House Should Reject the Regulatory Accountability Act, Which Endangers the Public
Statements From Coalition for Sensible Safeguards Leaders
Jan. 11, 2017
Contact: Michell McIntyre, mmcintyre@citizen.org, (202) 454-5156
Rachel Weintraub, rweintraub@consumerfed.org, (202) 939-1012
Robert Verchick, rverchick@progressivereform.org, (504) 352-2397
Ross Eisenbrey, reisenbrey@epi.org, (202) 775-8810
Scott Slesinger, sslesinger@nrdc.org, (202) 289-2402
Yogin Kothari, ykothari@ucsusa.org, (202) 331-5665
David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org, (202) 588-7742
WASHINGTON. D.C. – The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards is urging members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reject the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) of 2017 (H.R. 5).
The 2017 RAA is far worse than previous, devastatingly harmful versions of the bill because it resurrects and includes half a dozen major anti-regulatory measures from the 114th Congress: the Regulatory Accountability Act, the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act, the REVIEW Act, the ALERT Act, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act and the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.
Visit our website for more details about the various components of the bill. Below are statements from the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards leadership:
“The RAA really should be called the Regulatory ‘Paralysis’ Act since its purpose is to infuse so much delay into the rulemaking process that it comes screeching to a halt. Delay creates the regulatory uncertainty that many business spokespeople denounce and means that lives are needlessly lost, injuries are needlessly suffered and consumer rip-offs continue. The House should reject this monstrosity.”
Robert Weissman, president, Public Citizen
“The RAA would handcuff all federal agencies in their efforts to protect Americans. Critically, the RAA would override important bipartisan laws that have been in effect for years, as well as more recently enacted laws to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive financial services, unsafe food and unsafe consumer products.”
Rachel Weintraub, legislative director and general counsel, Consumer Federation of America
“This bill has nothing to do with ‘accountability’ and everything to do with hobbling enforcement of landmark laws like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and more. Just days after being sworn in, Republicans who ran on a populist platform are sacrificing health, safety and the environment in service of corporate profit. The Trump assault on our safeguards is in high gear.”
Robert Verchick, president, Center for Progressive Reform
“This bill is cobbled together from a half-dozen bad ideas, any one of which would undermine our ability to protect the health and safety of Americans. Taken together, these provisions would make laws like the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act unenforceable, exposing millions to health risks in their communities and workplaces. Passing this destructive bill would eviscerate science-based policies all of us depend on – that’s not what Americans voted for.”
Andrew Rosenberg, director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists
“The RAA is a collection of the most misguided attempts to strangle federal regulation and weaken protections for workers, the safety of drinking water and the air we breathe. Thousands of workers die on the job every year and millions are injured; billions of dollars are stolen from workers’ wages by unscrupulous employers. The RAA takes the side of the corporate wrongdoers and says the federal government will do no more to prevent these abuses. The RAA is not what the American people want or need.”
Ross Eisenbrey, vice president, Economic Policy Institute Policy Center
“The RAA, along with the two bills the House passed last week, is an effort to destroy, not reform, our whole system of setting environmental and other standards. It would leave Americans unprotected, giving industry a free hand to pollute, damage health and engage in financial mischief. In addition, the RAA would rewrite bedrock environmental laws – including the Toxic Substances Control Act that Congress updated last year on a bipartisan basis – so that pollutants and toxins are no longer limited solely on the basis of what problems they cause to human health. Chairman Goodlatte failed miserably in his closed-door effort to gut ethics oversight. Now he’s trying to take away the public’s ability to hold corporations to account. Congress should defeat this bill.”
David Goldston, director of government affairs, Natural Resources Defense Council
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