A moment with the congressman
Congress must provide oversight of executive overreach
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to overturn some of the Obama Administration’s most onerous rules and regulations using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) as a check on an overzealous executive branch. This law is so important that when it was originally proposed in 1996, it received overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton.
The Congressional Review Act gives Congress oversight of federal agencies, allowing lawmakers to ensure these agencies are issuing rules and regulations that serve to adequately enforce laws written by Congress, not to add to or contravene them. If Congress believes a federal agency has overstepped its bounds, it has 60 legislative days from when the final rule or regulation was issued to pass a joint resolution of disapproval. Once passed by a simple majority of Congress, this joint resolution must be signed by the President to overturn the rule or regulation.
One of the first rules the House voted to overturn was the innocuously named Stream Protection Rule, which does far more damage than good. During the writing process, the Department of the Interior shut out the cooperating state agencies, which are actually responsible for enforcing coal industry regulations and overseeing 97 percent of U.S. coal mines, barring them from providing their input and expertise. The department ignored its existing regulations, which its very own reports found had prevented virtually all off-site impacts from coal mines and were successful in restoring mining sites to their pre-mining condition.
This non-transparent rule would deal a death blow to Ohio’s coal industry. It would increase energy costs for Ohio, which gets 59 percent of its energy from coal, and would destroy thousands of jobs. As a co-sponsor of this resolution, I voted to disapprove of this rule.
I also cosponsored and voted for a resolution to disapprove a rule that stigmatized and targeted Americans with mental health issues. Last December, the Social Security Administration finalized a rule that would submit the names of millions of disability beneficiaries to the National Instant Background Check System. This rule targeted individuals who received Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income based on their mental health condition or who had someone else managing their benefits.
Unfortunately, the rule does not allow for any meaningful due process protections, automatically treating individuals as a danger to public safety even though there is no data to suggest a link between gun violence and having the inability to manage money. Additionally, it is so broadly written that individuals with a mental health disorder like an eating disorder would have their Second Amendment rights denied to them.
It is no wonder that a diverse coalition of mental health advocacy groups spoke out in opposition to the rule. The American Association of People with Disabilities said the rule is “replete with inaccurate stereotyping of people with mental disabilities as violent and dangerous.” Other organizations supporting this CRA include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Council on Disability.
In order to prevent harmful regulations from being put forward by the executive branch, I joined my colleagues in voting for the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017 that passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. This important legislation would require Congress to vote in approval of any major rule that would have an annual economic impact of more than $100 million. Additionally, this legislation would require federal agencies to submit reports to Congress on the cost-benefit analysis of all rules prior to taking effect.
As your Member of Congress, I am committed to providing strong oversight regarding executive overreach. Our founders fashioned a government consisting of three co-equal branches with the power to check and balance one another. As such, I will always vote to preserve the authority of the legislative branch, the branch of the U.S. government that is closest to the people of northeast Ohio.
The Congressional Review Act gives Congress oversight of federal agencies, allowing lawmakers to ensure these agencies are issuing rules and regulations that serve to adequately enforce laws written by Congress, not to add to or contravene them. If Congress believes a federal agency has overstepped its bounds, it has 60 legislative days from when the final rule or regulation was issued to pass a joint resolution of disapproval. Once passed by a simple majority of Congress, this joint resolution must be signed by the President to overturn the rule or regulation.
One of the first rules the House voted to overturn was the innocuously named Stream Protection Rule, which does far more damage than good. During the writing process, the Department of the Interior shut out the cooperating state agencies, which are actually responsible for enforcing coal industry regulations and overseeing 97 percent of U.S. coal mines, barring them from providing their input and expertise. The department ignored its existing regulations, which its very own reports found had prevented virtually all off-site impacts from coal mines and were successful in restoring mining sites to their pre-mining condition.
This non-transparent rule would deal a death blow to Ohio’s coal industry. It would increase energy costs for Ohio, which gets 59 percent of its energy from coal, and would destroy thousands of jobs. As a co-sponsor of this resolution, I voted to disapprove of this rule.
I also cosponsored and voted for a resolution to disapprove a rule that stigmatized and targeted Americans with mental health issues. Last December, the Social Security Administration finalized a rule that would submit the names of millions of disability beneficiaries to the National Instant Background Check System. This rule targeted individuals who received Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income based on their mental health condition or who had someone else managing their benefits.
Unfortunately, the rule does not allow for any meaningful due process protections, automatically treating individuals as a danger to public safety even though there is no data to suggest a link between gun violence and having the inability to manage money. Additionally, it is so broadly written that individuals with a mental health disorder like an eating disorder would have their Second Amendment rights denied to them.
It is no wonder that a diverse coalition of mental health advocacy groups spoke out in opposition to the rule. The American Association of People with Disabilities said the rule is “replete with inaccurate stereotyping of people with mental disabilities as violent and dangerous.” Other organizations supporting this CRA include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Council on Disability.
In order to prevent harmful regulations from being put forward by the executive branch, I joined my colleagues in voting for the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017 that passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. This important legislation would require Congress to vote in approval of any major rule that would have an annual economic impact of more than $100 million. Additionally, this legislation would require federal agencies to submit reports to Congress on the cost-benefit analysis of all rules prior to taking effect.
As your Member of Congress, I am committed to providing strong oversight regarding executive overreach. Our founders fashioned a government consisting of three co-equal branches with the power to check and balance one another. As such, I will always vote to preserve the authority of the legislative branch, the branch of the U.S. government that is closest to the people of northeast Ohio.