Senator Heitkamp is a part of a new #CutRedTape Initiative which will create the first place online for citizens to voice their stories about how federal regulations impact them on a daily basis. Here’s the website, the full news release is below.
— Official News Release, Senator Heitkamp —
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) today launched their new bipartisan grassroots #CutRedTape Initiative which will create the first central location online for American families and businesses to voice their stories about how federal regulations impact them on a daily basis.
The #CutRedTape Initiative will gather stories from Americans across the country – families trying to pay their bills, small business owners working to get their companies going, or landowners unsure about existing rules – to help determine how the federal government could be more efficient and effective. In their new roles as Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Lankford and Heitkamp have made improving federal regulatory policy a top priority. They aim to use the stories from their initiative to help make federal regulations work better for families and businesses by reducing waste, stopping backlogs, and cutting red tape.
Federal regulations impact families and businesses – large and small – every day. Regulations help provide critical safeguards and consumer protections, level the playing field for small businesses, support innovation, and keep the economy running. But sometimes those regulations can reduce certainty or become overly burdensome. Currently, there is not a single location where every day Americans can provide insight about how federal regulations impact them. Now with Lankford and Heitkamp’s #CutRedTape Initiative, a central location will exist and the Senators will use the stories to determine areas where the federal government can cut red tape and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy so regulations can work as intended. Click here to visit the new #CutRedTape Initiative webpage and submit a story.
“The federal rulemaking process has become very complicated and unaccountable, and it has resulted in unnecessarily burdensome regulations for many people and businesses across the country,” said Lankford. “I hear about real-world examples of harmful regulations across Oklahoma, and the Senate must do something about it. This Cut Red Tape Initiative will be very helpful for the Senate in identifying outdated and onerous regulations that are in desperate need of reform. The Senate will use these stories to help make the federal government more efficient and effective.”
“Federal regulations make sure the food we eat is safe, protect small businesses from fraud, and help keep our economy running,” said Heitkamp. “But the federal government is big, and there are good programs that can get caught up in unnecessary red tape. In North Dakota, I have heard about farmers and small businesses who are frustrated with well meaning, yet confusing, regulations that make it harder for them to succeed. One of our top priorities on our Subcommittee is finding bipartisan solutions to cut red tape as needed and make federal regulations more efficient so they do work for families and businesses. But to make changes, we need American families, small business owners, and workers to write in to our #CutRedTape Initiative to provide stories about how regulations are directly impacting them. Working together we can make needed reforms for families and businesses across the country.”
The initiative follows the first Subcommittee hearing Lankford and Heitkamp held last week as well as a full Committee hearing in February to investigate commonsense improvements the federal government can make to promote efficient and effective federal rules that work best for the families and businesses they are intended to serve. During the full Committee hearing, it became clear that there is not a central location for families and businesses to express concerns with federal regulations that do not work for them. As a result, Lankford and Heitkamp decided they would create that central hub to collect stories about how federal regulations impact every day Americans, pass them along to the appropriate federal agencies, and seek changes to make them more efficient and effective. All stories will remain secure and confidential and the Subcommittee will not share personal information.
Lankford has made government reform a top priority of his service during his time in Congress. Before being elected to the Senate, Lankford chaired two subcommittees in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Lankford led 40 hearings between the two subcommittees on issues including a review of the Administration’s regulatory process.
Heitkamp has long worked to promote streamlined, commonsense federal regulations that best serve consumers and small businesses across North Dakota and the U.S. She has worked to reduce burdens on small businesses by leveling the playing for them, supported community banks by updating federal privacy policies to reduce unnecessary burdens on consumers and small financial institutions, helped make sure Fair Market Rents in North Dakota more accurately reflect the real cost of housing in the state, and reduced delays for permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands.
