Posted on 09/23/2010 12:58:15 PM PDT by pissant
Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who has flexed his political muscle by backing victorious Tea Party candidates in Republican primaries across the nation, introduced legislation on Wednesday aimed at restricting the ability of federal agencies to issue new regulations.
Mr. DeMint has accused the Obama administration of strangling various sectors of the economy with onerous regulations, and his bill would require Congressional approval of any new “major rule” – that is any regulation that “may result in an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more.”
The bill is called the Reins Act, which stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny.
In a statement, Mr. DeMint said: “We must put a stop to the reckless and costly anti-free market regulations that are destroying jobs. When the Obama Administration hasn’t been able to ram their anti-job polices through Congress, they’ve empowered unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to force them through using regulations. From the ongoing attempts to control the environment and the Internet to the forthcoming barrage of regulations facing the health care and financial industry, it’s no wonder that consumer costs are rising and businesses are reluctant to invest and grow.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
This fellow is beginning to really impress me. If he keeps this up he may find himself drafted for the presidential nomination in 2012.
Any law Congress passes should be required to apply them.
I’d like to see a lot of these regulatory agencies eliminated all together. Let the states decide what they need to regulate.
Congress could end this crap tomorrow if they wanted to.This practice of telling some Federal Agency “you guys figure out what we wanted you to do with this law” is complete BS.
The EPA should be shuttered. If the states want a central body to recommend regulations, they can form something similar to the National Fire Protection Agency - a non-governmental, non-profit group of professionals who draft codes regarding fire prevention and the states can choose to adopt their stuff or not.
That would pretty much shut down the EPA, no?
Agreed. This is an election season stunt.
I was waiting for it and you said it. There can be no regulation by an agency that doesn’t exist. Back to the Constitution!
Or at least being called “Speaker DeMint”
I sure as hell hope so. There are very few agencies as worthless as the EPA.
He’d have to get elected to the House for that.
ugh....brain flatulence is a terrible thing!
Liberals would cry that corporations are going to dump nuclear waste in the playgrounds if the EPA is eliminated but the reality is that the American people aren’t going to allow random dumping of waste.
There are plenty of conservative environmentalsts and I’m proud to call myself one. Conservative environmentalists look at situations rationally before throwing random pointless regulations around.
The EPA on the other hand, appears to be led by mindless radical left wing de-developers. For instance, the EPA forced the end of dumping fly ash into the great lakes yet recomends using fly ash cement to plug abandoned water wells.
He’s “my” Senator ... and one you can actually stay in fairly close contact with through his excellent staff. I keep wondering why he is not thought of as a Presidential Contender. If you could see the list of things he has TRIED to pass, (like this act) the list is really impressive. I’ve asked one of his assistants to give me a list of all the things Jim has attempted to do but got STOPPED by the Democrats. I think it is a list all of us here would be very proud of seeing and passing on to others.
The states need to do this too. Glenn Beck had a great segment yesterday on some of the Nanny State stuff going on in blue states relative to food. New York actually has legislation in the works to prohibit restaurants from using salt in their recipes!
Loooooooooooooooooooooooooong overdue!!!
My take is simple. Any proposed law, or proposed regulation that would have the force of law, must be read, in its entirety, before a quorum of both Houses of Congress, twice.
Eliminate this “first reading”, and “second reading”, without actually having it read. If we will have to live by it, they should at least have to sit through a reading of it.
Then I’d limit the Congressional session to July and August. And finally, I’d outlaw air conditioning in federal buildings other than hospitals.
Yes, D.C. has horrid weather. That’s why Jefferson put the capitol there. He knew that if they had to sit in that swamp to get anything done, they’d not do much.
Have you noticed that government didn’t really start to grow until after they’d installed air conditioning? It’s not a coincidence.
Good point. No regulations is as bad as over regulation.
Conservatives are likely to come up with good market based regulations that actually create jobs.
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