GOP Congress rolls back rules on hunting, broadband privacy
GOP uses legislative tool to overturn regulations
Hunters could soon target grizzly bears from the air on Alaska’s federal lands. Internet providers may get to sell the browsing habits of their customers. States will be able to deny federal family planning money to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Citing states’ rights, jobs and the right to bear arms, congressional Republicans are reversing dozens of Obama-era rules affecting the environment, education and the energy sector.
The GOP is using a largely unknown but highly effective legislative tool that allows a simple majority in the House and Senate to overturn regulations that often took years to craft. Indeed, with an overhaul of health insurance going off the rails, Republicans are left pointing to the repeal of various government regulations as their crowning legislative achievement after some 70 days at work. The GOP casts the effort as overturning eight years of excessive government regulation and boosting business.
“These things will help get people back to work, and after years of sluggish growth, give a real boost to our economy,” Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said this past week. The president has signed eight resolutions revoking regulations issued during the final months of Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency. Six resolutions have cleared Congress and are awaiting the president’s signature. A couple dozen more are on deck, with last Thursday the deadline for filing more.
Trump has signed measures eliminating requirements that mining and oil companies report payments made to foreign governments. The rule was designed to shine a light on how much money foreign governments received for their nation’s resources, thus reducing the prospect of corruption. He also signed another measure reversing an Obama plan to prevent coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby streams.
“These actions from Congress and the president are giving hope to businesses that they haven’t had in a long time,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi scoffed at the notion that Republicans were accomplishing anything with the regulatory repeals “because they do not meet the needs of the American people.” “They are about trickledown. Their life is about giving more money to the high-end and to corporate interests, maybe it will trickle down, that would be good, but if it doesn’t, so be it, that’s the free market,” Pelosi said.
Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, said the regulatory repeals Congress pushed through will actually damage the economy more than it helps. He said that eliminating the stream protection rule may help coal companies, but it hurts other companies that stand to gain through healthier streams and water supplies. “If you look across the terrain of the Congressional Review Act resolutions, they are repeals of public measures that help, consumers, workers and the environment in very substantial ways, but are opposed by powerful corporate interests,” Weissman said. —AP