Holiday is the president of Armco Steel Corporation. He told attendance at the first national Forum on business government and the public interest that government regulation is slowing the productivity of American Business. There's only one message that will strike responsive cards and American mines today. And here it is. Unnecessary oppressive regulation Falls heavily and expensively on every single individual person man woman and child in this country. And that is the story we must tell we must convince our fellow countrymen and women that increasing regulation is not in their individual interest and therefore not in the public interest. No abstract statements about this in my opinion will not do the job. Claiming something won't convince our listeners. We must prove our assertion. We must show each wage-earner how much he pays for excessive regulation. We must demonstrate to each housewife the high cost of government interference. The question is not of course what we want to say, but how we should say it. How do we get that message across? One approach comes from the United States Consul of wage and price stability. It will soon release its pilot study of the effect of government regulation on the price of steel. And that's a steel man. I am deeply grateful for this particular response of action on the part of the government itself to ferret out that question. but once again Does the public really care about the price of steel? It's our view that the citizen cares about the price of his car. Or is coffee pot. And that the only message we can hope to get across is it that $2 of the cost of this coffee pot comes to you because of government regulation. Professor Murray Weideman that's sensible man says that we could fight over regulation with ridicule. And I agree with that public ridicule is one important way to get our message across but we must hold up to scorn particularly regulatory insanities that directly affect individual Americans. So what am I saying here today? If only we could experiment a bit freely more freely. I'm sure we in the business world could come up and with far more efficient wrinkles to help societies goals help meet those goals. If I could ask for one thing to come out of this conference, it would be this a Clearinghouse for ideas of things business could do. Not a dull continuing standing body of advisors. We've got too many of those useless boards now. And I don't mean a massive unwieldy test for studying everything under the sun. I simply mean a hotline to a White House agency or an agency Chief with the power to say yes. Where anybody could call up and say I've got an idea how I can cut the in effluent to my factory. Can I try it or how about letting me try this? to increase plant safety We're going to shake ladies and Gentlemen. Let's throw each other a fish now and then Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could work together just once between business and government? Who says the post office has to deliver all the mail? pirate up we probably can save millions in this country. Some school boards are actually Contracting our school systems up and fire departments in a few cities are being handled the same way. And who knows where that trend for for performance Contracting could lead if we encouraged it. We could get the government back to governing. And the businessman back to managing our businesses and more people would enjoy more while paying less. I don't believe my vision is insane. Our fathers all held to dream of self-realization is country in a better life. We still hold that dream. We're simply getting bogged down in arguing over the details. Some people think the two worst things wrong in this country today are ignorance and apathy. You know I said that once in a speech not too long ago. And after I was finished I heard one of my listeners asked what did holiday say the two worst things with America are and the other fellow going out the door kind of grouse and says, I don't know and I don't care. Personally, ladies and gentlemen, I don't think Americans are apathetic. I don't think too many of us are ignorant either. But I think we need a rebirth of Cooperative spirit in this country. Now that doesn't mean abandoning any of our basic beliefs or goals a toughest negotiation. My company has had in years came about in the last few months. We were sitting around the table with the state and the Federal Environmental Protection people the Usher representatives from the United States government. Trying to hammer out a way to build a new Coke plant and to fix up a couple of old ones we had. I must admit that the EPA and the offshore boys were very very difficult. But I believe they would say we were all so difficult. But the important point in the fundamental analysis as we were not against each other we weren't debating on whether or not to fix those plants. We were decorating and arguing how we were going to get them rebuilt. And I'm not describing Paradise or the way things could be. But I'm saying that we could begin to change both government and business right now. before we change any basic philosophical stands All we did was decide we were all working for the same goals. worker health Pollution Control Coke and the public interest and we were just hammering out a way to do it. now if a stodgy old Steel company such as mine. and a flaky OSHA Group and the Arrogant EPA can do it. So can you Harry Holiday president of Armco Steel Corporation? The next speaker is Maine Senator Edmund Muskie carefully all regulatory structure. As a member of the government operations committee. I look forward to the results of the staff study now underway This comprehensive study is examining the problems caused by regulation tracing them to specific Regulatory Agencies and proposing improve in those agencies. Naturally, none of the conclusion is ready. The study is due in March, but I'm certain of one thing. There won't be any Easy