And now that foot is going straight into their mouths.
Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the REINS (Regulations from the Executive In Needs of Scrutiny) Act. This bill would give veto power over Executive Orders and other regulations coming from the Executive Office to the controlling party of either chamber of Congress.
Don’t like an EPA decision/ruling? Either the Senate or the House can veto it and then bring it under consideration of Congress. Essentially, this is the House’s idea for keeping a unitary Executive under control.
I like it. Anything that slows down the paperwork from the federal government is, in my mind, a good thing.
The left, after spending eight years crying about “King George” is getting a case of the vapors because their guy can’t do whatever he wants with a stroke of the pen.
This whole executive order thing is basically an abuse of the federal register, a process created by congress to allow agencies to make small changes in regulations without a lot of oversight.
An agency puts a change in the register, and, if it isn’t controversial, it gets added to law via a quick unanimous voice vote.
Apparently the house has wised up, and has streamlined the process for removing entire EOs from the federal register.
Unconstitutional. As much as I would like to see Obama put in his place, illegal power usurpations are no solution for illegal power usurpations. If he’s breaking the law (constitutional ), then he needs to be impeached. THAT is the congress’s check against the executive.
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I’m trying to see how this would be unconstitutional, and not getting it.
All these regulatory agencies’ powers are delegated by Congress in the first place, and can be revoked by Congress – in part or in whole – at any time. If Congress chooses to give themselves an extra layer of oversight over these agencies, that is well within their power.
Executive Orders have no Constitutional authority in the first place. The President cannot simply declare laws or regulations without the consent of Congress, and if Congress chooses to take an active role in that process that is both their right and their job. If the President objects to this, he can challenge it in the courts – which are there to act as a check on both the Executive and the Leglisature.
Here’s a thought. Since EO’s are supposedly issued only during times of national emergencies. How about something from congress that says that when the president declares a national emergency, he then has 10 days to justify the reasons for the declaration to a majority vote in congress or nomas. And if upheld that declaration must be re-addressed by congress every six months and if not upheld again the EXs become null and void.
And ALL EXs issued during any emergency prior to the latest become null and void when if congress votes in favor of the latest declaration.
Ummm. First, nothing I can find in the article talks about Congress limiting Executive Orders. E.O.s are a way to change or establish the way in which executive departments operate. They are not law, and do not directly affect the operations of the non-Governmental portion of the economy.
What REINS does do, however, is place a Congressional check on those “unaccountable” bureaucrats who make RULES, and regulations. I.E., DoT, DoI, DoA, FDA, BATFE, EPA, etc. This strikes me as a COMPLETELY Constitutional way for Congress to say, “We are the lawmakers. We have empowered the Executive branch to make implementing regulations to achieve those things we set out to do in legislation but did not have enough detail and expertise to accomplish. When the specialists (the regulators) have written those rules, if the impact is expected to be more than $X on the economy, then we require the opportunity to approve the Executive’s implementation of the law before it takes effect.”
Also, this forces the President to be aware of the actions of the Executive agencies below him as far as regulations are concerned. This is because the bill requires a joint resolution of approval to be passed into law for those regulations that trigger the act. That will require House, Senate, and a Presidential signature. It also means that if the House and Senate have a full agenda, working on Debt, the Budget, or what have you…that big regulatory changes are going to have to compete for their approval, limiting the Executive’s ability to change the landscape when Congress is “busy” doing other stuff.
I’m reading the bill, and probably will have other comments later.
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