It was widely expected that congressional Republicans would use the GOP’s sweeping domestic policy bill to cut taxes, boost border security and slash federal spending. They’re also proposing to hand President Donald Trump a broad new swath of executive power.
A legislative draft released by the House Judiciary Committee Monday and set to be adopted at a committee meeting Wednesday would consolidate the federal government’s antitrust enforcement powers at the Justice Department, taking them away from the independent Federal Trade Commission. And it would also supercharge the GOP’s deregulatory agenda, allowing Republicans to potentially overturn reams of government regulations during the remainder of Trump’s term.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in a brief interview that his panel is determined to “address the cost of over-regulation.”
“Part of our jurisdiction in Judiciary deals with regulatory concerns,” he said, “and so we are looking at … spending and costs associated with certain regulations. That’s why that language is written the way it was.”
But the scope of the proposal is hardly modest. It includes a version of the REINS Act — short for “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny” — which has percolated inside the GOP for more than a decade.
Conservatives have long championed the proposal, which would essentially turn the federal regulatory process on its head: While Congress now has the opportunity to veto most agency rules, REINS would require Congress to affirmatively approve major new regulations.
Republicans are selling the measure as a way to check presidential power, not expand it. “It’s a reassertion of Article I authority that Congress constitutionally has and has long since forgotten,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), a lead co-sponsor of the bill.
But a key provision included in the bill would grant Trump sweeping powers to erase existing federal regulations from the books. It would task federal agencies with submitting portions of their rules to Congress for approval over a five-year period. Absent that approval, the rules would cease to have effect — in essence, fast-tracking Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
Critics of the REINS Act say it would significantly slow down the rulemaking process and allow partisan majorities in Congress to determine regulations rather than agency experts. Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Policy Committee, told POLITICO’s E&E News that Republicans are seeking to include it in the party-line megabill because it’s unlikely to get enough support otherwise.
“You’re having Congress basically involved in every agency decision,” Hern said. “It’s somewhat controversial, and if you look at it historically, I think that’s probably why it hasn’t passed.”
The inclusion of the measure in the Judiciary text means it’s likely that the House will finally enact this version of REINS as part of the larger domestic policy bill — considered a must-pass for the GOP. It’s less clear whether it will have sufficient support in the Senate, whose committees are expected to develop their own competing text in the coming months.
The budget blueprint for the megabill, finalized earlier this month, gave the Judiciary Committee authority to raise the federal budget deficit by $110 billion — a recognition of the panel’s role in overseeing costly immigration programs. Much of the new legislation’s text is devoted to a litany of new fees to be assessed on people interacting with the immigration system.
But the regulatory and antitrust proposals are riding along as Republican drafters hope to take advantage of the bill’s planned use of budget reconciliation — the party-line procedure allowing the GOP to sidestep a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The House, for instance, has passed iterations of the REINS Act four times, but filibuster threats have meant the Senate has never taken it up.
There are complications to using reconciliation — only policies that have a direct impact on the budget can be included. Cammack said Republicans spent eight months modifying the language of the REINS Act to accommodate those strictures, and under the House Judiciary bill, only rules that increase revenue would require congressional approval.
The other major non-immigration provision the panel included involves curtailing the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust enforcement powers by transferring its authority and employees to the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. It’s a change that has been supported by, among others, Elon Musk — a key Jordan ally. Jordan said in an interview he did not think he had spoken with Musk about the policy change but declined to provide details about their conversations.
Congress established the Federal Trade Commission more than a century ago to add an expert, bipartisan body to the federal government’s antitrust enforcement. Now the Justice Department and the FTC have overlapping authority over antitrust enforcement, but there are differences in their jurisdiction and how they enforce the laws.
The two entities have clearance processes to prevent conflicts, said John Newman, a former deputy director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition and trial attorney with the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. But if Congress erodes the FTC’s power, it could bolster Trump’s influence on antitrust enforcement, he argued.
“It’s much easier for the president to order the assistant attorney general to do or not do something,” Newman said.
Alvaro Bedoya, whom Trump fired as an FTC commissioner earlier this year and is now challenging his dismissal in court, said the House Judiciary plan would upend antitrust enforcement in an X post Monday.
“If you want to gut the agency who has shown itself willing to confront billionaire monopolists — and win — vote for this bill,” he wrote.
Kelsey Brugger, Hassan Kanu and Andres Picon contributed to this report.