The latest House Judiciary Committee hearing on federal rulemaking pitted a current and former member of the Natural Resources Defense Council against each other in the debate over whether U.S. EPA and other agencies should be required to get a permission slip from Congress before enacting major new rules.

In his testimony before the Judiciary panel's Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law, David Schoenbrod, a former NRDC attorney who now serves as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, argued that requiring all rules costing more than $100 million to be approved by Congress would force lawmakers to have a personal stake in things like updating obsolete environmental statutes and keep them from continuing to scapegoat civil servants.

Meanwhile, David Goldston, NRDC's current director of government affairs, said such a requirement would effectively create a "slow-motion government shutdown" that would inevitably leave the public less protected.

As they did with their first hearing on the legislation in late January, Republicans and Democrats left no doubt as to where they stand on H.R. 10, or the "REINS Act," which stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act.

Subcommittee ranking member Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) yesterday said that the bill ignores the benefits of rules from EPA and other agencies. He dismissed the entire proposal as a political maneuver by the GOP.

"This act was not needed when George Bush was president," Cohen noted yesterday. "Apparently he did not need scrutiny."

Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) said the legislation, which was introduced by Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.), violates the separation of powers principle by infringing on the role of the executive branch to carry out laws.

But Republicans argue the bill is needed because Congress has delegated too much of its authority to executive branch agencies and needs to take that power back.

"The discussion must begin on the premise that agencies have rulemaking authority only because Congress has delegated it to them," said subcommittee Chairman Bob Coble (R-N.C.). "Why shouldn't their biggest and most important decisions be placed before Congress?"

Since Davis reintroduced his measure this year and got a hearing on it under the Republican-controlled House, several GOP lawmakers have cited EPA's climate rules as a prime target of the proposed REINS Act. Among them was House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who in the committee's first hearing on the bill said Congress needs to stop the agency's effort to "exercise authority it was never granted."

As the lone voice against the legislation on the three-member panel, Goldston was not shy about laying out the politics he believes are behind the REINS Act.

"The concern the bill's sponsors have with the current system is not that it doesn't work but that it does," he said. "The complaint is rather that those on the right end of the political spectrum do not always win."

When it comes to exercising its oversight of the regulatory system, Goldston said he believes Congress already has all the tools it needs. Those tools include blocking or amending rules, utilizing the Congressional Review Act and controlling the budgetary purse strings -- as Republicans have shown a willingness to do with amendments to the fiscal 2011 continuing resolution.

But despite the concerns laid out by Goldston and House Democrats yesterday, Cohen admitted in an interview after the hearing that there is not much Democrats can do if Republicans are intent on moving the REINS Act through the GOP-controlled House.

The hope, Cohen said, is that the Democrat-controlled Senate will be able to kill the bill.

"It's ironic that the Senate, which we've been concerned about for four years, has become our last line of defense," Cohen said.