U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman
For far too long, the executive branch has abused its regulatory power to advance its political agenda. In his first year as president, Biden finalized regulations adding over $200 billion in new regulatory costs – that’s more than 4x the costs added during President Obama’s first year. And then, in 2022, the Biden Administration proposed more than $2 trillion in new overreaching and burdensome regulations. According to a study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, federal agency cost is $1.927 trillion annually. That’s nearly $15,000 per U.S. household! High-cost, unilateral regulations like this are no way to restore fiscal sanity in our federal government.
That’s why I voted to pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act this week to reassert the legislative authority of Congress. Our Republic is based on the principle of checks and balances, which means each branch of our government has the power to hold the others accountable for their actions.
The REINS Act would require any “major rule” proposed by the executive branch to be approved by both the House and Senate before it may go into effect. A “major rule” would be any federal rule or regulation that may result in an annual impact of $100 million or more on the economy, a major increase in costs for consumers, or significant adverse effects on employment, productivity, or innovation.
An example of this would be President Biden’s student loan bailouts. In 2022, the Biden Administration announced it would cancel $519 billion in student loans and extend the loan repayment pause. The Administration also proposed a new rule to change incomebased repayment, all actions that will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion. If this executive action had gone through the proper Congressional approval process, I can promise you: I would have done everything I could to ensure it would not happen. But unfortunately, it did not.
The REINS Act ensures that actions like this will only happen - if approved by both chambers of Congress. By voting to pass the REINS Act, my House Republican colleagues and I voted to protect the American people from incurring any more new costs from overreaching regulations by the executive branch.
