The Republican Congress next week will push to roll back Obama administration regulations, and move ahead on two key Trump administration Cabinet nominees.
Nominations fall to the Senate, where the GOP will vote on the nomination of Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, and will also consider Elaine Chao, his choice to run the Department of Transportation. Other confirmation votes are also possible next week.
Tillerson is expected to win confirmation despite concerns raised by three Republicans who are nonetheless planning to vote for him Monday. Chao, who served as Labor Secretary under President Bush and is McConnell’s wife, has few critics in either party and is expected to easily secure her seat in the Trump cabinet.
In the House, the deregulatory effort continues, as Republicans will hold a series of votes to dismantle Obama-era rules using a decades-old law that has only been used once before.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said lawmakers will use the Congressional Review Act next week to start undoing many of the Obama regulations they consider onerous and bad for the economy. The act allows both the House and the Senate to repeal regulations with simple majority votes if those regulations were signed into law within the past 60 legislative days.
“With President Trump’s signature, every one of these regulations will be overturned,” McCarthy said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week.
The CRA was used only once, in 2001 when President Bush signed a CRA rollback of an ergonomics rule. Next week, four key regulations are on the chopping block.
The list includes the the Interior Department’s Stream Protection Rule, which boosts requirements for mining companies to monitor streams and more strictly defines “material damage” to waterways located beyond the mining footprint. Critics say it will significantly damage the coal industry.
The House will also target the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule, which requires oil and gas producers to cut in half the amount of natural gas that leaks out of wells on public and tribal lands. Critics say the rule is redundant, as the industry is already subject to the Clean Air Act, and it will stifle the industry with additional costs.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s required disclosure for resource extraction is also headed for extinction. It requires resource extraction companies to disclose payments made to governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals. McCarthy called is an “unreasonable compliance burden.”
Lawmakers will also vote on ending a new rule banning gun purchases for Social Security recipients who are not competent to manage their own affairs.
This won’t be the last use of the CRA, McCarthy added.
“In the weeks to come, the House and Senate will use the Congressional Review Act to repeal as many job-killing and ill-conceived regulations as possible,” he wrote. “That’s how to protect American workers and businesses, defend the Constitution, and turn words into actions.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he plans to take up all the CRA reversals that pass the House, but he did not indicate when they would be considered.
