Rolling Back Obama-Era Regulations

From U.S. Congresssman Mike Conaway Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C.This week Congress employed the Congressional Review Act to roll back five costly regulations implemented by the Obama Administration. Three of these regulations were written to hurt the energy industry one took aim at the 2nd amendment and one would have discouraged competition for federal contracts. Under the Obama Administration burdensome overregulation became the new normal. One of the first orders of business under President Trump is to roll back the most harmful and unconstitutional regulations including the BLM Methane Rule the Stream Protection Rule the SEC Resource Extraction Rule the Social Security Administrations implementation of amendments to the NICS and the DOD GSA and NASA acquisition regulations. These regulations were an atrocious abuse of executive power by President Obama each with astronomical costs of compliance. And like many Obama Administration regulations the BLM Methane rule the SEC Resource Extraction Rule and the Stream Protection Rule were designed to drive the coal oil and gas industries out of business. By using the Congressional Review Act to eliminate these destructive regulations we can ensure that the same rule cannot be issued in the future- protecting Americans from overzealous rulemaking indefinitely. The Congressional Review Act establishes special congressional procedures for disapproving of regulatory actions issued by federal agencies. Now with a Republican President these pieces of legislation can be signed into law. The five regulations that the House voted to overturn this week are: H.J. Res. 38 Disapproving Stream Protection Rule -The Obama Administrations Steam Protection Rule was designed to limit coal mining by implementing duplicative unnecessary regulations with an annual compliance cost of $52 million. H.J. Res. 36 Disapproving BLM Methane Rule -Methane can be captured and either piped out for other productive uses or it can be burned off. The Obama Administration would not approve permits for pipeline construction and the BLM Methane rule would make it illegal to burn the Methane off. This rule leaves no options for Methane removal making it impossible for the oil and gas industry to do business. H.J. Res 41 Disapproving SEC Resource Extraction Rule -Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act mandated that the SEC to create new reporting requirements for public companies involved in the oil natural gas or mineral development industries. -This rule which is outside the scope of the SECs mission could cost as much as $591 million and would give foreign companies an edge over American companies. H.J. Res. 40 Disapproving SSA Implementation of NICS Improvement Amendments -Under President Obama the Social Security Administration finalized a rule that would require the agency to send the names of certain Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income recipients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). -This rule unconstitutionally limits the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans who receive certain financial benefits and do not manage their own financial affairs. H.J. Res 37 Disapproving DOD GSA and NASA acquisition regulations -This rule creates a duplicative process for hiring federal contractors- especially impacting small businesses who dont have the resources that larger companies have. -This rule costs contractors and subcontractors over $400 million to comply and increases the bureaucratic risks that contractors face when entering into contracts with the federal government.