffered through the greatest political crime in its history and thats what the use of fisa was part of it. What you expect the state to be on the house floor mark. Ironically nancy pelosi will be trying to twist arms to get her side to vote for it even though i didnt vote for t the first time and im not voting for it today because we do have to have significant reforms to the program area bar horowitz report that came out at the end of the year, identified several problems the current fisa process. Going to have the senate Judiciary Committee bringing forward Rod Rosenstein next week to testify about reforms that are necessary to the process and so i think for the president to use this bill which makes a change to a small segment of the fisa program as leverage for a larger reform is entirely appropriate. Host that investigation into the crossfire hurricane russiaprobe , that investigation by the senate usjudiciary getting next week as you mentioned, Rod Rosenstein expected to testify. I know youre not aUnited States senator but if you are on the judiciary and had a chance to ask a question what would you ask him when hes on the hill next week . We would definitely want to know about all of the violations that are going on, not just in the segment that was found in thehorowitz report , additional t heinquiri have been made and additional problems have been discovered in the program and i think rosenstein is going to have to justify for those of us who are skeptical of this program where the government can survey allits own citizens without a warrant. That strikes me as inherently contradictory to constitutional protections that are provided to every man, woman and child in this country so i think is going to have to start at the beginning and justify this program and its existence and why congress should not do a wholesale either repeal or overhaul of what this program has become. End line joining us from up on capitol hill by phone this morning and we appreciate you doing it. A few more colors for you, this is bobby out of West Virginia on that line for democrats, good morning. Goahead body. My question is on this bill here with the liability. Its, this is unforeseen territory that americans are entering into. And there needs, i can understand being a liability on that colors panic response but in this bill, on the liability aspect of it, i seem to be hearing, i havent read the bill but as it is, that when it comes down to liability, that this, these , if the law gets passed, can kind of step on peoples toes , with liability other than the fact of the disease itself. And other areas on liability and that infringing in a totally different aspect other than what it was designed for specifically. That may do some harm to you know, people that work in m Different Industries or whatever or something or other and kind of set us back on rights that weve won through the courts for liability and everything like that in the laws and aneverything prior. Host got your question, congressman were looking in on that, go ahead. Guest hes absolutely right. We got to maintain the system in place whereby those are victims of gross negligence on the part of a big Business Owner can get really, so those bars would remain in place. Those standards would remain in place for liability for businesses, they would still be liable in case of gross negligence but its the frivolous lawsuit that the senate is trying to get after. Those that just add cost to the bottom line for every Small Business after every momandpop shop dhas to pay, whether its Liability Insurance rates or just general insurance rates are generally the costof doing business , we want to make sure that those costs are to artificially raise as a result of frivolous lawsuits by unscrupulous trial lawyers as a result of this pandemic. Thats what this bill is all about and i hope the Senate Passes it and sends it over to the house to consider. Two more calls for youfrom the commonwealth of virginia. From radford, that in your district . Is just to the south but close enough. This is kenny from radford, republican. I really dont have a question. I think that wedefinitely got to have thisliability thing and got to take this thing and come , given the situation i would evolve. I dont think that d the federal response could have been much better. I dont really have a comment here after listening to the show, i listened to it for years and in the morning show, its just become a rant and rave against donald trump show. It was a good forum but i would want to constantly now sometimes i just have to switch it over even cbs or nbc because its terrible. But i think youre spot on on liability my goddaughter has a Small Business and thats not asked to happen and i want to make my commentand appreciated, thank you all. Whats your Small Business lesson mark. We want kenny there, go ahead. I think the cspan does a great job of trying to be fair and balanced and rejectable republicans, democrats and independents when they want to get input t and as somebody who does come to work with a certain approach on issues, its an approach that believes in Small Business, believes in hardworking americans who go to work every day and try to make the world a better place, make their country a better place, trying to get through this pandemic for their cells and then the community. Making sure that our points get across area i appreciate y, cspan for having me on today and letting me respond to some of the questions. One last color, rosenberg is in your district. This is a republican. Good morning. I had a question. I just wondered what your thoughts were on maybe overplaying their hand talking about rescinding grants for i heard our city council was even threatened over the poultry plant infections and i waswondering your thoughts on. We are concerned about the rate of infection in our poultry processing facilities. I have reached out to department of agriculture to make sure that workers are protected. In the process that we want to make sure that all workers are protected at the same time, make sure that they are better protection from reckless lawsuits may be filed by trial lawyers out there against hardworking Small Businessmen and women so achieving a balance is important. Achieving a balance on bi said, making sure we do not sacrifice our constitutional freedoms and liberties and in return for National Security, the constitution, it survives through the spanish flu in 1918, and survive through different ways and the civil war and you name it. Constitution survives, it will survive this without needing proxy voting. It will survive without needing the heavy hand of fisa as is currently constructed area we can reform it and improve it so that our due process protections waiting for american citizens. And the constitution will continue to survive and america will thrive moving forward. Appreciate your time on the phone this morning. Going to let you get your day on capitol hill, were going to return in a minute here to that question we started our program with on Race Relations in this country. Just asking people if theyre Getting Better or worse or staying about the same. I wonder how you would weigh inon the question. Will all concerned when we see examples on tv about Excessive Police violence and particularly minority communities. We have to make sure that our Police Received the cross s the support of the citizens. And it has to be earned. Through the work at the police do in the community, Community Policing does work and i support that effort. And i think that the more police and the in our communities, working to help thosecommunities , address whether its violence or property crimes, things like that. The better our communities would be share the concerns of many about what ive seen on the news and i hope that we can move to a more equal and Prosperous Society together. Ben klein, republican, member of the house judiciary. I do appreciate your time and thanks for working withus. Thank you very much. ,White House Press secretary haley mcinerney will order red live coverage at 2 00 on cspan2, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Palms lobby joins us from his congressional office

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