Republicans this month will invoke the rarely used Congressional Review Act to extinguish some of the Obama administration’s more recent regulations they believe will damage the economy.
The act, which has not been used successfully since 2001, is certain to provoke strong opposition from Democrats who will seek to preserve Obama’s legacy. But there is little Democrats can do to stop the GOP.
The Congressional Review Act, pushed through Congress in 1996 by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and signed by President Clinton, can be used to undo recent regulations issued by the executive branch with a simple majority vote in both the House and Senate.
The GOP controls the majorities in both chambers and President Trump is eager to sign the legislation undoing the regulations, which affect the environment, education and jobs.
Republicans last were able to use the CRA in 2001, when they briefly held majorities in the House and Senate and Republican President George W. Bush was able to sign into law a CRA-passed bill reversing a Clinton administration ruling on ergonomics.
“There is only a rare set of circumstances in which you can use it,” Rutgers University professor Stuart Shapiro, a public policy expert, told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans have for years talked of undoing Obama administration regulations through legislation, but the CRA gives them an easier route in the Senate by allowing Republicans to avert the 60-vote filibuster. The CRA can be applied only to regulations issued within 60 legislative days.
“We are going to do that very quickly,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said of using the CRA during a recent interview on the Hugh Hewitt show.
House Republicans announced that beginning on Jan. 30, they will move to reverse four recently announced regulations using the CRA and will target other regulations in the weeks ahead.
At the top of the GOP’s list is the Stream Protection Rule announced by the Obama administration in December. The rule is aimed at curbing environmental damage from coal mines. It boosts requirements for mining companies to monitor streams and more strictly defines “material damage” to waterways located beyond the mining footprint.
Critics, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the rule constitutes regulatory overreach and will hurt the coal industry.
“This costly regulation, along with others that are already having a devastating impact, are part of the administration’s plan to demolish these coal communities right now and long after the president has left office,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.
The House will also vote to reverse a November rule issued by the Bureau of Land Management requiring oil and gas producers to cut in half the amount of natural gas that leaks out of wells on public and tribal lands.
The move was aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but oil companies said the new rule is redundant and could stifle innovation.
The House will also take on long-unpopular federal interference in education with a vote to eradicate a bevy of new federal rules that GOP lawmakers believe interfere and in some cases bypass the recently passed bipartisan law overhauling the unpopular No Child Left Behind Act.
Finally, the House will vote under the CRA to undo the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council’s final rule, which critics call the “blacklisting order.” The rule was finalized in August and establishes a long list of new record-keeping, reporting and compliance requirements that could be used to bar contractors from winning federal contracts. The rule was temporarily blocked in a Texas federal court.
“You’re going to see in February, the first two weeks, a lot of those regulations that were in the last 60 legislative days start moving to be repealed,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on the Hugh Hewitt show. “Because people don’t quite realize, since the November election to Jan. 5, this administration, Obama’s, has authored 145 new regulations, they’ve enacted more than $16 billion on us just since the election.”