Choice. There is a myriad of competing interests involved. There's a great deal of resistance to regulatory reform once you go beyond rhetoric and reach the specifics. The resistance comes from consumers workers bureaucrats and perhaps more powerful the business community. Too many people in the business Community take this approach get rid of the regulations. I don't like but keep the ones I do like That makes you no different than anyone else. And too many people in the business Community have forgotten the history of government regulation. from the last century when I say fair was at its height to the present. There has been chapter after chapter a business abuse and public demand for regulatory protection that is not to say that the business Community is by nature abusive on the contrary. I believe we have one of the most responsible business communities in the world. And I place a high value on the efficiency and productivity of American Business. We would simply not be able to provide the standard of living and quality of life. We now have without the efforts of the free enterprise system But the fact remains that for every regulation that appears in the Federal Register for every excess of bureaucratic zeal. For every ream of paperwork, there is a history of business failing to act responsibly. take OSHA for example I voted for it. And I get mad whenever I see the nitpicking that often emanates from that agency. But I also know. But each year tens of thousands of Americans died from occupationally induced diseases. grain handlers exposed to pesticides and fumigants plastic workers exposed to vinyl chloride rubber work breathing chloroprene topside work and Americans that thousands of other workplaces who must trade their hell for a paycheck. now that's a Faustian bargain that nobody should have to make and that's precisely the reason we have OSHA today. to make the workplace safe and healthy after a stubborn reluctance by too many businesses to accomplish that I know there are improvements that can be made in Ocean. I invite them. I was support needed improvements, but don't think the Congress will simply chop occupational health and safety out the window. Let me cite another exam Environmental Protection. for nearly two decades I have fought for legislation to clean up the air and water of this nation. Why? Because I wanted to punish business. Because I want an all powerful government. No. Simply because we have finally run out of lakes and streams and are to fall. We have reached the limits of pollution that the move Beyond would have been disastrous. Business did virtually nothing to stop its pollution. When I began introducing legislation, I had to fight against business lobbyists every step of the way. It would cost too much. I was told it would throw countless people out of work. I was told it wasn't really necessary. I was told and I heard arguments like this constantly fortunately enough of the American people was fed up with pollution and we made some major strides without the damage predicted by the business community. the latest poll of public opinion taken within the last week indicates the public concern and public support of this effort has risen about any previous level, but even this year After two years of one of the most intensive legislative efforts in my Senate experience of careful study and rewriting of the Clean Air Act. Congress failed to amend the Clean Air Act because of intense business Lobby. And it would have met any improvement from a business point of view in the way. We administer environmental law. It would have given the Auto industry. more time to comply with emission standards It was a good example of regulatory reform and yet it failed to pass because of the opposition of Interest Who talked plenty about regulatory reform, but who bought when it comes down to specifics. Let me cite another exam. None of us wants wage and price controls are guide. I actually like the public official didn't inform you that I was a wage-price administrative director of o p s in my state. at the time of the Korean War and I can prove it at that time. Wage price controls should be a very rarely applied medicine. We want instead to rely on the market economy and the bargaining process between labor and management to determine wage and price levels in this country and you at right now. Key Industries are raising wholesale industrial prices in a way that will force consumer prices even higher. The steel industry this week raised prices 6% despite the great need for an end to inflation. Despite lower the man Bastille. virtually ignoring the market do any of you think the price increases like this helped Americans feel confidence in our business community. Do you think the Congress or the president can restrict or resist public demands for Price restraints if this goes on much longer? This kind of behavior in steel and other Industries could bring on one more area of government regulation. One more program to administer. One more burden on the majority that acts responsible. I could cite many more examples regulation of the Securities industry Insurance banking job discrimination energy Trade Practices Food and Drugs. Every one of these regulatory AJ areas was established. Only after business failed to correct abuses on the American public that had enough and petition the government to do something. I personally do not like government regulation. They are enormously difficult to design. They are worth to administer and they are hell to defend. Which as a senator I sometimes must do. but if we are to achieve wholesale regulatory reform and I firmly believe we must we must have a new climate of responsibility in the business community. We must have a business ethic that takes into account the physical and social effects of every economic decision. We don't live in a perfect economic world. If we did it probably wouldn't be livable. They're just too many parts of our