Reuters is reporting that the republican-dominated U.S. House of Representative has passed legislation that was introduced yesterday [without the text being previously available on congress.gov] that allows the Congress to eliminate multiple Obama Administration federal rules enacted during the last year of President Obama’s Administration in a future one step procedure:
“As disapproving each regulation separately could span days, Republicans would like to simply vote once to end a variety of new rules on energy, the environment, transportation, banking, finance, education and media ownership.” (emphasis added)
At 4:48 PM today, the House passed H.R. 21, the so-called “Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017” that was only introduced yesterday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA-49) and 13 co-sponsors who were all republicans except for Rep. Colin Peterson (D-MN-7) [he should get some grief about this]. Here is the text of the legislation as passed:
www.congress.gov/…
H.R. 21 passed the House on a 238 to 184 vote; congress.gov is not yet showing the final record roll call vote, so I can’t provide that presently.
H.R. 21 amends the Congressional Review Act that presently allows Congress to disapprove federal rules by resolution….something that has not happened frequently in the past. Here is the current text of the Congressional Review Act:
www.gpo.gov/...
H.R. 21 itself doesn’t eliminate any federal rules, but sets up the republican Congress to later trash a multiple list of federal regulations by a simple vote on a single resolution under the Congressional Review Act….something which was not possible before with each rule to be rescinded requiring a separate vote. republicans are probably waiting for the final days of the Obama Presidency to develop their final target list of final federal rules that have been published in the Federal Register up until January 20, 2017.
Here are some EPA rules to control methane emissions binding on new and modified sources of the oil and gas industry under the Clean Air Act enacted last year that will probably be on the republican chopping block [note…..disregard all Josh Fox/Gasland claims you may have heard or seen that the oil and gas industry is exempted from the Clean Air Act….that is Josh Fox engaging in lying for dramatic effect in his entertainment films]:
www.epa.gov/...
I don’t have time before publishing this to develop a list of all federal rules across all federal agencies which might be eligible for being trashed, but the potential list could include hundreds of federal rules developed by several federal agencies during the last year of the Obama Presidency.
Elections have consequences!
Thursday, Jan 5, 2017 · 1:56:13 AM +00:00 · LakeSuperior
Here is more background on the Congressional REview Act from the Washington Post...published today:
www.washingtonpost.com/…
HR 21 seems to open up to potential mass congressional recision all rules finalized during the last year of the Obama presidency under the text of the bill with the language….
“(4) In applying section 802 to rules described under paragraph (1), a joint resolution of disapproval may contain one or more such rules if the report under subsection (a)(1)(A) for each such rule was submitted during the final year of a President’s term.” (emphasis added)
That means that contrary to Darrell Issa’s claims, H.R. 21 actually expands the number of final rules that could be trashed using the provisions of the H.R. 21-amended Congressional Review Act over a final year’s worth of the Obama regulatory agenda of final rules.