House set to pass bills slashing health, safety and environmental regulations

[cali]

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Floor action may tee up today with the so-called SCRUB Act, aka the "Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome" Act of 2015. The bill establishes a cost-based review of all regulations biased in favor of powerful special interests and belittling the benefits of health and safety rules. Worse, under its ominous "cut-go" provision, an agency could not establish a new health or safety regulation without first eliminating (cutting) an equivalently-sized existing rule. The PIRG-backed Coalition for Sensible Safeguards opposes HR 1155, the SCRUB Act. As bill opponents stated in the Judiciary Committee report's Dissenting Views (page 22):

"Regulatory cut-go would prohibit any regulatory agency from issuing any new rule or informal statement, even in the case of an emergency or imminent harm to public health, until the agency first offsets the costs of that new rule or guidance by repealing an existing rule specified by the Commission. This requirement would endanger public health and safety and unnecessarily delay Federal rulemaking by years, wasting untold taxpayer dollars and agency resources. The SCRUB Act is a dangerous solution in search of a problem. Each branch of government already conducts effective oversight through retrospective review of agency rules, narrowing the delegations of authority to agencies, controlling agency appropriations, and conducting oversight of agency activity. Congress also has the specific authority under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove any rule that an agency proposes. Overlooking this array of options that would provide the necessary scalpel for smart regulatory cuts, the SCRUB Act’s meat-cleaver approach is yet another dangerous and unbalanced attempt to derail agencies’ missions to protect the public health and safety. Rather than creating jobs, growing the economy, or making Americans safer, these dangerous procedures would tie agencies’ hands with unnecessary red-tape and waste valuable agency resources and taxpayer dollars."

The Rules Committee has also approved for immediate floor action H.R. 712, The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2015. Here is the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards Factsheet. The bill is designed to impede the ability of consumer and environmental groups to get consent decrees or settlements when they challenge an agency’s violation of law. The White House has issued a "Statement of Administration Policy" explaining that senior presidential staff would recommend a veto if the bill passes.

But wait, there's more. The floor package for HR 712 includes HR 690, a seemingly innocous provision requiring that agencies post 50-word summaries of proposed rules. Again, in Dissenting Views by Judiciary Ranking Member John Conyers (MI), he states the very real concern that the provision would be subject to judicial review and therefore "that H.R. 690 would provide yet another way for opponents of a proposed rulemaking to delay or derail its finalization on the ground that a summary was somehow ‘‘not in accordance with law’’ or not in ‘‘observance of procedure,’’ for example."

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But wait, there's even more... at the link

http://www.uspirg.org/blogs/eds-blog/usp/house-tees-vw-bailout-and-other-attacks-public-protections-consumer-rights

[Wilms]

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