A House Democrat on Monday accused Republicans of participating in an “orgy” of attacks on regulations from the Obama administration.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) was testifying in opposition to the Regulatory Accountability Act when he made the remark on Monday.
“This is actually part of an orgy of attacks on rule-making in this nation that we are dealing with here today in this committee,” Johnson said. “The only basis for this bill are the unsupported claims that regulations erode employment and economic growth.”
The House is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015.
The bill, reintroduced last week by Reps. Bob Goodlatte
Robert (Bob) William GoodlatteBottom line No documents? Hoping for legalization? Be wary of Joe Biden Press: Trump's final presidential pardon: himself MORE (R-Va.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), failed to gain traction in the last Congress but stands a better chance this time around with Republicans in control of both chambers.
The House Rules Committee is taking up the bill Monday and is likely to send it to the floor for a vote.
The legislation would help Republicans and business groups fight back against expensive Obama administration rules that they argue are not “economically justified.”
“The regulators, the people writing the regulations, don’t have as much accountability,” Goodlatte told the committee in support of his bill.
But the legislation has attracted the wrath of the Obama administration and Democrats like Johnson.
The White House on Monday threatened to veto the legislation, warning such a bill would “undermine” federal regulators with “unnecessary procedural steps that seem designed simply to impede the regulatory development process.”
“The Regulatory Accountability Act would impose unprecedented and unnecessary procedural requirements on agencies that would prevent them from efficiently performing their statutory responsibilities,” the White House said late Monday in a policy statement. “It would also create needless regulatory and legal uncertainty and further impede the implementation of protections for the American public.”
The bill would require federal agencies to consider a proposed rule’s impact on jobs and the economy while searching for less expensive alternatives.
They would then be compelled to move forward with the “least costly rule considered during the rule making.”
But the White House said the legislation would actually increase costs.
“This bill would make the regulatory process more expensive, less flexible, and more burdensome — dramatically increasing the cost of regulation for the American taxpayer and working class families,” the White House wrote.
The Regulatory Accountability Act would also limit the guidance and interim final rules federal agencies can issue, and require them to be more open about the data they use to justify regulations.
Federal agencies would be required to hold public hearings for the most expensive rules, something many agencies already do.
The regulations could also be challenged in court before they are even finalized under the new legislation.
Republicans say this would lead to more moderate regulations, but opponents of the bill argue it would water down the rule making process and “sabotage" public protections.
Katie Weatherford, a regulatory policy analyst at the left-leaning Center for Effective Government, warns the legislation is “nothing more than a backdoor effort to undermine public protections.”
“The Regulatory Accountability Act would add numerous hurdles and delays to agency efforts to develop new safeguards and give big business even more opportunities to interfere in this process,” she wrote.
House lawmakers passed the Regulatory Accountability Act in 2013 and again in 2014, but it was ultimately rejected by what was then a Democratic-controlled Senate.
With Republicans now in control of both chambers, Congress is expected to pass the legislation, though it would face a likely veto were it to land on President Obama's desk.
Republicans could then try to force Obama’s hand by attaching it to a more important piece of legislation or an appropriations bill, experts say.
