House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday released the latest plank in the Republican Party’s “A Better Way” set of policy proposals, this one on strengthening the U.S. economy with an emphasis on culling unnecessary federal regulations.
“Regulations are important. They help protect our health, safety, and well-being, and provide firm rules for us to live by,” according to an introduction to the report. “But taken beyond their initial purpose – and to an extreme – regulations can stifle innovation and infringe on liberty.”
Regulations cost the nation $1.89 trillion in lost productivity and growth last year – the amount spent on meeting those rules, the report says. It cites regulations on coal-produced energy – in particular the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan – as particularly harmful.
“For its Clean Power Plan, EPA itself has estimated job losses up to 34,000 (the agency claims greater job gains elsewhere) in 2030,” the document says. “However, as of the end of last year utilities had already announced the retirement of 410 units in 37 states, representing nearly 67,000 megawatts (MW) of electric generating capacity closures attributable to EPA policies, suggesting greater job losses. Beyond the coal sector, the resultant higher energy costs reverberate throughout the economy and suppress yet more jobs.”
The Clean Power Plan, federal carbon emissions limits on existing coal-fired power plants, is central to the Obama administration’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the international Paris climate change agreement approved by nearly 200 nations last year. The plan is under a Supreme Court stay that will remain in place until a massive legal challenge against the rule is resolved.
The GOP’s proposal offers a number of ideas for limiting excess regulation, including mandating congressional approval for rules that would cost the U.S. economy in excess of $100 million annually, blocking federal government regulation in matters already viably addressed by states, and setting up an independent panel to search for obsolete regulations.
The “A Better Way” proposals are intended to lay out a policy direction going forward on issues of poverty, national security, the economy, the Constitution, healthcare, and tax reform, ahead of the hoped-for November election of Republican candidate Donald Trump as president.
The majority of the regulatory recommendations are already featured in GOP legislation and recommendations for curbing regulations from government branches including the EPA and Interior Department, according to Politico.
