Posted on 01/26/2017 9:56:26 AM PST by VitacoreVision
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy explained in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday just how Congress is planning to roll back numerous egregious and harmful rules promulgated by the Obama administration: the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA was included in the "Contract With America Advancement Act of 1996" and allows Congress to review, and to cancel by majority rule, new federal regulations issued by federal agencies. There’s a window of 60 "legislative" days to disapprove, which explains some of the Trump administration’s haste in pushing to repeal them. Once passed by both houses, repeals then become effective with President Donald Trump’s signature.
There are plenty of targets, but McCarthy focused on just three: the Interior Department’s Stream Protection Rule impacting the coal-mining industry, new methane gas regulations that would cost up to $1 billion and force many small energy developers out of business, and the Social Security Administration’s new rule that states that if a S.S. recipient needs a third party to manage his finances, he will be added to the gun background check list.
The CRA shouldn’t be necessary. If Congress hadn’t unconstitutionally allowed power it alone possesses under the Constitution to make laws to pass over to the executive branch’s various and sundry regulatory agencies, the problems with the Obama administration's overreach wouldn't exist in the first place. Those agencies have grown into leviathan, issuing rules, regulations, and mandates far beyond those imagined by Congress. Now Congress is in the backward position of having to limit the regulations pouring out of that unconstitutional "fourth branch" of government. The child is now threatening its master.
Parsing the language of the Interior Department’s rules on its expanded regulation of coal miners proves the point:
Under [the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977], the regulatory authority may not approve a permit application [from a coal mining company] unless the application demonstrates, and the regulatory authority finds, that the proposed operation would not result in material damage to the hydrologic balance [i.e., streams and rivers] outside the permit area.
How does a coal mining company, in its application, "prove" a negative? How does it satisfy a bureaucratic unelected unaccountable and invisible agency that it will cause no harm, or at least not enough harm to avoid trespassing on that agency’s environmental sensitivities? What assurance does a coal mining company have that said agency won’t change the rules arbitrarily and capriciously in the future? Would not such future uncertainty tend to dampen said coal company’s interest in developing its reserves?
Similar charges could be levied against the federal agency issuing its rules on methane emissions, but the best example of egregious overreach is the Social Security Administration’s new rule that allows it to "deem" who shall have his or her name entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) based on whether or not they receive third-party assistance in managing their finances. Here’s what the SSA says it will do:
We will identify, on a prospective [in advance of evidence of any proclivity towards criminal activity] basis, individuals who receive Disability Insurance benefits … or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments … who meet certain criteria, including … a finding that the individual’s mental impairment meets or medically equals [various] requirements.
And just how, pray tell, would such "identification" take place? The SSA responds:
If we have information that the beneficiary has a mental or physical impairment that prevents him or her from managing or directing the management of benefits, we will develop the issue of capability.
And just how is that "issue of capability" to be determined? Again, the SSA provides the guidelines its bureaucrats should follow in making that determination:
Does the individual have difficulty answering questions, getting the evidence or information necessary to pursue the claim, or understanding explanations and reporting instructions?
If so, do you think this difficulty indicates [that] the beneficiary cannot manage or direct the management of [his or her] funds?
If the answer, by this nameless, faceless unaccountable bureaucrat, is yes, his or her name is entered into the NICS.
The agency then condescends to tell the soul who just had his Second and Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution obliterated that they have just done so, and that if he cares to contest this arbitrary and capricious decision by said unnamed bureaucrat, he is free to hire an attorney and seek redress. Guilty until proven innocent.
Where is due process? Where is the beneficiary allowed to defend himself or explain himself or offer an explanation? What happens to the right to face his accuser in a court of law?
When Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislation Action (NRAILA), learned of McCarthy’s plan of attack to repeal this particular rule, he was delighted:
Congress’ decision to review the Obama administration’s back-door gun grab is a significant step forward in restoring the fundamental Constitutional rights of many law-abiding gun owners.
The NRA has been fighting this unconstitutional government overreach since it was first discussed, and we look forward to swift congressional action to overturn it.
