Newsroom

May 17, 2017

Senate committee approves NAFCU-backed reg relief bills

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved several NAFCU-supported bills that would affect how federal agencies write regulations, in turn providing regulatory relief to credit unions and other financial institutions.

The Regulatory Accountability Act (S. 951), introduced by Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, passed the committee with Heitkamp as the only Democrat supporting the bill. This legislation would require a cost-benefit analysis for every new regulation, establish a 10-year review period for major rules and subject costly rules to a judicial review process.

The committee yesterday also approved:

  • the Midnight Rules Relief Act (S. 34), which would give the Senate the power to vote to disapprove rules in bulk under the Congressional Review Act;
  • the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (S. 21), which would require that major rules (as defined by the bill) be approved by Congress before they are enacted;
  • the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act (S. 584), which would require agencies to provide detailed analyses of impacts in both proposed and final rules, including estimates of cumulative economic impacts; and
  • the Early Participation in Regulations Act (S. 579), which would require advanced notice of major rulemaking for administrative rules.

The House passed its versions of the NAFCU-supported Regulatory Accountability Act and REINS Act in January.