In this week’s edition of e-news…

Area Machine Shop Urges Congress to Provide Tax and Regulatory Certainty
Murphy Chairs Natural Gas Caucus Hearing To Unleash American Job Growth
Murphy Supports Fed Audit, Pursues Similar Transparency at CBO

Area Machine Shop Urges Congress to Provide Tax and Regulatory Certainty

In a shaky economy, countless business owners hold back on expansion, upgrades, or the hiring of additional, and often much-needed, employees. This situation is exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding pending tax increases, regulations, and new rules in the 2010 healthcare law.

On Friday, Congressman Murphy heard about the challenges one area business is facing during a tour of General Nuclear Corporation, a machine shop near New Stanton. The company makes specialized valves and parts used in naval and commercial nuclear reactors. Firms of General Nuclear’s size must spend more than $10,000 per employee to comply with government rules. In an effort to provide regulatory relief for employers like General Nuclear, Congressman Murphy joined his colleagues in the House of Representatives on Thursday to support the passage of the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act (H.R. 4078). The legislation freezes regulations costing the economy $50 million or more until unemployment falls below 6 percent.

In addition, the bill permanently prevents “lame duck” administrations from issuing economically significant regulations, and requires federal agencies to undertake cost-benefit analyses of proposed regulations. The bill would also streamline federal construction project permits.

“Here in Southwestern Pennsylvania, we are blessed with abundant energy resources and know-how in coal, nuclear energy, and natural gas. But agencies like the EPA are set to shut the lights out on our region’s energy economy,” said Congressman Murphy. “If all 148 EPA regulations related to coal alone are implemented, we’ll lose not just coal jobs, but thousands more in steel and manufacturing reliant on affordable energy.”

“Today’s passage of the Red Tape Reduction Act ensures that regulations not directly responsible for protecting the public’s health and well-bring are not imposed until the unemployment level drops below six percent nationally. With more than 23 million Americans out of work or looking for more work, this bill is a positive step forward that will help to provide certainty to small businesses who have held back on growth and hiring.”

In the 112th Congress, the House has passed more than thirty jobs bills to reduce onerous regulations, increase domestic energy production, and put the American people back to work. Murphy has also sought other ways to spur job creation, including promotion of ‘Buy America’ policies for steel and other products.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy on the impact of regulations on small businesses, please click here.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy on the Red Tape Reduction Act, please click here.

Murphy Chairs Natural Gas Caucus Hearing On Unleashing American Job Growth

With over 53,000 Pennsylvanians relying on jobs in the natural gas sector, responsible development of the Marcellus and Utica Shale is critical to the region’s economy. But what can or should be done by policymakers to ensure natural gas development is safely expanding to create good local jobs?

To answer that question, Rep. Tim Murphy convened a hearing of his Congressional Natural Gas Caucus on Wednesday. The Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members dedicated to promoting responsible exploration, safe transmission and expanded use of clean, plentiful, domestic natural gas.

At the hearing, top industry representatives testified before a bipartisan panel of Republican and Democrat lawmakers about the economic benefits of increased natural gas development for Pennsylvania and the nation. Last year, natural gas development supported one million jobs. By 2015, it could be creating or supporting another half-a-million positions in transportation, power generation, chemicals, and exports. With a stagnant unemployment rate over 8 percent for the past 41 months, focusing our efforts on increasing domestic energy production is critical to improving the national job market and increasing economic output.

Rep. Murphy adresses job creation in the natural gas industry at Wednesday's Caucus Hearing.

“New drilling techniques have not only unlocked trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, but also limitless potential,” said Congressman Murphy. “In Southwestern Pennsylvania, the heart of the Marcellus Shale, I see the benefits everywhere I go – from the bustling country stores in Greene County to the restaurants in Washington County packed every evening with hundreds of field and office workers employed as surveyors, engineers, and managers. Across the region, small tool and die shops are thriving, farmers are able to buy new tractors, steel mills are humming, and union pipefitters, operating engineers, and tradesmen are finding work constructing new pipelines and wellpads.”

Doug Matthews, Senior Vice President of Tubular Operations at US Steel testified about how the company relies as on natural gas both as a vendor and customer. Blast furnaces in the mill are often heated with natural gas. Expanded production means lower energy costs for the steelmaker, but it also means greater sales of drilling and transmission pipe.

“Our customers’ needs related to shale development were also a key consideration in our decision to assume operational control of a tubular products facility in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, that had been operated by a third party,” said Matthews. “Since then, our McKeesport Tubular Operations has added over 50 new jobs.”

Several witnesses said one of the challenges was ensuring new federal regulations would not have a chilling effect on production. Ten federal agencies right now are cranking out new reports, regulations, and rules impacting the local industry. Meanwhile, the state of Pennsylvania has enacted a new law (Act 13) creating a model ordinance for drilling operations. On Thursday, however, the Commonwealth Court overturned parts of the new law, determining it usurped a municipality’s right to self-govern. The case is now expected to head to the state Supreme Court (embed link to O-R story).
 
