House Introduces More than 1000 Bills by Valentine’s Day
Contrary to what you may have thought, members of the House of Representatives have been busy doing legislative work since the 115th Congress began on January 3rd. Members have introduced 1,028 unique pieces of legislation in about six weeks. The words “Fairness” and “Transparency” are remarkably prevalent in bill titles. Additionally, members have shown remarkable self-restraint in waiting until almost 300 bills had been introduced before wanting to name a new post office and nearly to 400 bills before naming a courthouse.
On a more serious note, in looking back at the first week of the 115th Congress, 10 of the first 100 bills to be introduced dealt with regulatory reform in some fashion and four of them, the Regulatory Accountability Act, the Midnight Rules Relief Act, the Regulations for the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments, passed the House and have been referred to the Senate for consideration. Others, such as the POWERS (Preventing Overreach Within the Executive Rulemaking System) Act, the REVIEW (Require Evaluation before Implementing Executive Wishlists) Act, Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, and the One In, One Out Act (predates President Trump’s One In, Two Out Executive Order) have all been introduced and referred to appropriate Committees but have not seen further activity, as yet.
EPA and SDWA are also subjects of early legislative action. Beginning with a bill to amend the SDWA to require improvement of Consumer Confidence Reports, several bills speak to stopping EPA overreach (but only in air programs), stopping EPA’s overregulation of rural Americans (dealing with residential wood heater rules), and outright termination of the Agency and elimination of regional offices and all grant programs. The SDWA is also affected by measures that would delete Davis-Bacon provisions, develop a National Infrastructure Development Bank, and amend provisions to extend and expand requirements for use of American iron and steel in all projects funded through the DWSRF.
It is not clear at this time which of these bills will gain momentum and move all the way through Congress to the President’s desk for signature. Many of such bills get introduced only as a symbolic gesture by the individual member of Congress. One may view these and other legislative actions taken thus far by the House at Congress.gov.