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Congressman Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green) today voted in support of legislation to eliminate unnecessary regulations and prevent regulatory negotiation tactics that create costly burdens for American job creators.

H.R. 1155, the Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome (SCRUB) Act, will eliminate the ineffective and cumbersome federal regulations that stifle economic growth by establishing a bipartisan, blue ribbon commission to retroactively review the existing federal regulations and determine which are no longer necessary or useful.

“Too much regulation, especially too much outdated regulation, means higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs for hardworking Americans,” said Rep. Latta. “Today, federal regulations impose an estimated burden of $1.88 trillion, or roughly $15,000 per U.S. household. To put it into perspective, there are nearly 175,000 pages of regulations in 235 volumes in The Code of Federal Regulations, many of which are outdated. This legislation protects American families and American job creators from the burden of these expenses by repealing outdated regulations, and setting a goal of a 15 percent reduction in regulatory costs.”

Secondly, H.R. 712, the Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act, seeks to end the practice of enacting federal regulations through sue-and-settle litigation. This tactic, used by federal agencies and like-minded special interest groups, circumvents the normal rulemaking process to impose new, burdensome regulations on businesses and communities.  

Under the Obama administration, federal agencies have issued more than 100 new regulations using this process with over $100 billion in estimated annual costs.

“The rule making process must be transparent, and include input from all potentially impacted parties, including businesses. What we have seen under this administration is a subversion of this process, with negotiations instead taking place behind-the-scenes between pro-regulatory special interest groups and complicit agencies. The resulting regulations have imposed onerous costs on American businesses and ultimately, on American families. This bill shines a light on these tactics, restores the transparency, public participation and judicial review protections of the rulemaking process.  With more Americans having a seat at the table during the process, we can ensure states, businesses and our workforce are best protected from the types of burdensome, costly regulations we have seen coming out of this administration.”