Midnight Rules Relief Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 122, I call up the bill (H.R. 77) to amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, to provide for en bloc consideration in resolutions of disapproval for ``midnight rules'', and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. 77.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 77, the Midnight Rules Relief Act. This piece of legislation will allow Congress to efficiently oversee Federal agency rulemaking.

Under the Congressional Review Act, known as the CRA, executive agencies must report all promulgated rules to both Chambers of Congress. The CRA gives Congress, then, the authority to pass joint resolutions to prevent agency rules from taking effect. The CRA's disapproval mechanism gives Congress a check on Federal administrative overreach.

Currently, the CRA forces Congress to introduce a separate joint resolution for each agency rule it seeks to review. This limit slows Congress' oversight of agency rulemaking.

Its inefficiency is most clear during the midnight rulemaking period of the last year of a President's term, when executive agencies historically issue more regulations than any other time in a President's term.

The 119th Congress can examine Biden administration rules that fall within the CRA lookback window. This window includes any rule submitted to Congress from August 16, 2024, to the end of the Biden administration.

During that period, the Biden administration finalized a staggering 1,406 rules.

H.R. 77 would make Congress' oversight more efficient during this midnight rulemaking period.

The Midnight Rules Relief Act would allow Congress to introduce joint resolutions considering multiple agency rules during the final year of a President's term.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle may claim that this bill is only an attempt to slow down agency rulemaking, but that is incorrect. There are no provisions in this bill that are designed to slow down rulemaking.

Rather, this bill would merely allow Congress to more efficiently exercise the oversight authority it already has and respond to the influx of agency regulations during the midnight hours of the President's final term.

My colleagues would also like Americans to believe that this is an effort to repeal every regulation submitted to Congress. Again, that is inaccurate. After reviewing submitted regulations, Congress can pick and choose which rules to overturn, just as we do now.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the good humor that came from the other side of the aisle. It had me in stitches.

I don't really believe that the gentleman was chasing me around because he wanted to sign on as a cosponsor of my single-subject rule. He knows where to find me. I am in the committees with him. He could have done it. He didn't do it.

What I do find is this is a problem for me because I had the Democratic debate bingo card going, and I was feeling pretty good because he did mention ``Elon Musk'' five times. He mentioned ``billionaire'' three times and ``unelected billionaire'' one time. I had those on my card.

Words I didn't have include ``Muskovite,'' and I should have had that because he used that in Judiciary Committee earlier today. I also didn't have ``flood the zone,'' and I also didn't have ``gobstopped.'' I missed those on the bingo card for today.

I do find really intriguing his attempts to try to distract us from what this bill does.

The last thing I will say here before I yield to my friend from California is that the gentleman from Maryland mentioned omnibus bills, these omnibus bills that have everything in them, and he called them moronic. No doubt, I agree with him. The Inflation Reduction Act was moronic.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues across the aisle have mentioned several rules that Democrats particularly favor: bank fee regulation, maybe something about lead pipe regulation, and drinking water regulation. These aren't legislation. These are regulations.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say: If you are afraid to vote on them, you are going to stick them in this midnight rules reversion.

This is what I would submit: When all legislative authority is delegated to the bureaucratic agencies--Elon Musk isn't the fourth branch of government. He is not. Scholars have said and written for 30 years about the administrative state effectively being the fourth branch of government.

When my colleagues look at what scholars have said about that and are delegating that, my Democratic colleagues should just fess up and say: We are afraid. We are afraid to put the CFPB bill on the floor that would reduce the fees. We are afraid of doing that because we might be held responsible by our constituents.

That is what the minority is claiming that we want. In reality, Democrats would rather have nameless, faceless, unelected bureaucrats govern this country. That is what my Democratic colleagues want.

Mr. Speaker, when one looks at that, I find myself saying: If Democrats want to preserve the separation of powers, it may be gone, but we can actually reinstitute it. It is not three coequal branches of government. That is not what the Founders intended.

