Texas Political Lobbyist News: The Looming Regulatory Cliff
The following is a digest of an article originally published at the National Review Online. The Texas Lobby Group is publishing this summary as a public service for citizens of Texas, other Texas lobbyists, Texas politicians, government officials, and other interested parties.
There are many problems at hand in Washington. In the U.S. Senate and House, it can be hard to know where to even begin sorting the issues out. The Senate is currently littered with stalled bills, while progress and improvement are hindered with halted propositions for change. Many of the bills presently on the Senate floor are part of the Obama Administration’s “Regulatory Cliff”. This refers to the many sizeable regulations made by the Obama Administration. These regulations are most often on businesses, large and small.
“The president quipped in his State of the Union address last February that he had issued fewer rules in his first three years than did his predecessor in a comparable period. Although technically correct, the president’s numbers omit the most important factor: cost. According Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, President Obama issued 953 “major regulations” in his first three years, while President George W. Bush issued 30 such regulations during the similar period. According to the federal government, 3,807 new final rules were issued in 2011, and 4,128 more rules are now in the pipeline. Take just one agency, the EPA. In 2010, EPA rules accounted for $23 billion in federal regulatory costs. Once just a peripheral source of pesky but absorbable costs, the EPA is now Ground Zero for regulatory damage. Seven of the ten House bills now in Senate limbo aim to restrain the EPA.”
The Environmental Protection Agency puts strains on business, especially big moneymaking ones like the oil and natural gas industry. Their regulations on business are pushed in the lawmaking process. Likewise, lawmakers and business fight to regulate and limit EPA regulations. It is an ongoing battle that has left many bills open or expired without any foreseeable motion forwards. The EPA and those opposing them are not entirely to blame regarding these hold ups. The real issue is a divided two party system where people are unwilling to find compromise. Lawmakers seem to struggle finding a way to represent their parties, affiliations, and citizens. This doesn’t even include their own personal beliefs. At the end of the day, the “Regulatory Cliff” ought to be balanced between those that put it out there, and those who are refusing to work with it.
Read the original article here.