(WASHINGTON, DC) – The increase in the nation’s June jobless rate to 9.2% is due in part to the crushing burden of new and pending regulations on businesses by the Obama Administration, according to House Republican Conference Secretary John Carter.

“Businesses can’t and won’t hire if they continue to be inundated by job-killing new federal regulations on everything from power production to insurance rates,” says Carter. “And that means those unnecessarily jobless workers are creating a double hit on the economy, by not contributing payroll taxes while draining federal funds through extended unemployment benefits.  If we simply get our folks back to work we will make a dramatic improvement in the short and long-term deficit.”

Carter says based on the pending downturn in the U.S. economy evidenced by the dismal numbers in job creation, his bill to temporarily ban new federal regulations is mandatory for economic growth and deficit reduction.

The Take off the Brakes on the American Economy Act, H.R.1235, would place a 2-year moratorium on all new federal regulations.  The guarantee of a stable regulatory climate would free businesses and investors from fear of the oncoming tsunami of Obama Administration red tape, thereby jump-starting new investment in infrastructure and market expansion.  

Carter has led the Republican Conference effort this year to re-vitalize the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to disapprove any new major federal regulation within 60 legislative days of a federal agency submitting the proposed rule to the House and Senate.  The former Texas judge has filed resolutions of disapproval on multiple new proposed regulations.

However, the Take off the Brakes Act would eliminate the need for CRA filings for the next two years by simply blocking all new regulations.  Under the Carter bill, Congress keeps the ability to approve any truly necessary new regulations during the two-year moratorium.   

The ban would continue into 2013, allowing the new President and Congress elected in 2012 to determine whether to renew or allow the moratorium to expire based on economic conditions at that time.