Sam Berger: Trump’s Regulatory Accountability Act is a license to kill

  Don’t let the innocuous name fool you: The Regulatory Accountability Act recently introduced in the Senate is nothing less than President Donald Trump’s License to Kill Bill. Described as the means of realizing Steve Bannon’s dream to deconstruct the government, this bill is part of Trump’s two-step strategy to first strip people of important health, safety, and consumer protections and then prevent agencies from ever protecting people from these harms again. By hamstringing the dedicated public servants charged with ensuring everything from safe infant formula to clean drinking water to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, this bill would put corporate profits before people’s lives and livelihoods.

Joe Valenti: First prepaid cards, then the rest of your wallet

  The U.S. Congress has wasted no time rolling back Obama-era regulations affecting health, safety, and the environment, and Americans’ wallets may be next.

  Congress is expected to soon attempt a rollback of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, rule on prepaid debit cards used by millions of Americans. Through a once-obscure law known as the Congressional Review Act, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate can quickly vote to undo rules put in place by federal agencies and even block regulators from considering new ones.

Deregulation Nation: Congress wants to let corporations take charge

  The new congressional session is still in early days, but members have wasted no time laying the groundwork to give Congress and the courts unprecedented power to vitiate critical federal regulations and prevent new rule-making. This push is in line with President Donald Trump’s promise to cut 75 percent of government regulations, but it goes against the wishes of Americans, a majority of whom oppose lifting regulations on businesses and corporations.

  Yet on January 4, the House passed the first in a suite of legislative actions to this end: the so-called Midnight Rules Relief Act, which expands an existing law giving Congress the power to review and disapprove recent agency regulations. The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS, Act, and Regulatory Accountability Act, or RAA, which create new mechanisms for blocking new rule-making and overturning well-established rules, followed days later.