S-1708 has also been introduced in the Senate to impose new limits on rule-making. Image: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has approved on partisan votes a series of bills to restrict agency rule-making and guidance authorities:
* HR-67, to require OMB to issue guidance on how agencies “can use technology to more efficiently, cost-effectively, and accurately carry out retrospective review of existing federal regulations that are obsolete, redundant, contain typographic errors, or overlap with other such regulations.”
* HR-580, to require agencies to prepare regulatory impact analyses—including analysis of costs, benefits, alternatives, disproportionate impacts, and effects on jobs—for major rules that
“mandate economic impacts of $100 million or more, present major increases in costs or prices, or have significant adverse effects on competition, employment, or markets.”
* HR-2409, to require agencies to “state prominently on the opening page of any guidance document that agency guidance does not have the force and effect of law and is not binding on the public; and the document is intended only to provide clarity to the public about existing legal requirements or agency policies.”
Meanwhile, S-1708 has been introduced in the Senate to impose new limits on rule-making including by setting requirements that agencies justify rules as required by law, specifying that guidance documents do not create enforceable obligations, and ending deference by courts to agency interpretations of the law.
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