Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds Read online

  When I was interviewed by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart while promoting my first book The Tea Party Goes to Washington, Stewart asked me about pollution and government regulation. I replied that virtually all the evidence shows that levels of airborne and waterborne pollutants have been declining for decades. Stewart said, “But that’s because of federal pollution regulations.” I agreed, explaining that the point is not that we shouldn’t advocate regulations, but that if the current regulations are working—why must we now make the regulations so severe that most business can’t afford to comply?

  In some cases, businesses cannot physically comply because the regulations make demands beyond the scientific methods that exist for compliance. This was the case when I fought against increasing the severity of the Clean Air Transport Act. The amount of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide allowed to be emitted had been lowered only a few years ago, and the four-decade trend for these emissions had been declining steadily. In fact, these byproducts of burning coal were at their lowest levels ever.

  On the Senate floor, I showed my colleagues a picture of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the early twentieth century and then a picture of Pittsburgh today. The contrast was amazing. In the early 1900s, the street lanterns were often on at noon. A man’s white shirt would blacken from the soot in the air. And now Pittsburgh’s skyline gleams and sparkles. (Granted, some of these improvements might have something to do with the demise of the steel industry, but that’s another story.)

  Nevertheless, the obvious deduction is that pollution has been declining for the last hundred years or more. The peak of America’s pollution problems were likely in the late 1800s, when not only did industry lack pollution controls but also many homes were often heated with coal.

  This point is well made by John Stossel of Fox News, who in one of his television specials asks a fifth-grade class a simple question: Is the environment more polluted now or forty years ago? The overwhelming majority of kids raise their hands and answer without hesitation: “Now, of course.”

  Al Gore and the environmental zealots have co-opted the debate on these issues. The Left has successfully politicized any public discussions about the environment and regulation. Probably no single issue is more misrepresented and distorted on a regular basis than the environment.

  Try arguing the facts, and instead of having a rational debate, your opponents will show you a movie of the Statue of Liberty submerged or polar bears drowning. Even the Senate floor is not immune from arguments based primarily on emotion and distortion of the truth. When I argued against regulation increases on cross-air transport, which deals with potential airborne pollutants crossing state lines, Barbara Boxer came to the floor with pictures of children with masks inhaling oxygen. She claimed that if we didn’t accept the more stringent regulations 35,000 children would die. Really? She claimed that the increased incidents of asthma attacks were from pollutants. She personally blamed me and accused me of wanting to kill 35,000 children. I’m not kidding.

  Try having an intelligent discussion with someone who is accusing you of supporting genocide. It’s not possible.

  I responded to Boxer that if the incidents of asthma attacks were rising and the levels of pollutants had been falling for decades, then these two things would be inversely proportional. In other words, decreasing pollution was correlated with increasing asthma attacks; or, put another way, increasing pollution would be correlated with lower asthma attacks. The truth of the matter is that the evidence points to no correlation. Objective scientists say that the cause of asthma is not yet fully understood.

  The point is that when we allow arguments to degenerate into emotions and platitudes we lose track of two important things: 1. Are the current regulations actually working? 2. Will the new regulations mean loss of jobs?

  Another issue that came up during my first session in the Senate was pipeline regulations. Eight people died in a terrible pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, in 2010. Politicians in Washington are quick to jump at the first possible moment to “fix” aproblem. Then, of course, they take credit for fixing the problem. But these politicians often take action so hastily that they not only mistake identifying the actual problem, they cause other unintended problems in the process.

  Groucho Marx understood it well when he said, “Politics is the art of looking everywhere for problems, finding them, misdiagnosing the problem and applying the wrong remedy. The pipeline issue fit this exact description. Senators Boxer and Dianne Feinstein leaped at the opportunity to take legislative action after the San Bruno tragedy, to show their constituents that they cared. These senators presented a series of regulatory reforms for pipelines.

  Boxer and Feinstein wanted to pass their bill by unanimous consent, which means there is no floor debate and no amendment attached or considered—and, more times than not, nobody actually reads the bill. I put a hold on their bill. It could not pass without the unanimous consent of all hundred senators, which I was not willing to give. How did Senators Boxer and Feinstein respond? Did they attempt to contact my office or call me to ask what my objections were? Did they try to even see if I had any legitimate reason for concern? Hell no—they called a reporter instead and proceeded to read me the riot act in the press. They attempted to portray me as someone who was uncaring and not serious about addressing this problem.

  I was not amused. I was also not about to take their abuse lying down. We responded that we were holding the bill for two reasons: First, the accident report on the San Bruno explosion was due to come out the following week. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to actually read the accident report and consider it before deciding on sweeping reforms? And second, Feinstein and Boxer’s bill grandfathered in old pipelines—this meant that old pipelines would be exempt from the new rules! This meant that the over fifty-year-old San Bruno pipeline itself, where the fatal tragedy had occurred, would be exempt from the new rules these senators wanted to impose.