everyday lives that never show up on a cash flow statement. So what any of us consider regulatory reform we must ask ourselves. Does it contribute to a better quality of life and does it contribute to the economic recovery that today we need so much Joseph califano is a Washington attorney who served as a legislative aide and press secretary to President Johnson califano is an expert on the evolution of government regulation. He said lawyers may be the greatest beneficiaries of Regulation because of the vast amount of legal forms and Court litigation government regulation has produced Great Wave of regulatory legislation and it was premised on my philosophy of full disclosure. The most familiar examples persisting to this day are the bank holding company and Securities and Exchange laws. Regulatory Commission such as the Federal Communications Commission the Civil Aeronautics board in the federal power commission were created or strengthened to allocate limited technological resources and govern Monopoly power. The Next Great Wave of regulation of business came with the Great Society in the 1960s. Those years witnessed a change in the primary focus of legislative concern from traditional concepts of Fraud and full disclosure. The government intervention designed to balance and equalize the individual purchaser and the sophisticated seller as policymakers. We looked at the housewife in the supermarket the serviceman or college student buying an automobile the husband borrowing money the family purchasing a large Appliance. And saw these individuals pitted against the sophisticated combination of talent that made it impossible for them to get a fair Shake in the marketplace without government assistance for the seller in the market place was supported by psychologists accounting and marketing experts clever lawyers commercial artists and scientists and able corporate staff whose function whose object was to sell the most serial or so lend the most money at the highest rate of interest or create an Ambience of cultural and mechanical obsolescence to keep Americans trading in automobiles, television sets and Electric in microwave ovens. When we pause to catch a regulatory breast at the end of the 1960s government regulation was the most important and often the decisive factor in the research development and marketing of new drugs in the processing of certain meats and other Foods in the standard set for clinical laboratories, and in the manufacture and distribution of toys Fabrics Automobiles and refrigerators. Yet even the new Republican president was not ready to say enough already in the 1970s. It was indeed a republican Administration the ostensibly conservative one of Richard Nixon which concluded that the profit system alone did not provide sufficient incentive for the achievement of critical public objectives. Bus, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency was Consolidated and its powers expanded to the point where it was authorized to issue individual plant permits almost 50,000 in the last few years and has Charles schulz's noted in his God can lectures at Harvard legislated social responsibility to make thousands of decisions based on detail considerations that the EPA can I possibly know or even less keep up with overtime? I often used to equip that Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to the Washington lawyer. First he gave us the price Commission in the wage board then just as they were winding down. He gave us Watergate and finally Fading Into disgrace at San Clemente. Mr. Nixon gave us the most complex, NF 10, efficient and legalistic bureaucracy of his presidency the Federal Energy Administration. But most seriously the next 10 years gave us a decisive tilt toward more regulation as the answer to every ill from economic inflation outright corruption. The revelations about government and corporate corruption created popular demand for more statutes to control it the Medicare and Medicaid scandals will undoubtedly quadruple the paperwork and regulation of doctors and bureaucrats each time this type of government regulation falters. We seem to seek more regulations to control what the government did wrong and we begin to distrust the government's ability to do anything right when those regulations. Don't stop the government for making mistakes. The distrust increasingly Focus has two lenses of criticism at the federal bureaucracy. First the statutes and regulations are too complex intricate technical. To be in their application to the private sector the Derek Bok complaint if you will. Harvard president second federal agencies persist and their tendency to avoid tough decisions Each of these two phenomena, I submit exacerbates the other as regulations become more complex. It becomes easier for civil servants to dodge decisions with immunity from press and Congressional citizen criticism. And as an agency's ability to make decisions diminishes more statutes and regulations are drafted in an effort to stimulate the size of action or make such decisions self-fulfilling or automatic. As a result everything from the labeling of appliances to the description of credit costs. And even as Walter Pincus is pointed out in the Washington Post the regulation of campaign financing becomes infuriatingly to tell but the regulatory Peril is not the only Vicious Cycle in this process. Of Greater concern from the Viewpoint of a civil libertarian should be the implication of last year's Supreme Court decision in the park case. Their Supreme Court held constitutional the imposition of a criminal penalty on a corporate chief executive regardless of his individual and can't or personal involvement with heavy Reliance in that case on the fact that food and hence individual health were involved. But more disturbing than the court decision itself. Are the rousing cheers with which many officials greeted this pronouncement? They considered it the decision to be good