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An attempt to stop over regulation.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has passed Sen. Rand Pauls (R-KY) Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which means it will finally proceed to the Senate floor.

This is a major victory for us who despise too much regulation. From Reason:

Sponsored by Sen. Ran Paul (R-Kentucky), the REINS Act would require every new regulation that costs more than $100 million to be approved by Congress. As it is now, executive branch agencies can pass those rules unilaterally, and even though those major rules account for only 3 percent of annual regulations, they are the ones that cause the most headaches for individuals and businesses.

Passage of the REINS Act would also require Congress to review all existing regulations that surpass the $100 million threshold. Since theres no clear accounting of how many such rules exist, assessing the landscape would be a necessary step before reforms could be enacted.

Pauls office released this statement to celebrate the passage of the bill:

For too long, an ever-growing federal bureaucracy has piled regulations and red tape on the backs of the American people without any approval by Americans elected representatives, said Dr. Paul. The REINS Act reasserts Congress legislative authority and would continue the historic progress we have made this year to curb the damaging effects of overreaching regulations.

Dr. Pauls REINS Act would rein in unelected federal bureaucrats by requiring that Congress affirmatively approve every new major rule proposed by the Executive Branch before it can be enforced on the American people.

A major rule is defined as any federal rule or regulation that may result in 1.) an annual economic impact of $100 million or more, 2.) a major increase in costs or prices for American consumers, or 3.) significant adverse effects on the economy.

Paul introduced the bill back in January and received 26 cosponsors. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) signed on since he witnessed how regulatory overreach can stifle our local economies and cost American jobs since his father owns a small business. Young introduced a similar bill as a representative in the House back in 2015.

Young has also used the bill as a way to persuade Democrats that the REINS Act could also stop President Donald Trump from gaining too much power. From The Washington Examiner:

We need to reassert our prerogative as the legislative branch, the freshly minted senator told the Washington Examiner, whether we happen to have a Republican or a Democrat president in the White House at any given moment in time.

That might not be that tough of a sell when Democrats consider the possibility of President-elect Trump using an administrative army to shut out Congress. For the minority party, the idea of the president-elect governing by pen and phone cant be comforting.

Original post:
Rand Paul's REINS Act Heads to Senate Floor - legal Insurrection (blog)

Conservative Review

Rand Paul: House bill didn't repeal Obamacare; Senate CAN Conservative Review J., that would allow states to apply for waivers from Obamacare regulations still well short of the promised full repeal. Sen. Rand Paul hopes that the Senate version of healthcare reform will look more like a full repeal of Obamacare reforming ... Ted Cruz And Rand Paul Urge Republican Senate To End Obamacare By Going NuclearThe Liberty Conservative Capitol Hill Healthcare UpdateJD Supra (press release) Senate GOP warms to larger insurance subsidies for older and low-income peopleThe Hill Bloomberg all 259 news articles »

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Rand Paul: House bill didn't repeal Obamacare; Senate CAN - Conservative Review

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul acknowledged gettingthe Trump administration on board with criminal justice reforms will be an uphill battle on a call with reporters Wednesday.

Paul recently introduced bipartisan legislation dubbed the Justice Safety Valve Act along with Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, which would allow federal judges to sidestepmandatory minimums in certain cases.

The legislation directly conflicts with a memo Attorney General Jeff Sessionsreleased Fridaycalling for judges to imposes the strictest penaltieson nonviolent drug offenders.

Paul and Leahy have long fought for reforms to mandatoryminimum sentencing, working unsuccessfully to secure permanent changes during the Obama administration.

We havent lost interest in it, we just will have a little bit of an uphill battle getting this administration but I dont think its impossible, Paul told reporters. Ive heard there are members that are interested in it in the administration, but the administration is not unified in being for criminal justice reform. But we havent given up on him, and we have to get across that this is not a Republican or a Democratic idea.

Leahy echoed Pauls sentiment, adding he believes the current system is creating unnecessary federal expenses and is taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

We have to we have to get across that this is not a Republican or a Democratic idea, this is a commonsense idea, hesaid on the call. And what Im trying to do is get a number of people who served in law enforcement as I have to join on this.

The lawmakers said they think they have a better shot at accomplishing reforms though the legislative branch than pushing for changes in the executive branch.

We are having conversations with people who we think are sympathetic in the administration. I dont think particularly the attorney general is that sympathetic and really it surprised me a little bit in how aggressively hes going in the opposite direction, Paul continued. So we will do what we can with the administration, but I think if we could get something that made it out of the Senate in a bipartisan way I think there would be a reasonable chance we could get the president on board.

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Rand Paul: We Face An Uphill Battle Getting Administration On Board With Criminal Justice Reform - The Daily Caller

Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Press/NewscomA Senate committee vote on Wednesday is a new high water mark for a long-sought-after regulatory reform proposal. Further progress, though, might be unlikely.

The U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the REINS Act (the acronym stands for "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny"), sending the bill to the Senate floor for the first time. While the REINS Act has cleared the House several times in recent yearsmost recently in Januarythis is the first time the proposal has been approved by a vote of any kind in the Senate.