  Something seemed fishy here.

  In Washington, bills are often touted publicly to placate a certain part of the electorate or a particular politician’s voter base, but on closer examination you’ll find that nothing is actually done to really fix any problems. Sometimes this occurs intentionally, and sometimes it occurs unintentionally simply because everyone is in such a rush.

  The more my staff and I examined Boxer and Feinstein’s bill, the more we were concerned that it would not fix the problem, and that the victims of the San Bruno explosion and their families would be tricked into thinking that Washington had actually done something positive or preventive—that politicians somehow were atoning for this tragedy by enacting better regulations.

  As we investigated, we discovered that not only were older pipelines being exempted from the new regulations, but also that this was not the first time this problem had been papered over.

  In 1985, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Office of Pipeline Safety reported on two explosions in Kentucky where deaths occurred. The report specifically stated that one much needed reform was to end the exemption of older pipelines from standard regulations. This reform never happened, and twenty-six years later, Boxer and Feinstein’s legislation would have simply papered over the problem again.

  I said “No way!” During my Senate campaign, I had promised to read bills before voting on them, and that I would not be a rubber stamp for well-intentioned but ultimately meaningless reforms. We won this battle and my staff was able to include a requirement for testing of the older pipelines. Just weeks later, this test discovered another faulty part, in a different section, of the San Bruno pipeline that had previously exploded.

  If I had not opposed Boxer and Feinstein’s unanimous consent vote, read the bill, investigated the problem, and helped institute this testing, the problematic part of the pipeline could have feasibly gone undetected. There is always a greater danger in Washington, D.C., of politicians acting hastily without thinking, than in debating and contemplating any new rules and regul
ations.

  As the stories of regulatory abuse unfold in the following pages, don’t be fooled by those on the Left who demonize me as someone who believes in no government regulations. My argument is that regulations need to be reasonable and economically practical. My point is that the obvious need for safety and pollution control should, and can, be balanced with a need for job creation and economic growth.

  What scares most businessmen and women is that the Obama administration has gotten out of control, with environmental extremists running amok. In 2010, EPA administrator Al Armendariz reinforced this notion when he described at a public event how he viewed regulation enforcement: “It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean.… They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them.” Armendariz added, “You make examples out of people who are, in this case, not complying with the law… and you hit them as hard as you can.”

  Luckily, Armendariz was forced to resign, but as long as zealots like this are allowed to run our monstrous regulatory bureaucracies, America’s growth and progress is endangered. We need a reassessment of whether current regulations are actually working; and regarding any new regulations, we must take into account what their effect will be on job creation. Then, and only then, will we begin to thrive as a country again.

  It’s amazing the many ways in which our federal government is now completely out of control. It’s maddening how oppressive and intrusive everyday life has become for millions of Americans who are just trying to go about their lives and be happy.

  I found out on a recent trip just how long and invasive the tentacles of our federal government have become. I was flying out of Nashville back to Washington, D.C., where I was scheduled to speak to over 200,000 people—the largest crowd of my career—at the March for Life. But the TSA had other ideas. After I had removed my belt, my glasses, my wallet, and my shoes, the scanner and TSA still demanded something else—my dignity. I refused. After they told me that the scanner had detected something unusual near my leg, I offered to show them my leg. They were not interested. They wanted to pat me down. They wanted to touch me. I asked to be rescanned. They refused. I was detained in a ten-foot-square cubicle designed for potential terrorists. I explained to the TSA agents that I was a frequent flyer, and that just days prior I was allowed to be rescanned when the scanner had made an error.

  At no time did I ask for special treatment, though I did insist that I, like all travelers, should be shown common courtesy. I was repeatedly instructed not to leave the cubicle. When I used my mobile phone to have my office start researching why the TSA would not simply rescreen me, I was threatened. The TSA agents told me that I would now be subjected to full-body patdown. I asked if I could simply start the screening process to show that the screener had made an error. I was told no, that once the process had been started and I had used my phone to call for help, I must now submit to a patdown or simply not fly. I thought to myself, “Have the terrorists won?” Have we sacrificed our liberty and our dignity for a false security?

  Finally, the head of the Nashville airport TSA arrived—after I had missed my flight. He seemed inclined to let me be rescreened. Interestingly, the scanner did not go off the second time through. The TSA agents who had just given me the third degree said that some of the alarms are simply random. I was befuddled. So this agent was saying, admitting even, that passengers who do everything right—remove their belts, their wallets, their shoes, their glasses, and all the contents of their pockets—can still be stopped and forced to undergo a patdown randomly? Travelers are tricked into believing the scanner actually detected something, by design?

