Washington, DC – During the first weeks of the 115th Congress, Republicans are choosing to prioritize a series of anti-regulation bills that would empower Republicans to strip critical protections away from Americans. H.R. 5, the so-called Regulatory Accountability Act, would grind the rulemaking system to a halt while inviting regulatory capture through increased input from corporate interests, waste agency resources and taxpayer dollars, and do nothing to directly help small businesses. In doing so, H.R. 5 would seriously undermine critical protections across every regulated industry, including consumers’ health and product safety, environmental protections, workplace safety, and consumer financial protections.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Ranking Member Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. (D-GA) today released the following statements:
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| Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives John Conyers, Jr. |
“Instead of wasting time on bad solutions for non-existent problems, we should be working tirelessly across party lines to find solutions to crushing student loan debt, gun violence, unemployment and stagnant wages,” said Conyers. “Unfortunately, House Republicans refuse to work on a bipartisan basis to reduce barriers to employment, even in the context of their anti-regulatory legislation. These same Republicans also refuse to work with Democrats on commonsense amendments to their legislation that would ensure that protections that create jobs and ensure the safety of our food, water and air are not undermined.”
Conyers continued, “Instead of working to support corporate interests through the GOP anti-regulatory agenda, Congress must focus on finding real solutions to real problems facing the nation, such as middle-class economic opportunity, gun violence prevention, the erosion of voting rights, and growing economic inequality.”
“Once again, House Republicans' only ideas for growing the economy and creating jobs is to endanger countless regulatory protections under the guise of a so-called ‘jobs bill.’ They choose to ignore the fact that 15.6 million private sector jobs were created under the robust regulatory environment under the Obama administration,” said Johnson. “According to a recent Bloomberg report, only 0.3 percent of jobs eliminated last year were due to government regulation, far less than those lost due to other factors such as outsourcing and automation.”
On the House Judiciary Committee alone, House Republicans have held 33 anti-regulation hearings since the start of the 112th Congress, but not a single hearing in the 114th or 115thCongress on:
- Gun violence;
- Voting rights;
- The impact of overwhelming student loan debt on families and the economy;
- The mortgage foreclosure crisis, which still is hampering the economic recovery of millions of American families; or
- How we can better help struggling American families regain their financial stability.
A full fact sheet on H.R. 5 and the GOP Big Business Agenda is below.
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