The Founders are very clear in the Constitutional Convention that Article I, that branch, which happens to be this branch, was meant to be the most powerful, and why? It was closest to the people.

Why was that important? They wanted this group of people to be actually bound to the people, be closest to the people.

When Members do what the Democrats want to do, which is to actually delegate it over to the executive branch and to the bureaucracies, off to la-la land, and not really having an effective way to review it, that is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would prefer because it makes this body less accountable. Heaven knows, Democrats don't want to necessarily be accountable.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats argue that the Midnight Rules Relief Act does not allow for sufficient debate. That is one of the things we have heard here, but the purpose of the Midnight Rules Relief Act is to increase Congress' opportunity to consider and debate rules.

Since there was an influx of rules at the midnight hour, the last few months of a President's term, which my colleague from New York just mentioned, calling it, I believe, the Biden regulatory agenda, that is what it is. It is the Biden regulatory agenda. It is not the Democrat's elected official agenda, nor the Republicans. It is not these elected officials' agenda. It is not even President Biden's agenda, except for it has been done by a regulatory agency. My Democratic colleagues like that over there.

Congress becomes overwhelmed when we have 1,400 or 1,500 of those rules in the last few months. When Congress is overwhelmed like that, it means that many agency rules are left unreviewed altogether by Congress. It is not just some, but most. It is the vast majority, without a single second or an iota of debate by the elected officials.

America is being governed by unelected bureaucrats. That is who is governing America. The Midnight Rules Relief Act increases the opportunity for Congress to debate agency rules by allowing Congress to consider more than one rule at a time.

This allows agency rules, that would not otherwise receive any debate, to be debated in Congress. Take back the unelected bureaucrats' authority and put it in the hands of the people who have been elected.

Why is that important? We are meant to be accountable to the people. The reason that the House had the purse strings added to it is because we were closest to the people. We are meant to be more accountable to the people.

Prior to the 17th Amendment, the States had their authority and their rights preserved and protected by the U.S. Senate, but now the U.S. Senate is just a bunch of glorified national politicians.

What I would suggest is, if Congress wants to take back the legislative authority and actually have people who are accountable, then the Midnight Rules Relief Act needs to be passed.

Mr. Speaker, I did not have junior Muskovite on the bingo card. I do find it interesting that the gentleman would be commenting on Ronald Reagan's current condition and his state of repose because I think he probably doesn't understand Ronald Reagan's philosophy at all.

Let's talk about what might be good if regulations are bundled together. Let's just consider a couple of things.

The need for the Midnight Rules Relief Act is most clearly seen in the wave of regulations issued by the prior administration in the eleventh hour of their administration. In the last few months, the Biden administration issued a staggering total of more than 1,400 final rules.

Here are two that might be single subject. Let's think about it. Would Democrats be okay if the Biden energy final rule of December 2024 was included, which effectively banned gas-powered water heaters in homes, which would increase their price by hundreds of dollars?

I wonder if my Democratic colleagues would be comfortable with sticking that with another Biden energy regulation issued in the same month, December of 2024, after he had already lost the election, that forces appliance manufacturers to comply with onerous rules that slow down the washing times for dishwashers from an hour or less to more than 2 hours?

One wonders. Those sound like they might be single-subject bills.

Moreover, there is nothing in here that mandates that we just bind everything together. The minority knows this doesn't require everything to be stuck together.

My Democratic colleagues know that they can be analyzed and bound together, as they can currently, except that they can't currently, can they?

I just picked two rules out of the air. Those two rules right there would require two separate bills. They would require two separate bills. Democrats don't want that.

Last October, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule that dramatically raised the cost of repairing commercial and residential air-conditioning units. Maybe all three of those could go together in the same bill, but that can't be done under the current rule. That can't be done under the current law. We couldn't do it.

You would be stuck and you are going through the process, and believe me when I say I feel like we are going as slow as molasses here. My leadership would say that I complain about it all the time. We are taking next week off. Maybe Democrats would be comfortable if we were working next week and we were going to go through maybe 150 of these rules.

