The Republican-led House this week will push through legislation aimed at making government rules and regulations less burdensome for business, setting up a standoff with President Obama over some of his key initiatives, including the new health care law, and testing Obama's efforts to appear more business friendly. The House measure, scheduled for a vote Thursday, would require committees "to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations" and the rules' effect on jobs and economic growth.I would suggest -- not that anybody listens to my opinions -- that the regulations be reviewed in reverse order of date of creation, and that quantified justifications be required.
The GOP's assault on federal regulations will begin in the Government and Oversight Reform Committee, where business leaders will testify this week about which regulations they believe are hindering job creation.
The business community is expected to take aim at a host regulations, including those enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Transportation Department. They will also likely go after the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas limits for new and expanding power plants and refineries that were implemented Jan. 2 as part of Obama's effort to curb climate change.
"It's an extremely bad idea and not well put together," Rosario Palmieri, the vice president for infrastructure, legal and regulatory policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, told The Washington Examiner. "We have asked Congress to take another look at it and find a way to prevent that from continuing to be implemented."
House Republicans in recent weeks solicited comment on burdensome regulations from hundreds of companies and trade associations that will bolster committees' efforts to kill off some of those rules. But it will likely also set off a battle with the White House, particularly if the panels target regulations tied to the health care bill or Wall Street financial reforms.
A fight over regulations with the GOP puts Obama in an awkward position politically. After losing the House to Republicans in the November elections and watching the Democratic majority shrink in the Senate, the president has moved to shore up his support among independent voters and in the business community.
Last month, with the Republican attack on regulatory red tape looming, Obama ordered his own review of agency rules, penning an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal that called for the elimination of "absurd and unnecessary paperwork requirements that waste time and money" and "regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb." He struck that same theme in his State of the Union address.
Despite his efforts and the weak growth in jobs reported last week, Obama is not likely to match the GOP's enthusiasm for rule cutting as a way to stimulate the economy. Republicans point out that the president's cuts don't apply to some of the most rule-heavy, independent agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. Obama has also signaled that he believes the regulations imposed by the health care reform law and the financial regulatory reform law should not be part of the review.
Republicans have no intention of excluding any agency from their scrutiny.
"You have to question whether President Obama's plan is really about creating jobs or just headlines when it exempts some of the agencies that impact our economy the most," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Read more at the Washington Examiner
Holy crap! Elected officials actually doing what they promised the voters! Did we just go through the looking glass?!?