Sponsored by Sen. Ran Paul (R-Kentucky), the REINS Act would require every new regulation that costs more than $100 million to be approved by Congress. As it is now, executive branch agencies can pass those rules unilaterally, and even though those major rules account for only 3 percent of annual regulations, they are the ones that cause the most headaches for individuals and businesses.

Passage of the REINS Act would also require Congress to review all existing regulations that surpass the $100 million threshold. Since there's no clear accounting of how many such rules exist, assessing the landscape would be a necessary step before reforms could be enacted.

"For too long, an ever-growing federal bureaucracy has piled regulations and red tape on the backs of the American people without any approval by Americans' elected representatives," Paul said in a statement Wednesday. "The REINS Act reasserts Congress' legislative authority and would continue the historic progress we have made this year to curb the damaging effects of overreaching regulations."

While the committee vote is a win for the legislation, another bill also approved by the same committee on Wednesday is a more likely vehicle for regulatory reforms this year. Clyde Wayne Crews, the vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank that favors regulatory reform, tells Reason that he doesn't expect a floor vote on Paul's bill this yearthough he admits it's difficult to predict anything in Washington.

Still, regulatory reformers have hope in the form of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would codify several executive branch mandates requiring cost/benefit analyses on new rules. It would also require executive agencies to do more after-the-fact reviews of the consequences of their regulations and would apply the same cost/benefit measures to things that aren't technically regulations but do much of the same thing, like when the FAA issues "guidance" on drone rules, for example.

The Regulatory Accountability Act does not go as far as the REINS Act, but "it helps pave the way for more substantial reforms in the future," says Crews.

What of President Donald Trump's promise to reshape the federal regulatory stateto bring about the "deconstruction of the regulatory state," as White House adviser Steve Bannon promised in March?

"It's not that," says Crews. "The administrative state will be just fine. It won't solve every problem, but it might allow our descendants to do so."

With Congress likely to spend the next several months on hearings concerned with the firing of James Comey and other hearings seeking to find his replacement as director of the FBI, the entire legislative agenda for 2017 has been disrupted. Health care and tax reform will likely be pushed off until the fall, and the federal budget still has to be passed too.

In that environment, getting the REINS Act to the floor of the Senate might be a bigger accomplishment than it initially seems, even if it moves no farther.

Go here to see the original:
Rand Paul's REINS Act Finally Makes It to Senate Floor - Reason (blog)

Friday's order by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for federal prosecutors to pursue maximum sentences on drug crimes drew a swift rebuke from the most libertarian member of the United States Senate, Rand Paul (R-Kentucky):

Paul expanded on those comments in a CNN op-ed yesterday:

Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated a generation of minorities. Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Obama, issued guidelines to U.S. Attorneys that they should refrain from seeking long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

I agreed with him then and still do. In fact, I'm the author of a bipartisan bill with Senator Leahy to change the law on this matter. Until we pass that bill, though, the discretion on enforcement -- and the lives of many young drug offenders -- lies with the current attorney general. []

I urge the attorney general to reconsider his recent action. But even more importantly, I urge my colleagues to consider bipartisan legislation to fix this problem in the law where it should be handled. Congress can end this injustice, and I look forward to leading this fight for justice.

Important words. But the first response to Paul's original tweet is worth considering as well, summing up as it did what many libertarians were feeling:

Paul's answer to such criticism at the time was fourfold: 1) Sessions affirmed to him that the president has no right to drone non-combative Americans to death on U.S. soil; 2) the A.G. "agrees with the president" on law-enforcement issues, and therefore so would any potential replacement nomination; and anyways 3) "Democrats made it much more certain that I would vote for him by trying to destroy his character," so therefore 4) "if people want to apply a purity test to me they're more than welcome, but I would suggest that maybe they spend some of their time on the other 99 less libertarian senators."

But in an interview at Rare yesterday with his former employee and co-author Jack Hunter, Paul unveiled another reason for his vote:

"I spoke with Sessions last when he was up for nomination, which makes this move by him even more disappointing now, because it was different from what I was led to believe," Paul said via phone, indicating that at Sessions' confirmation, the senator walked away believing the new attorney general would not be pursuing this issue.

Seeing as how Sessions' drug-related punishment notions were of primary concern to Paul's fellow civil libertarians (here's just a sampling of Reason writing on the issue: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), it would have been nice to know then what he had been misled to believe. One hopes that the skeptical senator will now cease granting the benefit of the doubt to Trump nominees for, say, FBI director. At any rate this paraphrase from the Rare interview sounds preliminarily positive:

Paul said that in addition to the legislation he has sponsored with Sen. Leahy, he has been talking with Republican Senator Mike Lee and also Democratic Senators Corey Booker and Kamala Harris on other ways to diminish the damage done by these federal laws.

Listen to Nick Gillespie's December interview with Rand Paul at this link.

Link:
Rand Paul: Sessions Misled Me on Drug Sentencing - Reason (blog)