Maybe that would make you happy. What I will tell you is that the Midnight Rules Relief Act would allow Congress to consider and disapprove or accept all three of these burdensome regulations at one time. That makes us more responsive, and it makes us more able to process and oversee these regulators, these bureaucrats.

I find it intriguing. Elon Musk got mentioned again. He has replaced Trump. There is no longer TDS. Now, it is Elon Musk derangement syndrome because he has got to mention that on everything.

Here is the way it works. They want to say Elon Musk is looking at regulations and stuff like that, but we have an Oversight Committee. We do. We have an Oversight Committee, and we are busy conducting oversight.

It sure would be nice if the Oversight Committee could put some of these bills together as we consider these rules. However, when you have 1,400 rules, it doesn't matter how many oversight committees you have, you are going to have a tough time getting them done in a 2-year period. That is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, surely, it must have snowed in Arizona last night. I thought I heard the gentleman agree with Steve Bannon. Hell must have frozen over is all I can say.

Now, here is the deal. We just heard the gentlewoman talk about how this bill would strip away robust debate. No, it won't. It won't do that. You can debate these regulations under this provision. There will be debate.

The same rules remain in place, but what she actually aggrandized and what the gentleman has been aggrandizing all day is bureaucratic control of regulatory schemes. That is what they are promoting. They want the bureaucrats to control with us not having adequate opportunity to review those.

When you have an administration like the Biden administration as well as the administrations of Clinton, Obama, and Bush, they all increased in their last 6 months by two-and-a-half times the number of regulations that they issued. Those end up staying in place because there is not capacity under the current law to review those regulations and actually debate them.

My bill actually does the opposite of what they are suggesting. It actually brings us in as Members of Congress to review, debate, discuss, and decide if we want to accept or reject those bureaucratic rules.

For the other aspect of this, before I reserve again, I will just say this: If you like those regulations, then why don't you put them in a piece of legislation and promote them yourself?

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Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, when I consider everything that was just said and what a travesty this bill is and how hardened and offensive this bill is, I find it intriguing.

Just like I am not sure I can accept that he was chasing me down because he wanted to sign on to my single-subject bill, I am not sure that his math is right on the 10 seconds to discuss and debate each bill.

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Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. No. You had your 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the reality is, this bill has the potential to bring back into control and authority the legislative power that has been so wrongfully and wholly without oversight delegated to these agencies that are out there.

It has resulted, under Democrat and Republican administrations, in regulations that impact every aspect of every Americans' life, and they have been put together by unelected bureaucrats.

There is a reason that people said we have had enough of it. That is one of the things that President Trump campaigned on. My colleagues across the aisle don't want to accept that, but the bottom line is this: The meddling that goes on in every aspect of your life they want to control whether you can have a gas heater in your home. They don't want that, but by golly they are going to pass an omnibus bill that spends trillions of dollars and then they are going to complain because we are bundling a few regulations together.

There is no requirement that you bundle every regulation together. There is no requirement that you bundle all of them together. There is no requirement that you bundle two together.

This bill merely allows that to take place. I have mentioned several of what those rules may be that would actually be within the same subject even, but the bottom line is this: If we don't do it, the bureaucrats are going to continue to run this place. They are going to run the country, and the American people will have no recourse.

This gives them recourse. We are the ones who are elected, not the bureaucrats. If you want the $5 CFPB rule, then go ahead and introduce it. Don't complain to me, oh, gosh, your Speaker won't let it in. Yeah. I know how that goes. I have been here when there has been a Democrat Speaker. You know what? The pendulum swings back and forth, but what shouldn't swing back and forth is legislative authority.

We are the preeminent, predominant power amongst the separation of powers, the three branches of government, and there should not be four. Now, scholars will tell you there is a fourth. It is the administrative state. This curbs the administrative state. That is why this is so important.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support and pass this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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