DAN QUAYLE: Fact Sheet - 9/30/92 September 30, 1992 VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE: ACCOMPLISHMENTS Advancing the President's Agenda o Vice President Quayle has been a loyal, low-key advisor to the President. Meeting President Bush daily in the Oval Office, the Vice President had provided sound and effective advice. The Vice President has played a key role in developing and promoting such reform agenda issues as school choice, term limits, civil justice reform, deregulation, and the role of family values. o The Vice President has led the President's efforts to cut costly and needless federal regulations, to end frivolous lawsuits, and to design space policies that will guide America's space program into the next century. o Putting to work his 12 years of experience in Congress, Vice President Quayle has been one of the Administration's best resources on Capitol Hill. He meets regularly with members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, promoting the President's agenda. o Vice President Quayle has also been a stalwart GOP fundraiser and campaigner. He has campaigned for Republicans in all 50 states up and down the ballot from Governor to county office; from U.S. Senator to state legislator. On the campaign trail, the Vice President has raised a record $30 million for GOP races. Vice President Quayle and Regulatory Reform o The Vice President's Council on Competitiveness has overseen the Administration's regulatory reform by cutting costly and needless federal regulations that have yielded $20 billion in annual savings. o Regulatory reforms pushed by the Competitiveness Council are spurring growth in America's biotechnology industry, helping terminally-ill patients to receive potentially life-saving drugs and increasing privatization of transportation facilities. The Council proposes reforms in the approval process for new drugs that will cut by half the approval time for new drugs to treat the more than 25 million people who suffer from life threatening illness such as cancer, heart disease, and AIDS, saving more than 40,000 lives annually. o The Vice President's efforts through the Council have been of particular help to small businesses -- the engine of America's job creation machine. Council initiatives are helping to ease the "credit crunch" by increasing small businesses' ability to raise capital, and ending costly paperwork created by compliance with federal payroll regulations. Vice President Quayle and Reform of America's Legal System o The Quayle Council has tackled head on the litigation explosion that produces 18 million new civil cases per year by developing proposals to reform the nation's civil justice system. o The President's Working Group on Civil Justice Reform, overseen by the Vice President, is working aggressively to reform America's legal system. Under the Council on Competitiveness' purview, the Working Group has proposed new reforms to medical malpractice, product liability, and punitive damages laws. o These legal reforms will meet government's responsibility to provide a swift, fair, and effective civil justice system. The President has endorsed fifty proposals devised by the Council on Competitiveness which, once enacted, will reduce litigation costs, promote swifter justice, and restore integrity to the civil justice system. o Under the Vice President's direction, these reforms have been incorporated into the Access to Justice Act (sent to Congress earlier this year) which would give litigants new choices in how to settle lawsuits without lengthy court proceedings and would discourage meritless suits by imposing, in some cases, the "loser pays" rule, whereby the loser in a lawsuit is responsible for paying the winning party's costs (up to a reasonable limit). o The Council on Competitiveness has also been working with States to reform state legal systems. The Council, in conjunction with the Justice Department, published Civil Justice Reform Model Sate Amendments and the Model Punitive Damages Act to serve as blueprints for state reforms, and the Justice Department and Council on Competitiveness are working with states to enact these and other related reforms. Defense and Foreign Policy o The Vice President has shouldered his share of Administration foreign policy and national security duties, travelling to 47 countries to advance U.S. interests. His work, both in Washington and abroad, has produced significant accomplishments. o During the President's absence, en route to his historic meeting with Gorbachev in Malta, Vice President Quayle chaired the National Security Council meeting during the coup attempt in the Philippines. In that meeting, the effective U.S. air response that helped save democracy in the Philippines was developed. o Vice President Quayle has visited Japan four times -- more than any other Senior Administration official. His visits have produced pledges on the part of the Japanese to increase their purchases of American made auto-parts, to provide unprecedented financial contributions toward economic development in Latin America and Eastern Europe, easing the burden on American taxpayers, and to commit to join research and development of manufacturing technology. o Vice President Quayle has become a recognized leader in Latin American affairs. He has travelled to the region eight times and has conducted bilateral meetings with 15 heads-of-state from Latin American nations. The Vice President pushed for fair elections in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and guided consultations with Latin American leaders regarding U.S. military action in Panama. Chairman of the National Space Council o Prior to the Bush Administration, the consensus was that our civil space program lacked direction and was in decline. In reinvigorating the U.S. space program, the Vice President solicited inputs from in and outside the federal government, including the Augustine Commission that he established. According to U.S. News and World Report, "Quayle smoothly and quickly made a major change in policy and set the space program on a sustainable path." o Vice President Quayle has promoted and directed the President's two foremost space initiatives: Mission to Planet Earth's environment and monitor global change, and Mission from Planet Earth to study, explore, and utilize space. o In July of 1992, the Vice President directed the Space Council to begin a major reassessment of U.S. space policy to adjust for the new world realities brought about by the end of the Cold War. # # #