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First Regulatory Streamlining Announced

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on August 23, 2011.

08-23-2011 by Linda S. Carbonell

Aerial view of the White House

Last fall, President Obama asked the Executive Branch departments to review regulations and suggest those that could be removed, streamlined, combined, or rewritten. Today, the administration unveiled a plan to cut back almost 500 regulations, which they say will save businesses up to $10 billion over the next ten years.

Naturally, the Chamber of Commerce and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the cuts weren’t enough. Cantor called them “underwhelming,” while Bill Kovacs, senior vice president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce said “The Administration’s findings and determinations, on their own, are a worthy effort at making technical changes to the regulatory process, but the results of this look-back will not have a material impact on the real regulatory burdens facing businesses today.”

Kovacs and business leaders are looking in the wrong direction, and Cantor doesn’t own a mirror. The vast majority of our regulations are a consequence of laws passed by Congress and can only by changed by Congress. The Executive branch is charged with creating means to enforce the laws that Congress passes, but has little power to remove most regulatory patterns. They can tweak the enforcement, but not void the laws.

The Republicans like to blame the President and act as though he and he alone has the power to regulate, but that’s disingenuous. It was Congress that passed laws for the inspection and regulation of food products, not the White House. It was Congress that passed environmental laws, not the White House. It was Congress that created OSHA and gave it mandates concerning specific areas where there was a need for safety protections for workers.

And that doesn’t even acknowledge the regulatory powers of the states. The Federal government does not regulate gambling, so the regulations that billionaire resort and casino owner Steve Wynn hates are actually Nevada’s regulations, not Federal ones. Except as pollution can cross state lines, it is the states that regulate the environment. It was necessary for New England states to sue Mid-Western states in Federal court to get any regulatory control of acid-rain producing air pollution coming eastward from the industries around the Great Lakes.

So, when Cantor and the Chamber of Commerce complain that the Fed should streamline permit processes and roll back environmental regulation, they are blowing smoke towards the faithful right wing who can’t be bothered to learn a few facts. The regulations they’re criticizing are primarily state regulations, not Federal.