Next week, the Natural Gas Caucus will host a bipartisan screening of the documentary film Truthland, a documentary of a Pennsylvania woman who travels across the United States to visit with geologists, engineers, environmentalists and landowners to learn the facts about natural gas development before making a decision about whether to permit drilling on her own property.

Immediately following the film, a panel of industry experts and documentary participants will discuss the myths and falsehoods about hydraulic fracturing, and the importance of the industry to our nation’s economic revival.

For more information about the ‘Truthland’ movie, click here.

To read Congressman Murphy’s full opening statement as prepared for delivery, click here.

To share your views on natural gas development and the Commonwealth Court ruling on Act 13 with Congressman Murphy, please click here.

Murphy Supports Fed Audit, Pursues Similar Transparency at CBO

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has tripled to $3 trillion (equal to 20 percent of the US economy) through a series of bailouts and taxpayer-backed economic interventions. The Federal Reserve’s decisions about lending affect every single American because it impacts the purchasing power of each dollar. When the Federal Reserve buys Treasury bonds or lends money to other banks, the risk is borne by taxpayers. But under current law, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) may not audit Fed activities involving foreign central banks, foreign governments or public international financing organizations. The Fed is also barred from auditing the central bank’s activities dealing with monetary policy matters, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and discussions among members of the Federal Reserve system.
 
Under a bill approved by the House on Wednesday, that cloak of secrecy surrounding the Federal Reserve would be lifted. With strong bipartisan support, the House passed H.R. 459, a bill introduced by Congressman Ron Paul (Texas) and cosponsored by Rep. Murphy, requiring an audit of the Federal Reserve within the next 12 months. With this audit, Congress and the American people will see details on how the Fed has managed the nation’s money supply. As described by the bill's sponsor, this legislation will finally allow government auditors to examine monetary policy deliberations, boosting oversight of an institution that Rep. Paul said has “presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar.”

Many myths currently exist about whether or not the Fed is audited. While some limited reviews have been conducted, the Fed’s monetary policy operations, emergency lending, and operations with foreign central banks have never been fully audited. Passage of the ‘Audit the Fed’ bill will finally produce clarity to the Fed’s policies. More oversight of the central bank, Murphy stated, will hasten better and more deliverative policy decisions.

The lack of transparency at the Fed permeates other government entities, too. Earlier in the week, Congressman Murphy promoted transparency of the Congressional Budget Office during an interview with an online newspaper called The Daily Caller. Murphy’s CBO Transparency Act is a commonsense measure to increase transparency and accountability in the congressional budgeting process.

The CBO was created in 1974 to provide objective analyses of budgetary and economic issues for Congress. By law, CBO estimates or “scores” every bill up for a vote. A favorable or budget-neutral score makes the difference for a bill’s success or failure as Members of Congress and the public place great weight on the CBO score.

If passed into law, Murphy’s CBO bill would allow lawmakers in Congress, the public and business analysts to thoroughly examine the cost estimates of major legislative initiatives and ensure Congress doesn't make costly mistakes the taxpayer must clean up.

Little is known how CBO arrives at their estimates. Murphy’s bill relies on the same premise teachers use in math class: “show your work.”

“Legislation is put forth that advances under the assumption that it will save money, and maybe it doesn’t,” Murphy said. “You have bills that advance under the assumption that there is no cost impact, and maybe it does or maybe it doesn’t. And you have bills that die that could save money, but they don’t get a chance to even get brought up for a vote because the assumption is that the CBO says it’s going to cost money.”

“Once they do show us the work, it is open to public scrutiny and this is extremely important,” Murphy continued. “So that individuals or organizations can say, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t think that you took into account all important factors….What are you looking at, what are your assumptions, what data do you have. It is the same issue of scientific scrutiny when I have written or any one has written a research article and you publish it in a journal. You have to write down your results and how you came up with them.”

To read the full Daily Caller article on Rep. Murphy’s CBO Transparency Act, click here.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy on the CBO Transparency Act, please click here.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy on the ‘Audit the Fed’ bill, please click here.

Murphy meets with Victoria Schmotzer of Whitehall & Ricky Thompson of Washington County who were in D.C. for the National Youth Leadership Conference.

Rep. Murphy in the News

Congressman Murphy joined Andy Parks of the Washington Times Radio Show on July 24 to discuss his CBO Transparency bill, his support for the ‘Audit the Federal Reserve’ bill, and the Red Tape Reduction Act. 

Later that day, Forbes published an article supporting Congressman Murphy’s calls for further Congressional Budget Office transparency.

The Daily Caller highlighted Rep. Murphy’s work to increase government accountability with his CBO Transparency bill on July 25. You can read the article online here.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette published the Congressman’s Letter-to-the-Editor , which addressed ways Congress can save lives and lower prescription drug costs for American families.

On July 26, CBS News published an article entitled “Should Olympic uniforms be made in the U.S.?” which discussed Rep. Murphy’s work to support American manufacturing and his call for Olympic uniforms to be ‘Made in America.’