Jan 11, 2017:
By a vote of 238 to 183 (only five Democrats voted in favor) the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.5 - Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017 | congress.gov.
Specifically, the bill would require [federal] agencies to post more detailed information on proposals [rules and regulations] for an extended period of time, limit judge's interpretations in legal challenges, and require [federal] agencies to enact the lowest-cost version of a rule.
Source:
Lambert, Lisa. (January 11, 2017). "Republicans pass sweeping bill to reform 'abusive' U.S. regulation". Reuters. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
House Tries To Stop All New Government Rules | The Huffington Post
13 Environmental Groups Oppose the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA), H.R. 5 | NRDC
By The Numbers: The Regulatory Accountability Act | speaker.gov
Leader McCarthy at Hoover: The Swamp is the Bureaucracy | majorityleader.gov
American Action Network | Wikipedia
Douglas Holtz-Eakin | Wikipedia
Commentary:
I think it's safe to say that the U.S. Congress is "owned and operated", by and large, by "Big Oil", "Big Pharma", and other corporate interests. If enacted, this bill will give even more power to those entities by allowing Congress (corporate interests) to have much more control over which rules and regulations get passed. This would be a classic example of "the fox guarding the hen house" and would allow corporate interests to avoid regulation. Does this sound like a good idea for the environment? Does this sound like a good idea for the health, safety, and wellness of the American people? This is just another example of the conservative agenda putting corporate interests ahead of individual interests.
I think it's also safe to say that corporations are more concerned about how much money they make than they are about the environment or the health and safety concerns of people. Want a good, recent, real-life example? How about the Volkswagen scandal where Volkswagen deceived the public (which VW corporate executives knew about), which allowed hundreds of thousands of vehicles to pollute the atmosphere for years? If you think that "Big Business" is looking out for you, think again.
Jan 5, 2017:
By a vote of 237 to 187 (only two Democrats voted in favor) the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.26 - Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017 | congress.gov.
If enacted, this Act requires that any significant rule or regulation with an annual effect on the economy over $100 million must be approved by Congress and signed by the president within 70 legislative days of submission to Congress.
Carolyn Lochhead, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle writes:
The regulations result from acts of Congress, which approve laws such as the Clean Air Act or the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill, but leave the regulations that serve to implement the laws to experts in the federal agencies. As a practical matter, the Republican bills would shift regulatory power from executive branch agencies bound by scientific and legal protocols to the political realm of Congress.
Lochhead also states that the REINS act has an amendment which extends its reach to include all regulations adopted by federal agencies within the past 10 years.
Source:
Lochhead, Carolyn. (January 9, 2017). "GOP pushing 3 bills in Congress to restrain federal regulations". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999 writes:
The ostensible justification for the REINS Act is a fear of executive overreach. However, it's easy to discern the real—and darker—motive. No agency imposes a regulation with "an annual effect on the economy of $100,000,000 or more" lightly. Such regulations take years to draft and finalize. They're subject to multiple levels of review, not to mention months of public comment. These regulations also tend to be the sort that have an impact on big corporations, in areas such as energy production, workers' safety, and lending practices, and, not surprisingly, big corporations often don't like them.
Source:
Kolbert, Elizabeth. (January 9, 2017). "Suspending the Rules: How Congress Plans to Undermine Public Safety". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
In an article on the Natural Resources Defense Council website, David Goldston writes:
For more than a century—going back at least to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration—Congress has established federal agencies and empowered them to make decisions to protect the public. Congress did not do this because it was lazy or interested in abdicating power or responsibility. Instead, Congress rightly concluded that some kinds of decisions required deep technical expertise and a balanced, judicious decision process somewhat insulated from political horse-trading and power plays.
The REINS Act sponsors summarily reject the hard-earned knowledge that led to the creation of agencies and a century of bipartisan experience. The Act radically repositions Congress, the most political branch of government, as the place to make the ultimate decisions that involve detailed technical matters.
Is this a way to protect the public? Would this be an improvement in governance? Under the REINS Act, Congress might hold the reins over the regulatory process, but it would be industry cracking the whip.
