House Republicans are looking to use their massive party-line bill to strip federal agencies of their power to unilaterally approve all major rules.
The House Judiciary Committee’s portion of the GOP’s budget reconciliation bill, unveiled Monday and up for markup Wednesday, contains language that would require any “major rule that increases revenue” to be approved by the House and Senate before taking effect.
Such language could have sweeping implications for federal agencies’ independent rulemaking process. It could empower congressional majorities to reject rules they oppose and allow partisan rifts to effectively sideline regulations affecting everything from energy production to financial services.
In addition, the bill would allow Congress to disapprove multiple rules in a single resolution under the Congressional Review Act. That change would fast-track the current procedure, which limits disapproval to one rule per resolution.
Supporters say lawmakers signing off on certain rules is necessary to rein in the executive branch’s broad powers and to ensure increased congressional oversight over rules that can have significant impacts on Americans and businesses.
“This is forcing agencies to actually do the work of identifying these regulations, putting together reports … and then Congress doing the work of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no,'” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), who helped lead the push for the inclusion of the language.
“That’s critical because we haven’t done that and that’s originally the intent of Article I [of the Constitution], is for us to be the rulemakers, the lawmakers,” she added.
The provision is based off the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act,” from Cammack, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and dozens of Republican co-sponsors.
The “REINS Act” would require congressional approval of all major rules that would likely result in “an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more,” a “major increase” in costs or prices, or “significant adverse effects” on the private sector.
Cammack said Monday that she and a small group of other Republicans spent about eight months discussing ways to add the legislation, H.R. 142, to the GOP’s budget bill. She noted that the strict rules of the reconciliation process forced them to come up with a modified version.
Reconciliation allows the majority party to skirt the Senate filibuster and approve budget-related policies by a simple majority. Provisions have to be fiscal in nature and approved by the Senate’s parliamentarian.
Paul, the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the sponsor of the Senate version of the “REINS Act,” S. 485, said earlier this year that Republicans had been having “extensive meetings to try to make it reconcilable.”
The Judiciary Committee’s new proposal would give lawmakers final say over major rules that would increase federal revenues, as opposed to over all major rules with broad economic repercussions.
Cammack said also including rules that decrease revenues would have been “a trigger for the Byrd rule,” lawmakers’ shorthand for the strict reconciliation rules developed by the late Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). It remains to be seen whether it would clear the parliamentarian.
Under the new proposal, the House and Senate would have to enact a joint resolution of approval for rules that increase revenues. If Congress does not act within 60 legislative days, then the rule would not take effect. The provision would not apply to nonmajor rules.
The Judiciary Committee draft also contains a section requiring agencies to submit 20 percent of eligible rules for review by Congress for four years. After five years, any rule Congress did not approve would automatically sunset.
“It’s retroactive,” Cammack said. “The trigger and the enforcement mechanism is the sunset. So this is putting a time clock on the agencies to do their work, but it’s also putting a time clock on Congress to actually do the work.”
The reconciliation language also leaves it in the hands of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to determine what is a “major” or a “nonmajor” rule.
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Policy Committee, said Republicans opted to try to include the provision in their party-line bill because it is unlikely to garner enough support to pass through regular order.
“You’re having Congress basically involved in every agency decision,” he said. “It’s somewhat controversial, and if you look at it historically, I think that’s probably why it hasn’t passed.”
Cammack said in February that the “REINS Act” would “fundamentally drain the swamp and change the way government operates,” creating a “longer-lasting impact than any savings, any spending, that are being currently being discussed.”
Progressives groups have blasted such proposals. Public Citizen criticized the “REINS Act” as “one of the most radical threats in generations to our government’s ability to protect the public from harm.”
In a statement Monday the group said that if the bill became law, “it would sign a death warrant for a slew of important consumer, worker and environmental protections.”
Schedule: The markup is Wednesday, April 30, at 2 p.m. in 2141 Rayburn and via webcast.
Reporter Kelsey Brugger contributed.
