Online: | |
Visits: | |
Stories: |
November 28 2016
Federal agencies are rushing out a final volley of executive actions in the last two months of Barack Obama’s presidency. This comes despite warnings from Republicans in Congress and the reality that Donald Trump will have the power to erase much of their handiwork after Jan. 20. #Regulations on commodities speculation, air pollution from the oil industry, doctors’ Medicare drug payments and high-skilled immigrant workers are among the rules moving through the #pipeline. Also moving ahead are negotiations on an investment treaty with China and decisions by the Education Department on whether to offer debt relief to students at defunct for-profit colleges. This is all coming as the #Obama administration grasps at one last chance to cement his “legacy”.
Obama’s legacy?! Yes, he promised to change America and he sure as hell changed it alright. To hell with his so-called ‘legacy’! Narcissistic egomaniac!
From The Christian Truther
From Wochit News
#obamalegacy #narcissisticegomaniac
But in Congress, Republicans are warning them to stop and are preparing to repeal those regulations en masse.
By BOB KING and NICK JULIANO
Federal agencies are rushing out a final volley of executive actions in the last two months of Barack Obama’s presidency, despite warnings from Republicans in Congress and the reality that Donald Trump will have the power to erase much of their handiwork after Jan. 20.
Regulations on commodities speculation, air pollution from the oil industry, doctors’ Medicare drug payments and high-skilled immigrant workers are among the rules moving through the pipeline as Obama’s administration grasps at one last chance to cement his legacy. So are regulations tightening states’ oversight of online colleges and protecting funding for Planned Parenthood.
Some agencies are pulling back, fearful that Trump and the GOP-led Congress will use a seldom-invoked legislative tool to permanently wipe out their 11th-hour regulations. For example, the Interior Department has failed to release a long-awaited rule to protect streams from coal mining pollution — and indications are it might never issue it.
But other agencies have signaled full steam ahead despite the threat of Republicans consigning their work to oblivion, in a dynamic that will be crucial to deciding how much of Obama’s legacy survives the ascendant Trump era.
“As I’ve mentioned to you before, we’re running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama’s presidency,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy wrote agency employees the day after the Nov. 8 election. “Thank you for taking that run with me. I’m looking forward to all the progress that still lies ahead.”
As many as 98 final regulations under review at the White House as of Nov. 15 could be implemented before Trump takes office. Seventeen regulations awaiting final approval are considered “economically significant,” with an estimated economic impact of at least $100 million a year.
Miffed congressional leaders are warning the agencies to halt their work on so-called midnight regulations, specifically objecting to Obama’s call earlier this year for “audacious executive action.” In a letter to agency heads on Nov. 15, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and every House committee chairman cautioned them “against finalizing pending rules or regulations in the Administration’s last days.”
“Should you ignore this counsel, please be aware that we will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes your actions — and, if appropriate, overturns them.”
Trump has promised to wipe out as much of Obama’s regulatory agenda as he can, saying he will cancel “all illegal and overreaching executive orders” and eliminate “every wasteful and unnecessary regulation which kills jobs.”
One powerful weapon at Republicans’ disposal is the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that essentially allows lawmakers and the president to impose a death penalty on regulations they oppose. Come January, Congress can use the law to repeal any rule that an agency finished after this past May 30, using simple-majority votes — and afterward, agencies will be forbidden to enact any regulation that is “substantially the same.”
Republicans are seeking to make that tool even more powerful by pushing legislation allowing Congress to repeal bunches of regulations en masse instead of one at a time. Some GOP lawmakers are compiling lists of 100 regulations they’d like to kill in the first 100 days, POLITICO reported last week — lists that would include already-completed rules as well as those Obama’s agencies are completing in their year-end sprint.
Hopefully the Senate will stop him. If not hopefully Trump can reverse most of the damage he has done to our, not his, country…