WASHINGTON – Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on a bipartisan basis Wednesday to approve four bills that reform the regulatory process.
These bills are the first step toward increasing accountability and improving the quality of the regulatory process. Taken together, these bills address gaps among agencies in the requirement to do cost-benefit and other analyses and to build automatic lookback procedures so that regulations are reviewed after several years. Further, the reforms address deficiencies in the rulemaking process aimed at improving the quality of regulatory analysis, making more uniform these analysis requirements across all agencies, and codifying smart regulation principles that have been supported by Democratic and Republican administrations for over two decades.
“This legislation was the result of hard work by the members of the committee to find areas of agreement and show a willingness to compromise,” Johnson said of the reforms.
The committee also approved seven other bills unanimously, including the Fair Chance Act, legislation that would give an opportunity to formerly incarcerated individuals to have a fair chance at employment. Also approved was legislation to reduce government waste, increase accountability and help protect the nation’s borders.
“The committee’s work today exemplifies the type of incremental, continuous improvement approach that the committee has emphasized this congress,” Johnson said. He thanked Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) for contributing to such an approach.
The bills that were reported favorably to the full Senate were:
- S. 1607, Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act of 2015, as amended by a Portman substitute
- S. 1818, Principled Rulemaking Act of 2015, as amended by a Lankford/Heitkamp/Ayotte substitute
- S. 1820, Early Participation in Regulations Act of 2015, as amended by a Lankford/Heitkamp/Ayotte substitute
- S. 1817, Smarter Regs Act of 2015, as amended by a Heitkamp/Lankford substitute
- S. 2109, Directing Dollars to Disaster Relief Act of 2015, as amended by a Johnson substitute
- S. 1873, Border Security Technology Accountability Act of 2015, as amended by a McCain substitute
- S. 2128, Inspector General Mandates Reporting Act of 2015
- S. 2133, Fraud Reduction and Data Analytics Act of 2015
- S. 2021, Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act, as amended by a Johnson/Booker substitute, as thrice modified
- S. 2093, a bill to provide that the Secretary of Transportation shall have sole authority to appoint federal directors to the board of directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
- H.R. 998, Preclearance Authorization Act of 2015, as amended by a Johnson substitute, as twice modified
- H.R. 322, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 16105 Swingley Ridge Road in Chesterfield, Mo., as the “Sgt. Zachary M. Fisher Post Office”
- H.R. 323, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 55 Grasso Plaza in St. Louis, Mo., as the “Sgt. Amanda N. Pinson Post Office”
- H.R. 324, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 11662 Gravois Road in St. Louis, Mo., as the “Lt. Daniel P. Riordan Post Office”
- H.R. 558, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 55 S. Pioneer Blvd. in Springboro, Ohio, as the “Richard ‘Dick’ Chenault Post Office Building”
- H.R. 1442, to designated the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 90 Cornell St. in Kingston, N.Y., as the “Staff Sergeant Robert H. Dietz Post Office Building”
- H.R. 1884, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 206 W. Commercial Street in East Rochester, N.Y., as the “Officer Daryl R. Pierson Memorial Post Office Building”
- H.R. 3059, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4500 SE 28th St., Del City, Okla., as the “James Robert Kalsu Post Office Building”
Chairman Johnson’s opening statement can be viewed here.
The full business meeting can be viewed here.