Governor Romney's Illegal Proposal for REINS-Lite -- Presidents Don't Get to Use Executive Orders to Rewrite Statutes
Governor Romney claims that burdensome regulations are an immense but hidden tax holding back the American economy. As proof for this proposition, he cites the study on regulatory costs sponsored by the Small Business Administration – a study that’s been debunked by a CPR white paper, the Congressional Research Service, and others. Romney lays out some solutions to this supposed problem in Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth, issued in September of last year. One of these ideas is to require affirmative congressional approval of all major rules.
People who drop by CPR’s website likely know that Republicans have already tried to pass legislation to this effect in the form of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. The bill passed the House in late 2011, but has gone nowhere in the Senate. Proponents of the REINS Act like to cast it as a matter of legislative accountability, but the real impetus behind this proposed legislation is to block agencies from regulating by entrusting the fate of rules to a Congress where anti-regulatory forces will likely control at least one choke point. The REINS Act itself, however, can only …
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