Congress already has all the authority it needs to control the regulatory system. It writes the laws that determine what activities get regulated and what criteria are used to write those regulations. It has the authority through normal procedures, the expedited Congressional Review Act, and control over the public purse to block or amend any rule it sees fit. Rulemaking does involve policy calls as well as scientific determinations, but Congress is hardly powerless to intervene.
Goldston also makes the point that the $100 million threshold does not take into account the amount of money that might actually be saved by implementation of the rule or regulation (for example, decreased health care costs, fewer on-the-job injuries, ect.).
Source:
Goldston, David. (January 4, 2017). "The REINS Act: Why Congress Should Hold Its Horses". NRDC. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
In an article in The Hill, contributor and FreedomWorks Director of Communications Jason Pye writes:
Today, the presidents have consumed far more power than delegated by Article II of the Constitution. The executive branch has blurred the constitutional separation of powers, claiming its own lawmaking authority through rules, regulations, and executive orders. While these very serious concerns didn't begin with President Obama, his administration's cavalier approach to executive and regulatory power has certainly led to a much-needed renaissance of Article I, which delegates lawmaking authority solely to Congress.
Pye goes on to quote statistics compiled by the American Action Forum which claim the EPA has " overseen $1 trillion worth of new rules over the past ten years" (mostly under Obama). Pye also states that "regulation cost American families nearly $15,000 in 2015."
Source:
Pye, Jason. (January 6, 2017). "Congress should use the REINS Act to combat the regulatory state". The Hill. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
Commentary:
Of course there's a cost associated with the implementation of any rule or regulation, nothing is free. But I'm not convinced the statistics Pye quotes from The American Action Forum (decidedly conservative) are fair, accurate, and non-partisan. Did those statistics factor in the amount of money that would be saved by implementation of the rule or regulation (for example, decreased health care costs due to cleaner air)?
Pye mentions the fact that Congress already has the ability to kill new rules and regulations via the Congressional Review Act, and that this is one of the reasons Democrats say REINS is not necessary. Pye calls this reason "specious [having a false look of truth or genuineness] justification for opposing the REINS Act." What is "specious" about not wanting another law when we already have one in place that does the job?
Pye goes on to say that since the Congressional Review Act was enacted in 1996 it's been used over 100 times to try and kill rules and regulations, but only once was a rule or regulation killed because only once was it approved by Congress and signed by the president. He's trying to make the argument that the Congressional Review Act isn't effective, or that it isn't doing what it was intended to do. I make the exact opposite argument, that in fact it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Don't you think there are good reasons why only once since 1996 a rule or regulation was killed? Don't you think that just maybe, Congress decided that those rules or regulations were actually needed? And, isn't this just the kind of Congressional oversight that Republicans are now clamoring for?
Jan 4, 2017:
By a vote of 237 to 187 (only four Democrats voted in favor) the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.21 - Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017 | congress.gov.
If enacted, this Act would amend the existing Congressional Review Act (enacted in 1996) to give Congress the power to repeal multiple rules and regulations (rather than one at a time) issued and finalized by federal agencies within the last 60 legislative days.
Two important notes regarding the Congressional Review Act:
- when a rule or regulation is challenged and brought up for possible repeal under the Act, in the Senate the vote is not subject to a filibuster
- if a rule or regulation is successfully repealed under the Act, the federal agency that issued it is barred from issuing a similar rule in the future
If the Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017 is passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by the president, it would allow Republicans to effectively repeal any and all rules and regulations finalized by the Obama administration going back to late May of 2016.
Source:
Cowley, Stacy. (November 15, 2016). "With Trump's Signature, Dozens of Obama's Rules Could Fall". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
View a list of all U.S. federal agencies here.
House passes bill to overturn 'midnight' regulations en masse | The Hill
Never cease to be amazed by the layers of bills and acts that fly under the radar and yet effect all future decisions. Thank you for the posts and links. An interesting movie/documentary regarding how the lack of regulation paved the paths to the financial/mortgage crisis of 2008. Watch: Inside Job on Netflix