Western GOPs Exhort Congress to Take Back Regulatory Power

[Geee]

PJMedia:

Western Republicans charged in a new report today that federal agencies have grown so powerful under the Obama administration that jobs and economic growth are being strangled by increasing red tape.

And, they said, it’s only going to get worse unless the legislative branch takes its power back.

 

Citing the post-election “red-tape rush,” the Senate and House Western Caucus members advocate congressional action to stop agency overreach into their regulatory domain.

“Over the past four years, we’ve watched the Obama administration repeatedly circumvent Congress in an attempt to regulate entire industries, like the coal industry, out of existence,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Western Caucus. “Until Congress regains control over the regulatory process, Washington agencies will continue to push forward with their job-crushing, anti-growth agendas.”

The report cites the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules that constitute the “war on coal,” including the New Source Performance Standards for greenhouse gas emissions from new coal-fired power plants, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, and EPA’s Coal Combustion Residuals Rule.

“Industries need a fighting chance against EPA unfairly targeting their businesses in this way,” the report states. “In order to do that, we need to give businesses the ability to challenge EPA’s flawed scientific data, stop judicial legislating through activist sue-and settle-tactics and create jobs by streamlining environmental permitting of job creating projects.”

Currently, the caucuses note, the EPA’s statements and figures can’t be challenged in court under the Information Quality Act.