public policy in large part because civil fines and penalties are we guarded increasingly as inadequate to keep business man honest? Many government Regulators believe that by threatening businessman with criminal sanctions. They will focus top executive Talent on matters the government considers important. This becomes essential to the government regulator blog down and complex regulatory red tape and faced with an expectation and commit consumer appetites that he and the rest of us helped West but which he cannot satisfy, although he is politically responsible to satisfy. So he needs a way to get top corporate management to help satisfy. Those appetites just take our recent National binge, which is given the government responsibility to ensure fairness. That is the legislative and Regulatory word in the hiring firing promotion pay retirement and fringe benefits of each individual employee black or white male or female Young Or look at the combination of political rhetoric public interest group pressure and commercial advertising that has led to our perception by our citizens that the government can absolutely ensure the safe use of goods drugs and chemicals. The reality is that absolute safety is at best an elusive goal and more likely and Impossible Dream. And as the political and Commercial interests of our nation encourage, just a dream that Impossible Dream regulatory reality contrives to jahraus with bureaucratic nightmares and individual citizens turn increasingly to the Congress and the courts relief and the numbers bear this out. In the first Congress of this country a hundred forty two bills were introduced and they became a hundred and 8th public laws. By the 93rd Congress 22,000 public bills were introduced more than 500 of which became Public Law. If each Congressman work each of the 365 days of the year and tried to look at those bills. They would be considering an average of almost 60 bills each day and passing more than one in addition to servicing their constituents and passing on about 10,000 Presidential appointments. The code of federal regulations has a hundred had a hundred and two volumes in 1966 was approximately 41000 pages of effective regulations. By the close of 1976 the code will have at least a hundred and forty-one volumes with almost 80,000 pages of effective regulations. We now even have a dial regulation telephone number area code 202-523-5022. For those of us who can afford lawyers to find the regulation. You are presume to know and violation of which May subject you to civil fine plant closing product recall or the like But fortunately for people like me, it seems that most of you can afford lawyers. We are the most lawyers City in the most lawyer nation in the world. There are in our country some 400,000 lawyers for 200 million Americans a ratio of 1 to 500 in Washington DC. We have one member of the bar for every 50 residents. It is true that lawyers have been at the Forefront of revolutions against dictatorship. It is true that lawyers were the main contributors to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789. But the tocqueville noted at that time that it was not clear whether lawyers acted because they had studied the laws or because they had been prohibited from making them. here Here in our society we tend to take comfort in the fact that lawyers are indeed the high priest of prestige and profit that we are a nation of lawyer of Law and not of men. But that does not assure individual freedom. Flores de tocqueville one and I quote. Lawyers are attached to public order Beyond every other consideration and the best security of public order is Authority. It must not be forgotten also that if lawyers prize free too much. They generally value legality more. Lawyers are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power and provided the legislature undertakes of itself to deprive men of their independence. While others are generally not dissatisfied. What would you say Misty? Kalifano in juvie multiplicity of regulations should Congress have a continuous function of testing the relevance of regulations already on the books. I think that the that function has to be placed somewhere and it's almost like trying to stop an obsolete program for all the programs. We started in the 60s. We tried to stop a handful and it was almost impossible. An example of the school milk program provided to I think roughly 70 or 90 million dollars in funds to two schools that work. Impacted by federal bases around them when the elementary and secondary education program was passed those same schools got about three hundred million dollars and we were unable to stop the old program. I think the same thing is true of of regulatory reform we tend to and we do have a precedent for doing something like that in the sense that we periodically review all our criminal statutes are other statutes and codify them and I suppose it would make sense to do this. The level of the tale of Federal Regulation is Is truly staggering to me in some respects. I also think we have to find other ways to enough to encourage. Individuals to and and larger institutions to move towards generally accepted social goal is one of the points that the Charlie Schultz make a note Alexis what you probably be published in about a year is that if if you made it expensive if you made it more expensive to pollute or more more profitable not to pollute. If you probably achieve a great deal of what is now being achieved by by the fastest growing direct cursing the government Washington attorney Joseph califano Economist Walter Heller advisor to President Kennedy and Johnson who's topic included the future of the economy and economic regulation under the Carter Administration. Is the basic inflation formula if you have an 8% rise in average hourly compensation and about a two and a half percent annual rise in productivity per person our 8% money outlay two and a half percent rise in per