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Honorable Mark Sanford

Representing the 1st District of South Carolina

Last night, the House voted on H.R. 26, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny or the REINS Act

Jan 6, 2017
Blog Post

Last night, the House voted on H.R. 26, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny or the REINS Act. I am a cosponsor of this bill, and it passed 237 to 187 with my vote.

The bill would require all new, “major rules” - meaning those rules that have an annual, estimated impact of $100 million or more - to be voted on by Congress and signed into law by the president before they go into effect. If Congress does not approve a proposed rule within 70 days, then it would be automatically rejected.

This was how the Founding Fathers intended the branches to work. They gave Congress the power to make laws and the executive branch the power to enforce them, but today I’d argue that the Founding Fathers would hardly recognize our federal government.

The recent creation and expansion of executive agencies, commonly called the “fourth branch,” is astounding. For most of the first hundred years of the United States’ existence, the only executive agencies were the Departments of War, State, Navy, and Treasury and the Office of the Attorney General. Today, there are over one hundred agencies writing rules and regulations that have the effect of law.

The extent to which the Obama administration has overstepped its constitutional power and usurped congressional legislative authority is staggering. The result? Over the past seven years and a half years, the Obama administration imposed a total of 20,641 regulations. Of these, 600 were deemed “major rules,” and according to Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, these rules cost taxpayers a total of $745 billion dollars.

While other administrations have issued executive orders and finalized major agency rules, the content and cost of those issued by President Obama are unprecedented. In George W. Bush’s last term, his administration finalized 268 agency rules, costing a total of $149 billion dollars. Between 2009 and 2016, the Obama administration’s finalized rules cost taxpayers $750 billion...five times more than the former president.

Some people have a level of concern regarding the impact that the REINS Act might have on federal agencies’ ability to issue rules that protect natural resources and the environment. I believe these concerns to be unwarranted. Requiring Congress to be more involved in the rulemaking process does not change Congress’s ability to listen to what people are saying about the environment - it just moves us from unilateral executive branch authority.

With a new president being inaugurated in just 15 days, this legislation would help restore the balance of power outlined by the Constitution and help ensure future presidential administrations work with Congress and not around it. For these reasons, I voted for this bill.