The CRA’s Carryover Period Ends, Taking the GOP’s Favorite Corporate Payback Scheme Off the Table
May 11, 2017
The CRA’s Carryover Period Ends, Taking the GOP’s Favorite Corporate Payback Scheme Off the Table
Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen
Note: Public Citizen led the fight against use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and has several experts available to comment. Please contact us to speak with them. Visit RulesAtRisk.org to learn more about the CRA..
When the U.S. Senate adjourned today, the CRA’s carryover period officially ended. Since January, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have used the CRA’s expedited procedures to wipe out 14 public protections – safeguards that took years of resource-intensive analysis, public comment and painstaking review to develop. This unprecedented rush of regulatory reversals came at the behest of corporate interests that spent more than $1 billion to get their way in Congress.
The CRA is nothing more than a crass corporate payback scheme, and Americans are on to the game. Witness the defeat of the effort to overturn the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s methane waste limits and the mass outcry after the repeal of broadband privacy protections.
After today, the threat to our system of regulatory protections will continue in the form of big business-backed legislation such as the Regulatory Accountability Act, executive orders and deregulatory initiatives at various agencies. But the Trump administration and congressional Republicans should be prepared at every turn to meet a mobilized public that has no intention of permitting Trump and Congress to trash health, safety, environmental and financial safeguards for the purpose of goosing corporate profits.
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