Congress Must Reject REINS-Like Amendments to Funding Bills

For Immediate Release: Sept. 19, 2023

Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress should oppose amendments to the FY 2024 spending bills that include harmful REINS-like provisions designed to thwart new regulatory protections, 26 groups in the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards and allied organizations said today in a letter to Congress.

Senate Amendments 1121, 1126, 1128, and 1142 to the FY 24 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act incorporate provisions from the REINS Act of 2023 (H.R. 277). These amendments leverage congressional inaction and dysfunction to thwart the most beneficial public protections by requiring Congress to approve them before they can take effect.

Agencies such as the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and others would be unable to enforce a rule with a large economic impact unless both chambers of Congress affirmatively approved it. In addition, agencies’ non-controversial rules would be subject to new unnecessary delays and potentially even blocked from being finalized.

“These amendments establish a dangerous precedent: they target a specific body of rules, both past and future, and create convoluted congressional procedures to thwart the implementation of such rules,” the letter reads. “It is also dangerous and unacceptable to attempt to smuggle in policies this extreme and harmful as obscure amendments to an appropriations bill.”