When the 109th Congress reconvenes on Jan. 20, expect Republican lawmakers to continue work on anti-regulatory measures that will protect industry interests at the cost of the public interest. House Speaker Tom DeLay (R-TX) has repeatedly mentioned “universal regulatory reform” as one of several high-priority items for the 109th Congress’s agenda, and the House Government Reform Committee announced late last year that reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act will be only one part of “a reform-focused legislative and oversight agenda that will streamline the federal government.” Moreover, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) has recently requested the Government Accountability Office to investigate the current state of fiscal federalism and related issues in the wake of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. This request may signal Voinovich’s interest in revisiting UMRA and putting teeth into its requirements, one possibility being a stringent “no money, no mandate” requirement that would eviscerate the ability of the federal government to use federal funding as a vehicle for raising standards for human needs programs and ensuring civil rights. Additionally, the Congressional Research Service is currently investigating the history, policy, and legal issues related to the construction of fencing and other barriers along the nation’s southern border. The implication of this research is that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is interested in reviving the defeated effort to grant the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to waive all federal law in order to expedite completion of the border. Further, as we discuss here, the White House has been meeting secretly with industry interests to brainstorm anti-regulatory measures that could be added to the upcoming reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act. Among the anti-regulatory measures attempted in the past or discussed recently are the following, any one of which could resurface in the 109th Congress:

• Preventing agencies from issuing new regulations unless they can show that monetized benefits exceed industry estimates of the costs of implementing the regulations;
• Imposing fictional “budgets” of total regulatory costs that agencies can impose in any given year, then forbidding any new regulations once an agency has reached its “budgeted” cap;
• Blocking economically significant regulations from being implemented until they are voted on by Congress – in essence, imposing a statutory form of the nondelegation doctrine; and
• Diverting limited agency resources into more navel-gazing analyses, such as those already required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, and executive orders.

Continue checking back at our website and our blog REG•WATCH for further developments and action alerts.