Congressional Review Act
Should a New Congress Use a Deeply Flawed Law to Cancel Trump’s Regulations?
The Congressional Review Act was Newt Gingrich’s brainchild. It should be repealed.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA), part of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America”, slumbered for many years in obscurity. Then, in 2017, Congress dusted it off and used it to kill fifteen Obama administration regulations. I’m not the first to ask whether there should be payback if the White House and Senate change hands. There are …
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CONTINUE READINGSidestepping Regulatory Ossification
The regulatory process can take forever. Here are some possible responses.
Some years ago, Tom McGarity coined the phrase “regulatory ossification” to describe the increasingly slow and cumbersome regulatory system. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. As a recent article by Bethany Davis Noll and Richard Revesz points out, significant regulations take an average of four years to issue, and judicial review adds another …
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CONTINUE READINGRegulatory Review in Anti-Regulatory Times: Congress
Congress overturned a host of regs at the start of the Trump Administration. Looks more like a random walk than a systematic effort.
In theory, cost-benefit analysis should be just as relevant when the government is deregulating as when it is imposing new regulations. But things don’t seem to work that way. This is the second of two blog posts analyzing how costs and benefits figured in decisions during the past two years of unified GOP control of …
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CONTINUE READINGProgressive Regulatory Reform
Suppose that, like conservatives, progreessives started thinking about reforming the regulatory system. What would that look like?
Until recently, you could be a very well informed American – a lawyer, even – without ever having heard of the Chevron doctrine. That has changed enough that last month the New Yorker had a “Talk of the Town” essay discussing Kavanaugh’s views of the Chevron doctrine. The reason for the attention to Chevron is …
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CONTINUE READINGEight Setbacks for Trump
Trump hasn’t had things all his own way. Not by any means.
The Trump Administration has begun some bold initiatives but it’s too soon to know how they will fare. It also had some early success with blocking Obama’s regulation in Congress. But it has also had some significant setbacks, with courts or Congress rejecting positions it had embraced. Those setbacks make it clear that, bad as …
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CONTINUE READINGCRA Update: What’s Been Overturned, What’s Still Standing?
Congress and Trump have done some major harm with this tool, but so far, not as much as feared.
We’re getting close to the deadline for Congress final chance to use its override authority under the Congressional Review Act to eliminate Obama Administrations regulations. The deadline for introducing new resolutions has already passed, and the deadline for voting ends around May 10. It’s not clear whether the Senate in particular will have time for …
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CONTINUE READINGIf At First You’re Blocked by Congress, Try, Try Again.
How much does the Congressional Review Act preclude follow-up regulation?
Most people probably never heard of the Congressional Review Act before now. This law — “CRA” to Beltway folks — is an obscure statute — previously used only once — that allows Congress to strike down an agency rule with an expedited procedure (no filibuster). The GOP is gleefully taking advantage of its control of the …
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CONTINUE READINGSearching for Votes in the Senate
Q: Can the Dems scrounge up the votes to block anti-environment actions? A: Maybe.
Paul Ryan and Donald Trump have vowed to roll back many environmental protections. The Senate seems to be the one barrier against anti-environmental moves by Congress. How strong is that barrier? The answer depends in part on whether the filibuster option remains open. If the filibuster rule remains intact, the Democrats’ 48 votes in the Senate …
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CONTINUE READINGMurkowski seeks to block EPA GHG regulation
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has introduced a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove EPA’s Clean Air Act endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, which in turn would remove the basis for Clean Air Act regulation. It’s not going to pass or be signed by the President, of course, but the resolution is designed to …
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CONTINUE READINGBad ESA rules not yet undone
(Cross-posted at the Center for Progressive Reform blog.) The Bush administration’s last-minute ESA (non)consultation rule is getting almost as much attention now as it did during the comment period. Then, the administration reportedly received more than 300,000 comments, the vast majority of them negative. Those objections were, of course, quickly swept under the proverbial rug …
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