  I had been through some of this regulation nonsense before with TSA chief administrator John Pistole. In the spring of 2011, a six-year-old girl from my hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky, was subjected to an invasive search despite her parents’ objections. Pistole claimed that small children were indeed a risk because a girl in Kandahar, Afghanistan, had exploded a bomb in a market there. But Director Pistole, I said—this girl wasn’t from Kandahar. She wasn’t in Afghanistan. Isn’t there a significant difference? Pistole explained in writing that the TSA had concluded that because a child in a market in Afghanistan exploded a bomb, all American children needed to be evaluated as potential threats. My response was that if you treat everyone equally as a potential threat then you direct most of your attention to those who are never going to attack us. Consequently, less time is spent focusing on those whose profiles indicate higher risk and a need for advanced screening.

  Random screening not based on a risk assessment misdirects the screening process and adds to the indignity of travel. It takes time away from screening the guy who has been to Yemen twice and regularly chats with known terrorists. Passengers who suffer through the process of partially disrobing should be rewarded with a less invasive examination. After that Nashville trip, I met with Congressman Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa. Issa is chairman of the House committee that oversees the TSA, and he is known as a public servant unafraid to challenge regulatory overreach. Together, we coauthored an Air Travelers’ Bill of Rights to define and protect the dignity and privacy of air travelers.

  Some days I fear that the regulators have won and the bullying bureaucrats already control our government. Yet after my ordeal with the TSA, members from both sides of the aisle came to me and said we must fix the TSA, that we must rein in the agency’s arrogance. But even in the face of significant and bipartisan support to put limits on the TSA’s power, the desired change remains elusive. The machinery of the bureaucracy, its inertness, its imponderable weight, has to date still defeated our best efforts of reform.

  As you read these stories of everyday Americans bullied and badgered by their own government, I hope you get mad. More important, I hope you get inspired to channel your outrage into activism and involvement. In my first speech while I was still contemplating running for office, I repeated Sam Adams’s exhortation that it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate and tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people’s minds.

  This book speaks to that minority who’ve been victims of government abuse. It speaks to the irate and tireless, yet often powerless. It is meant to set brushfires in the minds of all Americans about what their government is really up to, whether behind their backs or in front of their faces.

  Our Founders envisioned an America in which citizens would bully the government, not the other way around. This book is my effort to bring that America back.

  PART 1

  Property Wrongs—EPA Bullies

  “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation…”

  —UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT V

  1

  Government “Wetland” Goons

  “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.”

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON

  As a U.S. senator, it is my job is to keep an eye on what our government is up to. As a conservative, I have grave concern that our government has become completely out of control. This is true in ways that even many of my fellow conservatives don’t realize in the immediate sense. Many elected officials don’t realize it. Many Americans don’t realize it, which I’m quite sure is completely fine with many elected officials.

  But what our government is doing is not “fine.” It’s infuriating.

  Since its creation in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has done more harm than good. Typical of government as opposed to private solutions, with the inception of the EPA bad policy began to outweigh the good intentions, the massive cost quickly surpassed the original concern of “doing nothing,” and the new powers given to Washington bureaucrats inevitably began to corrupt absolutely. If the race of government
bullying were a contest between different agencies, the EPA would take the crown.

  EPA regulations cost more than 5 percent of our annual gross domestic product (which was over $15 trillion in 2012). This is equivalent to the costs of defense and homeland security combined. Most Americans are unaware of this. Assuming that the EPA is somehow just protecting the environment, as the name would suggest, too many Americans are unaware that it and agencies like it are yet more representatives of the bloated bureaucracy that characterizes every other part of our federal government.

  Whether by coincidence or design, since EPA regulations began taking property, jobs, and businesses away from citizens, unemployment in America has increased by 33 percent. This abuse of power by the implementation of regulations infringes upon all Americans’ basic rights, whether or not some of us are ever directly affected by their rules.

  Too often our rights are violated by abusive and power-hungry EPA bureaucrats who use threats, coercion, and force to implement power grabs. I wish these instances of abuse were random and the exception, but they have unfortunately come to characterize what many Americans now rightly see as a rogue government agency. EPA regulations have hampered landowners’ ability to manage their private property as they please and have seriously impaired job creation. As with the massive cost of the EPA, many Americans are unaware of the routine suffering caused by the overreach of such regulatory agencies.

  One of the most egregious examples of the overreach of government is in the enforcement of federal wetlands regulations (see http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/wetlands/sec404.cfm).

  Wetlands are a creation of the Clean Water Act of 1972, though interestingly, what qualifies as a wetland is ill-defined, to say the least. In fact, the definition is so nebulous that as recently as 2011 the EPA was still issuing guidelines about wetlands regulations. What constitutes a wetland is almost impossible to discern for individuals, and even when they believe their property is not a wetland, the EPA can declare it so according to no definition but their own. Property owners are not subject to simple rule of law, but rather are constantly at the mercy of a government agency that makes its own laws, often without rhyme, reason, common sense, or oversight.