Federal Government

In the first three days of 2014, the Obama Administration posted 141 new regulations online. From health care to energy, these new federal rules have just as much impact on our daily lives as legislation, sometimes even more. Senator Mike Enzi (WY) is constantly keeping an eye out for egregious federal rules and regulations. He can call them out for their bureaucratic overreach and demand answers for their terrible rule making. He can introduce legislation to repeal their job-killing regulations. But this is a fight he can’t win on his own.  Your voice is needed when these heavy-handed agencies cross the line.   Here are a few examples of recent proposed rules that you are encouraged to comment on and let this Administration know how you feel about their overreach.

• The EPA proposed a rule for the Waters of the United States that could lead to a massive expansion of federal power over the nation’s water resources. With this new proposed rule, the EPA could give itself sweeping permission to regulate everything from the nation’s largest rivers to small irrigation ditches. Click here to comment on the rule and let the EPA know that this rule exceeds the authority the agency was granted by Congress. We fought the “National Blueways System” rule and won — with your help, we can defeat this rule too.
• In their continued war against coal, the EPA has proposed extreme rules for regulating carbon emissions. These regulations essentially ban construction of new coal-fired power plants by requiring them to use emission-cutting technology that hasn’t been perfected yet. Officials within the President’s own Administration have questioned whether the EPA’s new standards are actually based on any viable technology. Click here to leave a comment by May 9 letting the EPA and this Administration know you don’t support their coal-killing rules.
• At over 800 pages long, a new proposed rule by the Department of Education is designed to define just two words – “gainful employment”. Aimed at for-profit career colleges and certificate programs, this rule uses a heavy-handed approach to evaluate and sanction these programs, making it more difficult for Americans to access educational opportunities. Not only is this ruling ridiculously complicated, but it begs the questions “Why the double standard?”. Why hold for-profit colleges and career schools to an arbitrary standard compared to public and private colleges? All who are receiving the same government funds should have the same standard. If you want to let your voice be heard officially, comment on the rule here before May 27.
• These rules are just the latest in a long line of federal regulations that the Administration tries to slip past the American people. Last year Enzi was applauded for correctly predicting in 2010 that businesses would lose the health insurance they liked. His prediction was not magic or luck, it came from reading the rules published in the Federal Register. He continues to work on legislative solutions to stop the tsunami of new rules and regulations brought about by this Administration, but the Senate majority leader Harry Reid (NV), who controls the agenda, has blocked all attempts to calm our current atmosphere of regulatory fervor. With your voice speaking out against these outlandish rules, we can take an axe to the proposed red tape and unnecessary regulations that are expanding big government and driving our country in the wrong direction.

Enzi advocates more scrutiny of EPA rule making

The Administration’s current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rulemaking seems designed more to improve the political environment for President Obama’s allies than it is actually improving the environment. According to Enzi, the EPA is constantly overstepping it’s bounds and as one of the most rampant job-killing bureaucracies our country has ever seen this agency needs to be put in check.

“I’m cosponsoring an amendment authored by Senator John Thune that would stop the EPA from finalizing greenhouse gas regulations on new and existing power plants if those regulations would destroy jobs or raise energy prices,” Enzi said.

Enzi is also cosponsoring another Thune, R-S.D., amendment that would hold the EPA accountable to taxpayers by increasing Congressional oversight of costly regulations. Thune’s amendment would require Congress to vote on any EPA regulation with costs greater than $50 million per year before that regulation could take effect. 

Another measure Enzi cosponsored is a bill introduced by Senator Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., that would block the EPA from finalizing any new major regulation until the agency analyzes the economic impact of its current air regulations.

Senators want to restore full-time employment to 40 hours, rescue small businesses from health care mandate

As the economy struggles to create jobs, business owners and employees must confront the reality of President Obama’s health care law: more regulations and policies that are increasing costs and forcing businesses to either lay off workers or not hire new workers. Senator Mike Enzi, with Senator John Barrasso, both R-Wyo., and others introduced legislation to provide relief for firms that are at the core of the American economy from the onerous federal overreaches in the health care law. The Small Business Fairness in Health Care Act, S.2205, would restore the definition of “full-time” work under the health care law to 40 hours a week and exempt more small businesses from the employer mandate.

The senators said the health care law is full of bad policies that are leading to countless unintended consequences, including less hours for employees and employers not hiring. These one-size-fits-all regulations are hitting workers in their pocketbooks and undercutting the country’s economic recovery, according to the senators.

The senators’ legislation would provide greater clarity and flexibility for small businesses under health care law by repealing the 30 hours per week standard imposed by the health care law and replace it with a 40 hour per week standard for classifying “full-time equivalents.” The bill would also protect companies that have traditionally been counted as small businesses by expanding the scope of the exception in the employer mandate to account for any small business that is defined as a “small business concern” under the Small Business Act. 

Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News today that he was “fearful” of what might happen next in the Cliven Bundy dispute, noting that Senator Harry Reid’s assertion that the situation is “not over” could be an ominous sign. “I’m actually a little fearful because although the government appears to have backed down now, their local mouthpiece Senator Harry Reid said it’s not over,” said Napolitano, referring to comments Reid made yesterday.

Napolitano again criticized the federal government’s heavy handed methods in the dispute, choosing to steal Bundy’s property rather than file a lien against him in order to claim the grazing fees they claim he owes.

The judge sees Reid inserting himself into the saga as a troubling indication, suggesting it’s a sign that the feds will “probably move back in,” with a new “show of force,” but that they will be met by ” a lot of resistance from a lot of patriotic Americans who don’t like the federal government using guns to do what they should be doing with paper and pencil.” Napolitano also pointed out that Reid’s former advisor Neil Kornze is now director of the Bureau of Land Management and that Reid “obviously has a personal and political relationship” with the dispute. – Read Entire Article an watch news video reports