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CSS Urges a No Vote on Murphy Amendment 11 to H.R. 1155

January 6, 2016 | Download PDF

Murphy Amendment 11 to H.R. 1155 would establish a new “regulatory review” commission composed of nine unelected “experts” which is funded at tax-payer expense and charged with the unbalanced mission of identifying duplicative or redundant regulations to repeal, while doing nothing to identify the numerous gaps, shortfalls, and outdated regulatory standards that leave the public vulnerable to the next public heath tragedy. The commission would itself be redundant and duplicative given the Executive Order 13563 adopted by President Obama that already requires federal agencies to identify and remove outdated or redundant regulations.  It also would waste federal resources and agency time, and essentially gives a commission a “blank check” to spend as many taxpayer dollars as it deems necessary to fulfill its unwise mission. Since the main goal is to find regulations that are costly to business that can be cut or gutted, the commission will have no incentive to strengthen rules.

The White House Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on H.R. 1155 also makes clear the White House’s strong opposition to this amendment. According to the SAP, “retrospective review is most effective when led by the agencies. The bill’s creation of a stand-alone commission to review the entire Code of Federal Regulations is likely to produce a haphazard list of rules that, under the procedures in the bill, must be repealed if approved by a joint resolution. There appears to be no mechanism for making thoughtful and modest modifications to rules to improve their implementation and enforcement, which is often the best course of action for making regulations work better.”

Bottom Line: American taxpayers are on the hook for a commission that doesn’t make us any safer, won’t prevent the next major environmental disaster or tainted food outbreak, and doesn’t create any jobs unless you count the Commission itself.

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The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards is an alliance of consumer, labor, scientific, research, good government, faith, community, health, environmental, and public interest groups, as well as concerned individuals, joined in the belief that our country’s system of regulatory safeguards provides a stable framework that secures our quality of life and paves the way for a sound economy that benefits us all.