Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 9: Congress Must Affirm Final Agency Rules before They Are Law

by Wayne Crews on February 26, 2014

Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his State of the Union address heralds a class warfare agenda, one fusing an “income inequality” theme with federal industrial policy and other activism.

“When I can act on my own without Congress, I’m going to do so,” Obama promises. This spend-and-transfer fixation makes Americans poorer and dependent except for the lucky few running things.

Others have argued for federal budget rationality as essential to any anti-poverty agenda. This series proposes a greater prosperity enhancing opportunity, streamlining the nearly $2 trillion regulatory state and ending the uncertainty, wealth destruction and job loss it creates.

To improve regulatory cost accountability, the 104th Congress passed the Congressional Review Act (CRA). That law sets up a 60-day period following agency publication of a regulation during which the rule will not take effect. That 60-day pause affords Congress an opportunity, should it desire, to pass a resolution of disapproval to halt the regulation.

It rarely has that desire. The CRA was a symbolic nod toward congressional accountability for regulations. But it amounts to a 2/3 supermajority requirement to strike a law that Congress never made in the first place when the president vetoes a disapproval resolution. And since Congress benefits from delegation and no rollback reaches the president’s desk anyway, the law doesn’t work. (Well, OK, the CRA did halt an “ergonomics” rule, on repetitive motion injuries.)….To Read More….. 

Also in “The Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy” Series

Part 1:  Measure Regulatory Costs
Part 2:  Regulatory Benefits? Maybe Not
Part 3:  Make Regulations Transparent Like the Budget
Part 4:  Put a Spotlight on Economically Significant Rules
Part 5:  Categorize Regulations by Impact
Part 6:  Deal With The Deadweight Cost Of Regulation
Part 7:  Recognize and Reduce Indirect Costs of Regulation
Part 8:  Create a Culture of Repealing Regulations

My Take - All this is fine, but the real problem are the 16th and 17th amendments.  Repeal those and all else will begin to fall into place.  RK