Best Proposal You've Probably Never Heard Of

We've all heard the seemingly-endless acronyms Democrats have used to cover up their schemes. The most recent was the DREAM Act, which went down to defeat when Republicans couldn't figure out how to make the letters stand for "nightmare." Well, here's one from the right that you might like--the REINS Act. The letters stand for "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny." It's designed to rein in the massive power-shift from the elected branches to the federal bureaucracy.

Introduced as HR 3765 in the House and S 3826 in the Senate, the bill went nowhere. Our fabulous bipartisan Democrat-controlled Congress wouldn't even vote the bill out for discussion. However, with the takeover of the House and the shaky Democrat majority in the Senate, the bill will undoubtedly be introduced again. The Tea Party supported candidates who knew that the growth of the federal bureaucracy was a serious danger to representative democracy. Conservatives have been criticizing the growth for about seventy years.

The biggest gripe is that more and more extremely important positions are being filled by bureaucrats harboring a highly leftist agenda without having to be confirmed by the Senate. We have more czars today than the Russian Empire had in its entire history. Equally important is the fact that these czars (confirmed or not) are passing regulations without any control from Congress or the White House. The czars have little oversight and zero political accountability. The best recent example is the EPA's highjacking of the Clean Air Act when the left decided Congress was not acting quickly enough nor radically enough. With solid Republican opposition and some Democratic opposition, Congress refused to enable cap 'n tax by declaring CO2 a major cause of global warming (aka globaloney or climate change).

This was a bureaucratic seizure of power without any basis in law or the Constitution. In theory (and previously at law), a bureaucracy could only implement regulations that addressed issues within the act from which the agency gets its authorization. "Global warming" and CO2 were not even on the Clean Air Act radar when passed in 1970 and no amendments to the Act which would even hint at regulation of CO2 have ever been passed, even in the revisions of 1996. But the 1996 revisions did suggest that Congress had the ultimate power to create an expedited process for consideration of joint resolutions to overturn regulations of which Congress disapproves.

Recognizing that even with control of both houses of Congress, "global warming" remedies (carbon-trading schemes) were not going to become the law of the land, the White House gave the green light to the EPA to move on the issue anyway. Constitutional scholars Barack Obama and Eric Holder aren't the least bit concerned that the Constitution is a "living document" on this one. They went straight to considering the Clean Air Act a living document and allowed a bureaucracy to make up rules and regulations on a topic that isn't even covered by the Clean Air Act.

That is what the REINS bill addresses. The Congress since the 1930s and the creation of the Roosevelt "alphabet" agencies has granted broad power to bureaucratic agencies, but have passed concomitant limits on their actions. Sadly, as leviathan grew, the agencies did as well, but the Congressional oversight was honored more in the breach than in the observance. Conservative Republicans have decided to reverse that trend.

The Act would limit new agency regulations to a short life to cover emergencies (at the moment, 90 days seems to be the target), at which point the regulations would have no force or effect without Congressional approval. In other words, unlike previous limitations, the regulations don't continue until Congress nixes them. They last only a limited period of time, then die, unless Congress actively approves them. That would mean that radical measures taken by an agency would not disappear into the woodwork to be cited as precedent later for more radical measures. The Act also purports to limit bureaucratic regulations addressing any issue which is not contained in the enabling legislation (think "global warming" and CO2).

The statist bureaucrats (which include most Democrats, most liberals and all leftists) of course object on the ground that such an Act would limit the agencies and create a difficult hurdle for federal regulations, particularly those which affect health, safety or the environment, and create another opportunity for business interests to block regulatory initiatives. Well--no duh! That's the whole idea. Of course they always throw private business in as the evil Grinch, just because there actually is a record of some rogue corporations defying or ignoring reasonable regulations or blocking attempts by agencies to thwart their naughty ways.

Much like the current attempts to repeal Obamacare, this bill is unlikely to succeed for the present. But also like the repeal attempt, it is not merely symbolic. It is notice to the other side that enough is enough. Midnight arm-twisting and defiance of the people to pass legislation, as well as bureaucratic usurpation of Congressional responsibilities are about to come to an end. Conservatives and moderate/conservative Republicans as well as sensible Independents will learn who stands for unfettered bureaucracy and who stands against. Likewise, if and when the Act actually passes, the people will know where each Congress critter stands because his or her vote for or against a new bureaucratic regulation will be required and become public record.