House to vote on regulatory reform package next week

Republicans have hit the ground running in the new Congress with legislation to crack down on federal regulations.

The House passed two bill this week to give lawmakers the ability to overturn multiple rulemakings at once and more easily reject rules that cost the economy $100 million or more annually.

Next week, a regulatory reform package of six bills will come to the floor for a vote.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said the House Republican Conference wants regulatory reform to be a lead initiative as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.

“As you know that is also one of the major objectives of the new administration, so we are not losing any time getting started on this,” he said.

The legislation would need to get through the Senate to reach Trump’s desk. Republicans have a smaller 52-seat majority in that chamber, so Democratic support could be necessary to overcome procedural objections. 

{mosads}”I have had the opportunity to bring this to the attention of Sen. (Ron) Johnson (R-Wisc.), chairman of the Government Operations and Homeland Security Committee … They are very interested in these bills and they are working to find bipartisan support,” he said. 

Ratcliffe’s bill repeals the Chevron and Auer doctrines, which direct courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute when there are challenges over ambiguous rules. 

The other bills include the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires agencies to calculate the direct, indirect and cumulative impacts of new rules would have on small businesses; the Alert Act, which forces agencies to publish information online about the rules they’re drafting; and the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, which requires agencies to publish summaries of newly proposed rule in plain English online.

Another bill, introduced by Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) to automatically block high impact rules – those with costs over $1 billion dollars annually – from taking effect for 60 days is also part of the package. It’s intended to give businesses and other entities time to challenge rules in court.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) said overregulation is one of the principle complaints of small business.

“This is a jobs issue,” he said. “It’s one of the key things. It’s like a wet blanket over the economy that’s keeping the economy still struggling.”

Several of the bills passed the House in previous sessions on Congress.

During a meeting with reporters Friday, Goodlatte said he’s been working closely with members of Trump’s transition team to “make sure as much as possible we are on the same page.”

“After all, the president needs to sign the bills that get through the House and the Senate into law and we don’t want to exercise a lot of effort and not succeed in that regard,” he said.

In his first 100 days in office, Trump has vowed to establish a new rule that requires agencies to eliminate two rules for every new rule proposed.