CQ WEEKLY – VANTAGE POINT
July 2, 2011 – 10:42 a.m.
Regulating Regulation
By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff
Congress is sometimes annoyed by the executive branch’s translation of its laws into day-to-day regulations. The annoyance can rise to anger when the president is of a different party and is suspected of subverting Congress’ intent on an issue. That, in turn, has led members of Congress into periodic attempts to control not only legislation but also the way the law is implemented.
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The latest attempt is unfolding this summer as House Republicans, insistent that President Obama is making the regulatory climate repressive for business and thus costing the country jobs, will take up a bill requiring congressional approval of any new regulation with an economic cost of more than $100 million.
In the House, Republicans have ample votes to pass such a measure, which is artfully named the Regulations of the Executive in Need of Review, or REINS Act. The legislation has been around for more than a year.
The Senate is a different story and will be the scene of the most debate, if the bill comes to the floor at all. Not only does the White House oppose it, of course, but powerful senators such as
“We get so much done around here,” Leahy says sarcastically. “I guess they think we could handle 50 to 100 of these regulations every year.”
Republicans, though, say that the private sector needs relief from federal regulation, and that the country needs to prevent disruptive regulations promulgated by presidents of either party from taking effect without the explicit consent of Congress.
“Business owners are often forced to fight cumbersome rules and regulations rather than spend that time investing in their companies and creating new jobs,” says Sen.
Regulations, though, are already subjected to repeated reviews, and sometime reconsideration. President Ronald Reagan, shortly after he took office in 1981, directed federal agencies to refrain from regulations whose potential costs outweighed benefits. President Bill Clinton toned that down, but cost-benefit analyses have remained. Obama this year ordered a general review of regulations to weed out those too burdensome for business.
In addition to its oversight of federal agencies in general, Congress by the time of the Reagan administration had given itself authority to review dozens of types of regulation — often just one chamber could disallow the new rules. The Supreme Court in 1983, though, ruled out such “legislative vetoes” as an encroachment by Congress on the powers of the presidency. The exact scope of that encroachment is still subject to debate, though.
In 1996, Republicans quietly included legislation in a broader bill allowing Congress 20 days to block any new federal regulation.
This Congressional Review Act was used successfully just once, in 2001, to toss out a major ergonomics rule by the Labor Department. Democrats then adopted procedural delays that rendered the law ineffective. “The disapproval process hasn’t worked,” Portman says.
GOP supporters of this year’s legislative review bill, such as Sen.
Regulating Regulation
“I think you would get a Republican president to sign it,” says Grassley, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
Sponsors hope endorsements by two presidential hopefuls — Reps.
There’s also a chance that economic and political pressure might force Obama and congressional Republicans to reach a regulatory power-sharing deal. Several presidents, for instance, have sought to control what Congress spends money on by getting some type of line-item veto that would circumvent a 1998 Supreme Court decision.