Fresh off their failure to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, Republicans this week will return to legislation repealing Obama-era regulations and will vote on a bill the GOP believes will help end the politicization of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tax reform remains a major agenda item Republicans hope to achieve before the August recess, but while the behind-the-scenes writing of the legislation gets underway, the GOP plans to take up other reform-minded legislation on the House floor.
The House will vote on the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, a bill authored by Republicans and which follows years of GOP accusations that the EPA has been acting like a political arm of the Obama administration in its quest to address climate change through regulation. The bill would prohibit any future EPA regulations from taking effect unless the underlying scientific data is available to the public.
“American taxpayers have often had to foot the bill for regulations and rules based on hidden science that has not been available for review by the public,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. “We want to change that.”
Democrats are opposed to the bill and argue it would expose sensitive data that should be kept confidential.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said the GOP bill would “undermine the science that the EPA can use in their work and ultimately, make it easier to pollute in our country.”
The House will also vote on a bill the Senate passed last week that would roll back an Federal Communications Commission regulation implemented in 2016 that addresses Internet privacy.
If the House passes the legislation, it will enable Internet service providers to sell user information to advertisers, and would prohibit “opting out” in order to avoid information sharing.
The legislation rolls back the regulation under a law permitting Congress to repeal executive branch actions within six months of implementation.
The FCC announced the privacy regulation in April 2016 for websites and apps. At the time, then-FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler said the regulation “would give all consumers the tools we need to make informed decisions about how our ISPs use and share our data and confidence that ISPs are keeping their customers’ data secure.”
But the Senate sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said the regulation was not consumer friendly and “has the potential to limit consumer choice, stifle innovation, and jeopardize data security by destabilizing the Internet ecosystem.”
