Congressman Garret Graves made the claim in a speech on the U.S. House floor.

Louisiana is affected by Federal regulations more than most states. Louisiana is the most heavily regulated state in the union and we have 74% more regulations than the average state.

Even worse, Federal regulators can lowball the costs of regulations. But Graves passed some legislation, called the PROVE IT Act which puts a stop to that.

Here’s the Graves press release:

Today, the PROVE IT Act – a bi-partisan regulatory reform bill Congressman Garret Graves (R – South Louisiana) introduced in 2016 and that was included in the Regulatory Accountability Act – earned passage in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Under PROVE IT, federal regulators will finally be held accountable for the cost of complying with federal regulations. For years, federal agencies could just fabricate the estimated cost to American families of complying with the countless federal regulations they issue each year. PROVE IT requires these agencies to collect the actual cost of compliance of federal regulations from affected families and businesses to better understand the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the thousands of regulations that impact our lives on a daily basis.

“We are tired of bureaucrats sitting in cubicles writing pages and pages of federal regulations on topics they know little about. In approximately the last eight years, the federal agencies have imposed ‘hidden taxes’, otherwise known as regulations totaling nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in a regulatory environment that has led to the first net loss in small businesses since records have been kept,” said Graves. “Bad regulations create jobs – in the federal government and in other countries.”

Federal agencies can be prone to underestimate real-world compliance costs. The Graves bill establishes provisions to make regulators “prove it”:

Requires agencies to perform regular lookbacks at 5-year intervals for all major rulemakings
Requires a report to Congress on whether the rule is still meeting its regulatory objective and whether modifications to the rule could achieve better results while imposing a smaller burden/lower cost
Reopens public dockets for stakeholder feedback
Requires Agency to consider feedback
Encourages a culture within agencies where costs are not taken for granted and benefits are more carefully considered
Encourages agencies to better incorporate comments from stakeholders during the rulemaking process
Increases transparency
Facilitates stakeholder dialogue throughout life of rule

“Our bill is about bringing fairness and transparency to the federal regulatory system,” Graves continued. “When an agency tells the American people how much a regulation will cost, they will be held accountable to that.”