Those in the energy industry will likely be equally ebullient once Congress has righted the wrongs imposed by federal agencies on its businesses. Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chair of the House Energy Committee, told Reuters that using the CRA will not only wipe out entire regulations but forbid them from writing new versions in their place.
In effect Congress’ use of the CRA will be equivalent to hacking off some of the branches of the Fourth Branch’s tree, but leaves the trunk and the root intact. It’s a start, but only a start.
Related article:
Final Rules Disclosed for How Social Security Admin. Plans to Disarm Its Beneficiaries
I’d imagine that with the trifecta of House, Senate and Executive they can do any damn well what they want to. It’s like “deeming” something passed, idnit? Go suck a egg Nancy.
P4L
Does the Senate need 60 votes for this?
EXACTLY. These are rules that are an Agencies interpretation of how to enforce a law that was enacted by Congress. Only Congress can reverse a law but an agency can reverse a rule.
The agencies are a part of the administrative branch and Trump and his cabinet members control the agencies so reverse the friggin rules! It happens every day with the feral agencies I deal with and that is why it takes an army of people reading the feral register to keep up with what the bureaucrats do.
This congressional review BS sounds like more weakness and failure to use the power of the branch of gubment. It also sounds like McCarthy or whatever the hell his name is. I do recall that I think he is a weakling.
Many bureaucracies need to be closed; they are _not_ lawful by USConstitution. Amend it or end them.
So it would seem, but the Senate leg of your combo is weak, depending on such stalwarts as McCain, Graham, and Susan Collins.
The other effect - instead of using an EO, which can be changed by the next President - this way, the cancelled “rule” by Congressional action, I believe, would mean the Congress would have to rewrite the law and it would have to go through the Congress process again.
I believe this makes it less likely that the same rule would be re-instated. Of course, I know they can re-write it and present it again .. but can they get it passed ..??
"The CRA was included in the "Contract With America Advancement Act of 1996" and allows Congress to review, and to cancel by majority rule, new federal regulations issued by federal agencies."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Patriots beware !
The Founding States made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide these clauses from Congress (sarc), to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in the non-elected bureaucrats running constitutionally undefined federal regulatory agencies like the EPA and the iRS.
So Congress has a constitutional “monopoly” on federal legislative / regulatory powers whether it wants it or not imo.
Corrupt Congress’s hypocrisy with respect the "Contract With America Advancement Act of 1996” is the following. Congress has wrongly been ignoring that the states have never expressly constitutionally delegated to Congress the specific powers to make probably most federal regulations that define domestic policy. And if Congress has no constitutional authority to define much of domestic policy, then why is Congress letting non-elected federal bureaucrats get away with doing so?
In other words, for decades Congress has been wrongly allowing the bureaucrats running constitutionally undefined federal agencies to not only steal state powers, but use those stolen powers to oppress the states and their citizens.
Note that by letting federal bureaucrats get away with exercising stolen state powers that corrupt lawmakers are able to protect their voting records. And by protecting their voting records lawakers are able to fool low-information patriots, patriots who have never been taught the fed’s constitutionally limited powers, into reelecting them.
Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!
Remember in November ’18 !
Since Trump entered the ’16 presidential race too late for patriots to make sure that there were state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots, patriots need make sure that such candidates are on the ’18 primary ballots so that they can be elected to support Trump in draining the unconstitutionally big federal government swamp.
Such a Congress will also be able to finish draining the swamp with respect to getting the remaining state sovereignty-ignoring, activist justices off of the bench.
Noting that the primaries start in Iowa and New Hampshire in February ‘18, patriots need to challenge candidates for federal office in the following way.
Patriots need to qualify candidates by asking them why the Founding States made the Constitution’s Section 8 of Article I; to limit (cripple) the federal government’s powers.
Patriots also need to find candidates that are knowledgeable of the Supreme Court's clarifications of the federal government’s limited powers listed below.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphasis added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Each page of the Federal Register should be approved separately by roll call vote of the senate and house before any rule should take effect. That would slow things down and also otherwise occupy a congress to make them less a danger to our life, liberty, and property.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.