Rules Committee approves typo fix for deregulation bill

The House Rules Committee approved a rule on Wednesday evening that will allow the House to approve a Republican deregulation bill on schedule Thursday, even though the bill contains a critical typo.

The Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act, H.R. 4078, is meant to block major regulations from the government until the unemployment rate falls to 6 percent. But the bill says the "employment" rate must fall to 6 percent, an error that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pointed out Tuesday.

While the error could be approved by unanimous consent on the House floor, they have refused to grant this consent, mostly as a way to protest the Republican decision to bring the bill to the floor without allowing as many amendments to the bill as Democrats wanted.

Republicans did allow 25 amendments to be considered, mostly from Democrats. During floor debate, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Republicans had blocked an amendment that would allow regulations affecting members of the Armed Services to be issued.

"When we considered this bill during the Oversight Committee's mark-up, Congressman [John] Yarmuth [D-Ky.] offered an amendment to allow the VA to protect the health and safety of veterans," Cummings said. "This amendment was adopted on a bipartisan voice vote.

"Yet — mysteriously — it was stripped from the bill before it came to the floor," he added. "Rep. Yarmuth tried to offer that same amendment at the Rules Committee, but House Republicans refused to allow it."

The rule approved Wednesday evening would essentially deem the bill to be fixed, once the rule passes. House Republicans are expected to call up the rule sometime Thursday morning.

The rule was approved in a party-line vote in the committee.

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