Republicans should make passage of REINS Act a priorityThis is the most important takeaway from the court’s ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The justices ended the foolish practice of judicial deference to a federal agency’s “reasonable” interpretation of ambiguous laws known as “Chevron deference.”
Today, hundreds of federal agencies make tens of thousands of laws that govern every American. They call them regulations, and they’re issued without being passed by Congress or signed by the president. What’s more, while Congress is supposed to initiate federal spending, the bureaucracy spends with abandon and without congressional approval.
The better reform is the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act. The REINS Act would force Congress to vote on every regulation with an annual economic cost of more than $100 million — which is to say, the regulations that have the biggest impact on Americans. If both chambers of Congress don’t vote to approve it, the regulation would die, just as a bill that can’t pass the House and Senate dies. If they both vote to move it forward, the regulation would be implemented.