hour output on the average. You have a basic bed rock inflation rate of 5 1/2 % cuz in the last analysis American industry has to get a return of its cost otherwise it gets out of business and that being the case the Real Genius that has to be exercised by The Carter Administration in trying to cope with this persistent stubborn 5 to 6% inflation is to break into that self-propelling cycle and notice how self-propelling it is. The inflation rate got down to 6% and indeed to 5% by the middle of 1975. And that's about where it is today. We've made for apps for all our unemployment and slack. We've gained another half percent on the inflation index not more somehow or another and this is what Carter has been grappling with. This is why he said in Planes we must strengthen the council This Is Us July 28th. Again this man who is said not to have been specific about his economic program. We must strengthen the Council on wage and price stability and increase our efforts through jawboning through persuasion through involvement of Labor and Industry to hold on voluntarily unwarranted pressure on the economy through Rapid Rises and prices are wages. The first step would be to strengthen the Council on Aging price stability. Stop before I go on with that. Let me just add that saying that our major problem is weight cost-push is by no means saying that inflation is caused by labor. That was always they've had to raise you know, which came first prices are wages is it is not. Well, it's fairly clear. In this case. I think in this case the US Labor has been reacting to price increases and boosting. Its wages wage demands to cover the rise in the cost of living and one get some support for this from Citibank Citibank is put out several studies City Bank of New York in the past month showing that the rise in wages and the labor cost in the United States is biome has the lowest in the industrial World quote Citibank because I always drawn impeccably conservative sources when they support my position and Their latest studies show that from 1970 to 75 us wages. This isn't manufacturing where you can really get. The comparisons are up 48% France and Germany are up almost 150% Japan is up 199 call it 200% and when you make the comparison size in US Dollars when you make the comparison and that does of course take advantage of the devaluation of the US dollar relative to the other occurrence nevertheless, even if you would calm that out and even if you comb out the fact that our productivity has been rising less rapidly in the seventies cuz we've had two recessions when the rest of the world has have had the one you still come out with the US clearly having the best record of unit labor cost increases in the seventies and indeed when you carried back another 5 years, it's the same thing not side-by-side. With a cost-push we have the price push steel aluminum in fiber. We've already mentioned didn't know you was going through that and I say that the key point in judging the success of Carter's policies against inflation will be can he break into that circle now? What's he presumably going to do or think? What is he thinking about one is very clear. He wants to unleash the Council on wage and price stability at the present time it can bark and growl and grew and snap and wine but it can't fight. He wants to have Labor big business and labor. I put it that way to sit down together sit down first among themselves and and and then with him and talk about what do you really think? We ought to aim at in terms of inflation in this country and inflation rate. And what is your role you big labor you big business in achieving that and what is our role in government? And I hope that that is the kind of approach she will take I think unless we make full use of that instrument of wage price restraint The Wall Street Journal in his lead article today says that Carter is not going to go for wage-price restraint. That's only because I guess restraint fitted better in a deadline and controls regarded as restraint to try to work out a voluntary system and a jawboning system consensus or compact with labor and business. What what is perfectly clear by now? It says no it's no longer news is that mr. Carter has no longer been speaking about Standby wage price controls it's my feeling and it may be shared elsewhere that merely to get standby power for direct wage and price controls on the books would be so counterproductive that it's better to wait until that unforeseen and not forcing emergency occurs and then ask for quick action on that score if they were on the books that that would be great. I think we always ought to have those standby controls for a true emergency, but my guess would be that there will be no action either there. No enthusiasm either in Congress or the White House to ask for those direct controls and all of that seems to be very largely accepted that does not mean That we should not make active use a wage-price policy in the way that I suggest it if we don't use that we're denying ourselves a major weapon a major anti-inflation weapon, and it does mean it does mean more. Occasional intervention intrusion it does mean government having a role in stimulating voluntary cooperation. If we deny ourselves that I say, we deny ourselves a major weapon in that connection always like to quote one of my heroes of the thirties Al Capone. He used to say you can get so much further with a kind word and a gun and with a kind word alone and I I did but my time is up virtually up probably up. I did want to talk about. The Economist vision and version of take control and deregulation and they're all I need to do is to say perhaps two major things one. What you hear about Economist is, you know, they're great clashes on the macroeconomic level of fiscal policy and monetary policy and anti-inflation policy. And so far what you don't hear much about is the enormous consensus Among The Economist concerning microeconomic