Midnight Rules Relief Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 77, the so-called Midnight Rules Relief Act. Despite the bill's title, this legislation is not really intended to address midnight rules at all. Instead, it is nothing more than an effort by the Republican majority to advance their antigovernment, deregulatory agenda under cover of darkness.

Republicans know that taking a series of votes making it easier for corporations to undermine our health, safety, and economic well-being would be deeply unpopular. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want the public to know that Republicans care more about corporations than consumers, so they want to package as many rules as possible into a single resolution that would eliminate these rules all at once, reducing transparency and obscuring the consequences.

This legislation would allow the majority to put dozens of critical regulations issued by the Biden administration on the chopping block. Republicans will talk all about the costs of these regulations, but the majority will never talk about the benefits, like healthier children, safer drinking water, and stronger consumer protections.

If my Republican colleagues really want to roll back regulations that ensure the safety of bath seats for infants or create dust, lead, and lead pipe safety standards, or update certain emergency braking standards, fine. Let's have that debate out in the open. We can let our constituents judge whether we took the right vote. Don't hide behind a giant omnibus bill that obscures the consequences of the majority's actions.

If we are truly concerned about so-called midnight rules, we have other options to check them. For example, at the end of President George W. Bush's administration, I authored a bill that would delay implementation of rules issued near the end of a President's term, giving his or her successor the chance to review such rules and to determine if they should go forward.

I believe there are ways that we could work together in a bipartisan manner to address this issue.

Where past efforts tried using a scalpel to address the problems associated with midnight rulemaking, today's Republicans want to instead use a machete, hacking away at the Biden administration's regulatory agenda, putting all of the rules together in one vote, and furthering their ideological goal of radically transforming our government.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this legislation.

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