Congresswoman Kristi Noem’s Weekly Column: Regulatory Rollback

Regulatory Rollback
By Rep. Kristi Noem

The number of regulations coming out of Washington has plummeted under President Trump, providing much-needed relief to South Dakotans who have had to carry the burden of the Obama administration’s eight-year regulatory onslaught. In fact, between Inauguration Day and the end of May, the Trump administration has approved just 15 major rules, compared to 93 during the same period under President Obama.

At the same time, Republicans across the Executive and Legislative branches have worked together to repeal or delay more than 90 Obama-era regulations.  The administration has halted the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. proposal, for example, which would have been one of the largest federal land grabs in U.S. history.  We’ve also seen President Obama’s greenhouse gas regulations rolled back, which even he admitted would “necessarily skyrocket” costs for families.

Now more than ever, the federal government is trying to get out of your way.

I’ve worked to make sure Congress does its part as well. Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has the power to repeal certain regulations. While it’s only been used successfully once before, this Congress has gotten 14 Congressional Review Act resolutions signed into law, saving $3.7 billion in regulatory costs and 4.2 million hours of paperwork.

And our work continues.

In January, the House passed the REINS Act, a bill I cosponsored to stop the overreach of federal regulators. If enacted, any regulation with an economic impact of over $100 million would need to be approved by Congress through an up-or-down vote.  If this law was in effect for President Obama, more than 500 regulations would have been subject to a vote in Congress. The legislation is now on the Senate’s doorstep.

Then, earlier this month, we provided relief from the Obama administration’s Dodd-Frank Act. In 2010, President Obama led a 2,300-page rewrite of America’s financial laws. The legislation included more regulations than all other Obama-era regulations combined.  As a result, we’ve seen the “too big to fail” banks – who can afford the paperwork and expensive lawyers needed to navigate this regulatory maze – get bigger, while smaller financial institutions that had no part in the 2008 economic collapse have struggled.  In fact, in the wake of Dodd-Frank, we’re losing one community bank or credit union per day nationwide.

Instead of one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best regulations, we imposed the toughest penalties in history for financial fraud and ensured taxpayers won’t be on the hook for more big bank bailouts.  Additionally, we restructured the unconstitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and repealed the Labor Department’s controversial fiduciary rule, which put new costs on retirees and limited their choices.  Finally, the legislation demands greater accountability and transparency from federal regulators by, among other things, forcing them to come to Congress for approval on all major regulations.

There is a lot that needs to be done to clean up Washington and eliminate the burdens it places on the American people. But by repealing unnecessary regulations and stopping bureaucrats from imposing additional burdens, it may be what Washington isn’t doing that is producing the most good for South Dakota.

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