GOP acts to quash federal rules
Critics warn 3 bills put public health, environment at risk
WASHINGTON — Freed from the constraint of a presidential veto, Republicans are moving rapidly on industrybacked legislation that could paralyze the government’s ability to protect the environment, public health and virtually everything else federal agencies regulate.
The onslaught began last week with a trio of House bills — two of them approved and sent to the Senate — that would gut the administrative process used for decades to implement the practical details of such landmark laws as the Food and Drug Act, the Clean Air Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The centerpiece of the Republican action was the REINS Act, which cleared the House on Friday, with an amendment that extended its reach to include all regulations adopted by federal agencies within the past 10 years. Approved on a largely party-line vote, it swiftly drew companion Senate legislation.
The act would require any rule costing industry more than $100 million — a dollar figure that amounts to any significant regulation — to be submitted to Congress. If either chamber fails to approve the rule within 70 days, the rule would die.
The rules could affect everything from food labeling and nutrition requirements for restaurants to performance standards for residential wood stoves and energy efficiency standards in grocery store coolers to banking and public health. One major rule adopted after the financial crisis requires banks to hold larger
cash reserves. A 2014 rule cleans up tailpipe emissions from cars. A 2009 rule for the first time allowed regulation of tobacco.
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.
“It’s really extreme,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, of the REINS Act, which stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny. “This would have the most profound effect on the environment, on consumer protection, on public health, and on the quality of life and the safety and security of the American people. It basically means it would be impossible for any conceivable regulation to ever take effect.”
All but escaping public attention amid the battle over repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the REINS Act and the other two bills were among the first on the House agenda in its first week of what soon will be unified GOP control of the federal government.
The Midnight Rules Relief Act, which passed Thursday, would allow Congress to overturn — in one giant batch — all the regulations made final since May by the Obama administration.
Another, the Regulatory Accountability Act, is on deck for swift House passage this week and would add dozens of hurdles to the regulatory process, potentially grinding all future rule-making by federal agencies to a halt.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, said many regulations “are harmful to the American people, costing us time, money, and, most importantly, jobs.” The three laws are designed to address that by draining “the bureaucratic swamp that undermines the will of the people.” But Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said academic studies show regulations are often a wash when it comes to jobs. He cited a recent rule limiting methane leaks from natural gas pipelines and other oil and gas operations. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.
“The methane rule is really a jobs bill,” he said. “It requires paying American workers who are essentially plumbers to plug leaks.”
The bills have the support of industry, which tends to chafe under federal regulation, but many environmental and public health groups say they will fight in the Senate to defeat them. They are particularly concerned about the REINS Act.
“It means that one body can completely hold up a safeguard that has been years in the making in response to an earlier law passed by Congress,” said Paul Billings, a top lobbyist for the American Lung Association, a patient advocacy and research group. “It grinds the administrative side of the federal government to a halt ... and completely undermines a process in place for over 200 years.”
The amendment that expands the scope of the REINS Act was added by Rep. Steve King, a Tea Party-allied Iowa Republican. It would cover any rule issued by the Obama administration and the final two years of the George W. Bush administration.
Under King’s amendment, Congress would require every federal agency each year to submit 10 percent of its regulations adopted over the past decade. The agencies would have to do this for 10 years,
until all their rules have been reviewed by Congress. Unless both chambers approve a rule, it would be discarded. In essence, agencies would face a Solomon’s choice of having to select which of their own rules to discard first.
The conservative Heritage Foundation and the political action committee Club for Growth support the REINS Act, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other industry groups. A prominent supporter is Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, a conservative group tied to Charles and David Koch.
Kerpen wrote in USA Today last month that he had secured a written promise from President-elect Donald Trump during the campaign to sign the act if it reaches his desk. Kerpen called the legislation a “profoundly simple, powerful bill that would require regulators and bureaucrats to get their most expensive rules approved by Congress before they could take effect.”
House Republicans have passed the REINS bill three times since 2011, but President Obama’s veto threat discouraged Senate action. The administration’s official veto statements used strong language to denounce the legislation as “unprecedented” and “radical.”
With Trump having promised in writing to sign such a bill, the Senate now appears much more eager to act. On Thursday, 27 GOP senators, led by Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, introduced a Senate version of the REINS bill.
The methane rule cited by Slesinger, along with a regulation limiting coal-mining companies from removing mountaintops near streams, and another that would extend eligibility for overtime pay to 4 million workers, may be top targets for elimination under the Midnight Rules Relief Act.
The Midnight Rules bill would allow Congress to abolish recent rules in one big batch, without threat of a filibuster.
“Rather than having Congress vote on each specific rule, this would allow them to form a big Christmas tree of rules and have one up or down vote,” Billings said. “The whole idea is to obscure what they’re voting against. Rules to reduce pollution from oil and gas or other safeguards are hidden in one big regulatory vote.”