questions. Remember that that striking phenomenon during President Ford's Summit conference on inflation Economist there and all but a tiny minority. If you can call any minority that includes can Galbraith tiny it was just calling for an end to 22 government controls. And you know, what they are they've been talked about in this cost that stifle competition in transportation and a whole series of areas of the economy trouble is of course, they stepped on such incredibly sensitive political toes and some of those toes are of the regulated industries. That is a tough row to hoe. I'm sure the governor Carter hopes that with having a democratic Congress and Democratic White House that he'll make more progress on that front. Then President Ford has been able to do with his excellent initiative. In the in the transportation field the final speaker is Cornell Meyer president of Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation. His topic is deregulation before his remarks. He spoke with national public radio's Frank fitzmorris. Play Hot government forms federal government forms various kinds of company. Approximately 40 to 50 million dollars a year, but some of this spending is Justified. So I'm not saying that the fact we spend this money for putting me in the Marmot is all wrong with benefits or perhaps not proper in some cases so that it's it's it's not right but OSHA costs another 5 to 10 million dollars a year so that the costs are extremely high some cases of classified in others. I doubt the reasonable people would come over there and if we can get into specifics for just a moment which one of those were which set of costs would you ever Justified and which ones do you feel are unjust unnecessary burdens him to your process, but I think in the case could be made for Stretching out some of the expenditures. I think that most of the things that are required ought to be done over. Of time in some cases. We don't have the proper technology because we haven't had the experience do the job as well and is economically as we should do it. So it's hard to take any amount of money and say that I shouldn't be spending but certainly in the environmental area some of that spending I believe could be delayed the theory of what The Regulators are doing to the guys with the true directing to its base more the the mechanics by which they they make you spend the money for environmental. Absolutely no argument with the overall goals. I believe very firmly that we can have a clean environment and have reasonable level of employment and I think we need to push through both goals at the same time. I think part of the problem. Is that certain Regulatory Agencies? Conscientiously carry out their own objectives without concern for the other National goals. What are some of the specifics of what is doing that you would like to see different? I think at times been unreasonable was time schedule, but overall, I believe that has the Environmental Protection Agency in terms of flexibility and giving us time. I think you can really trying to understand our problems and understand the solution for trying to come up with What is the your general outlook on deregulation as it relates to your industry and then basically, what will you be telling the the attendance? I am not pretty regulations. We do need rules. We do need regulation. I think I agree with Senator Muskie and other speakers would have been her this week that what we need is a modification of the regulations to make sure that they are reasonable but they are workable and that's a the regulations in a given Bureau are consistent with the overall objectives of the country, which is basically get people back to work and control arm replacement the same time I must admit The business is much done much to create. The regulatory burden we all now bear. wanting some special confession from government for some special protection minion business help pass laws and stimulate regulations and to a large degree have invited and encouraged increasing government participation. in business affairs And I have to agree with Sandra musky completely. That much of the regulation we have today. Is due to abuse. on the part of the business community and on the part of others who are regulated. A strong case can be made and I think has been made by others at this conference. For the deregulation of the airlines railroads and trucking Industries right now. Even though I suspect in some instances. These industries would prefer to remain regulated. Rather than lose the special protection provided to them. I am not suggesting that I favor complete removal. Of all government regulations. I don't no sensible person would to the degree that government regulations protect and has the public interest. as the public not someone in a regulatory agency. or some highly vocal special interest group as the public to find interest that's what a regulation is good and proper. Which of the degree the regulation is unrealistic? unnecessarily restrictive Or just agree that is primary trusted to paralyze the workings. of our free enterprise system frustrated, Michigan but I disagree with Is the cost escalation of regulatory activities? In the areas where they have no expertise. Haven't done their homework. Ignore or don't understand the social and economic trade-offs. All too frequently Regulatory Agencies non-elected bureaucracy. all too frequently Regulatory Agencies have frustrated with Congress originally had in mind. But it passed laws. Is clear today? Regulatory Agencies have become a fourth branch of government the branch of government with few checks and balances but more importantly a branch of government with no liability for their errors They don't even have to get reelected. Some seem to think that the role of regulatory agency is to protect. public from the abuses of business who is there to protect the public? From the excesses and abuses of government. Who regulates the regulators? Power of the Regulatory Agencies to stop the economy in his tracks. stabling I'm sure everyone remembers the cranberry and cycling. And the cost of Regulation are equally straggling. On Wednesday, you're at mr. Murphy estimate its cost of Federal Regulation exceed 130 billion dollars annually. That represents the cost of over 1000. $400 every working person in this country my company loan spend $5000000 beer. Just to fill out. government forms many of the forms Are duplicative or unnecessary? Give you some example of the paperwork burden. By one estimate the cost the US taxpayer. 