If we don’t change the way Washington works, we can’t keep our promises to the American people. That’s the simple fact. And the best way we can change Washington and disrupt the status quo is to drain the bureaucratic swamp.
The metastasizing federal bureaucracy is a threat to our people, our Constitution, and our economy. Bureaucracies that aren’t accountable to the people staffed with regulators that never stand for election write rules that undermine our rights and destroy American jobs.
The House has been working for weeks on a two-part plan to return power to the people. We’re changing the structure of Washington with the REINS Act and Regulatory Accountability Act and overturning harmful regulations (13 so far) using the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
This Week: Draining the Bureaucratic Swamp Continues
We’re passing four more bills this week geared toward both parts of our two-part plan:
- The SCRUB Act, or the Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act (H.R. 998), establishes a bipartisan, BRAC-style commission to review federal regulations—especially old regulations—and reduce costs without altering the effectiveness of the regulations themselves.
- The CRA on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) power grab (H. J, Res. 83) would overturn a rule in which OSHA directly contradicted law passed by Congress by unilaterally increasing the time it can target employers for record-keeping violations. This will be the House’s 14th CRA this year.
- The OIRA Insight, Reform, and Accountability Act (H.R. 1009) ensures agencies—including independent agencies—follow the correct rulemaking procedures and allows for the review of federal regulations before they are finalized.
- The Regulatory Integrity Act (H.R. 1004) forces federal agencies to follow the Administrative Procedures Act in part by stopping these agencies from soliciting favorable comments for their rules from outside organizations trying to influence the rulemaking process.
These bills build on the House’s continued work and are the next part of our 200-day agenda to reform Washington and return power to the American people.