Speech #990036243

I A large piece of the blame for the growth of the Federal regulatory morass falls on Congress for its willingness to abandon its oversight and legislative function in favor of a mass of faceless bureaucrats. However. Congress had begun to reassert some of its control over the workings of Government through its use of the legislative veto of agency actionsand seemed prepared to flex its muscles still further by expanding its use of the device to all major agency rulesuntil the Supreme Court stepped into the breach in Chadha versus Immigration and Naturalization Service. In Chadha. the Court struck down the use of the legislation veto in more than 120 statutes. ruling that the device upset the constitutional scheme dividing powers between the executive and legislative branches. Because of the difficulties encountered to date in passing comprehensive regulatory reform legislationand because I believe that the revival and expansion of the legislative veto is crucial to our efforts to make the operations of Government subject once again to the consent of the governedI have joined with my distinguished colleague.