18 billion dollars a year just to have the government federal government print. generate print and store government forms in the final analysis the consumer Paisley's Christ consumer to page 2 in terms of higher unemployment His jobs that might have been made available from expansion. unavailable It's little wonder that the American Consumer is increasingly concerned about the high price. Are the products he purchases? What are you don't realize? Is much is that much of that price? Is due to the increased costs added to the product. As a result of regulatory decrease spending. in many instances for something he or she do not want. Perhaps it might be a good idea to include. Among the many labels required on products these days. Are required label on all products telling the consumer. How much of the price of that product? Is due to regulatory decreed costs. I think the consumer would be shocked and I think you probably have a revolution. in this country the automobile seat belt Interlock system Is a prime example of a price increase forced on a product? To give consumers something they didn't want. It cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Was decreed by the government. rejected by the public the public however paid for that experiment reply with noise cool standard Continental cam spent over $100,000. I'll putting its employees. but their protectors Russian wasn't satisfied they can tell you that the employees might not wear the ear protectors. And it's just at the Continental build noise barriers around thousands of machines. At a cost estimated to be in excess of 33 and 1/2 million dollars. at that point cotton Airline enough Kentucky Brewing And 1000 pages of testimony later. Finally won in the courts. the obviously reasonable government regulation of business and industry is right and proper. but unreasonable unrealistic regulation isn't I believe further than the keys can be made. It over the course of the past 10 years in this country. Government regulations seriously impeded the growth and expansion of business. and consequently of jobs I want to be I want to be on record. It's saying that I believe it's a Marketplace not Washington. Is the place where the public interest? Is most effectively protected? inferior products products that are priced unrealistically High just don't survive in the marketplace. People don't buy them. an inefficient companies shouldn't be allowed to survive. in the marketplace and government regulations shouldn't protect them. The marketplace is the Forum. What people cast their votes? 4 products for companies the competition for these votes for the approval of the consumer in the marketplace through quality products at reasonable prices. Is what has made the American Consumer? the best friend best closed bus transporting healthiest individual in the world I'm happy to report the recent National study of American opinion by US News & World Report magazine. and released just last month supports that you their study which is one of the largest and most comprehensive done. an attitude toward American Business chose Are over 72% of the people believe? the competition is better than regulation. to show the public it gets what it pays for. As marginal note that study also showed that 69% of the people in the country believe that the blame for inflation in this country lies with government. converging perhaps people are beginning to really understand. What's going on? If you accept my premise that we are is a country that certainly is business and industry. Over-regulated are there any solutions? First of all, I'm realistic enough to realize every program. Every agency has its own constituency. people who benefit from it I'm also realistic enough to know. Most programs and most agencies are very near and dear to some legislation chart. Troy recognized problems a regulatory reform still I believe a solution is possible. I offer these thoughts for your consideration. 1 all activities of regulatory agencies together under legislative control and in so doing establish an organization and organization summer Uber Commission of 1947 and 1953. comprised of government industry labor and the public organize streamline and further control Regulatory Agencies 2 require call benefit analysis of all regulatory controls and provide for a management information system type review. of all report some forms required a business at all other institutions the number of bills and Regulatory reform were introduced during the last Congress. but nothing of substance occurred But I think it is clear. From what we've heard during these last few days. And from what we've heard throughout the country. Regulatory reform is an idea whose time has come. We badly needed. I hope that men like Senators bird and Senators Percy and others. Will be back in their strongly on this issue again. when the new Congress convenes Well, there was some disagreement among the panel journalist Wednesday. And how that reform ought to be approached. with a scalpel or a meat ax I'm inclined to agree with Eric severide's conclusion. But you can't cut down jungles. scalp In this case, we don't need reform. We need a revolution Kaiser Aluminum president Cornell Meyer. He spoke recently at the first national Forum on business government in the public interest in Washington DC. I'm Neal st. Anthony.