The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fought President Obama tooth-and-nail on his vast legislative push during the last two years, helped Republicans win back the House and put Speaker John Boehner between the president and any new law.
Now, as Obama is poised to advance an agenda that includes unilateral global warming regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency and, critics fear, a version of union-promoting “card check” by administrative fiat, Chamber President Tom Donohue is vowing war on Obama’s “regulatory tsunami.”
“In recent years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new regulatory activity,” Donohue said in his annual “State of American Business” speech, this “regulatory tsunami poses, in our view, the single biggest challenge to jobs, our global competitiveness and the future of American enterprise.
The challenge from Donohue to Obama is crucial because key battles over health care, climate change, unions, education and other issues are expected to be waged at myriad federal agencies under Obama’s control in the next two years.
Donohue is urging foundational changes to how regulations are enacted by the government, saying federal agencies such as EPA should have a higher “burden of proof” to demonstrate in court when defending their strict new rules.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, federal agencies must demonstrate their regulations are not “arbitrary or capricious,” which means they must follow some rationale and not be impulsive or fickle.
The standard offers considerable discretion when regulations are reviewed in court.
But changing it would be a heavy lift on Capitol Hill and almost surely face a veto by the president.
Donohue said changes to the regulations implementing Obamacare are the Chamber’s most urgent priority for change.
“The new health-care law creates 159 new agencies, commissions, panels and other bodies,” he said. “We see the upcoming House vote [on repeal] as an opportunity for everyone to take a fresh look at health-care reform.”
On the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, Donohue cited the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as his top concern.
“We are particularly concerned that” the new agency “not use its broad authority in ways that deny small businesses and consumers the credit and financial products they need,” he said.
Regarding the regulatory agencies that govern labor and workplace regulations, Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, warned at a press conference after the speech the Department of Labor is discussing union-promoting “card check” by administrative fiat.
One proposal would allow workers to unionize by voting on the Internet, which Josten said would prevent companies from informing workers about the consequences of unionizing.
To execute the war on Obama’s regulations, Donohue said the Chamber would “soon stand up a new group that will engage one or more respected advocates of stature and experience in the regulatory arena. This group will continually tell the story to the American people, policymakers and the media about the massive costs of excessive regulations on jobs and on our personal and economic freedoms.”