[Excerpt] The AFL-CIO strongly opposes the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010), which will be marked up later this week. This legislation would upend more than 40 years of labor, health, safety and environmental laws and threaten new needed protections

Samuel, William

English

[Excerpt] The AFL-CIO strongly opposes the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010), which will be marked up later this week. This legislation would upend more than 40 years of labor, health, safety and environmental laws and threaten new needed protections.Legislative_Alert_Regulatory_Accountability_ActOCR.pdf: 7 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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Legislative Alert: The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010)

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Labor Unions Key Workplace Documents 
11-1-2011 
Legislative Alert: The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010) 
William Samuel 
AFL-CIO 
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Legislative Alert: The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010) 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] The AFL-CIO strongly opposes the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010), which will be 
marked up later this week. This legislation would upend more than 40 years of labor, health, safety and 
environmental laws and threaten new needed protections. 
Keywords 
AFL-CIO, Legislative Alert, The Regulatory Accountability Act, H.R. 3010 
Comments 
Suggested Citation 
Samuel, W. (2011, November 1). Legislative Alert: The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010). 
Washington, DC: AFL-CIO. 
Required Publisher Statement 
Copyright by the AFL-CIO. Document posted with special permission by the copyright holder. 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/laborunions/89 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS 
AFL -
S I 5 S I X T E E N T H S T R E E T . N.W. RICHARD L, TRUMKA 
W A S H I N G T O N , D . C , 2 0 0 0 6 PRESIDENT 
ELIZABETH H. SHULER 
- . — — _ , « _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ SECRETARY-TREASURER 
mi 
^ •. S t / 
_ _ _ « _ » _ _ _ . _ . . . . . . . „ ARLENE HOLT BAKER 
- ,~~ „ „ _ , _ „ _ , EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT 
^ i j ^ y / (202) 637-SOS7 
November 1.2011 
The Honorable Lamar S. Smith 
Chairman 
House Committee on the Judiciary 
2138 Rayburn House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr. 
Ranking Minority Member 
House Committee on the Judiciary 
2138 Rayburn House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Minority Member Conyers: 
The AFL-CIO strongly opposes the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010), which 
will be marked up later this week. This legislation would upend more than 40 years of labor, 
health, safety and environmental laws and threaten new needed protections. 
The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) is drafted as an amendment to the 
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but it goes far beyond changing procedures for 
rulemaking. The RAA acts as a "supermandate" overriding the requirements of landmark 
legislation such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act and Mine Safety and Health Act. The 
bill would require agencies to adopt the least costly rule, instead of the most protective rule as is 
now required by the OSH Act and MSH Act. It would make protecting workers and the public 
secondary to limiting costs and impacts on businesses and corporations. 
The RAA will not improve the regulatory process ~ it will cripple it. The bill adds 
dozens of new analytical and procedural requirements to the rulemaking process, which will add 
years to the process. The development of major workplace safety rules already takes 6 - 1 0 
years: the RAA will further delay these rules and cost workers their lives. H.R. 3010 also 
provides more opportunities for opponents to challenge needed safeguards and expands judicial 
review of agency rulemaking processes and decisions. 
provide for public hearings, such as OSHA and MSHA, the bill would substitute formal 
rulemaking for the development of all new rules, overriding the effective public participation 
processes conducted by these agencies. 
H.R. 3010 would subject all agencies - including independent agencies like the Securities 
and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Consumer Product 
Safety Commission (CPSC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to these 
new analytical and procedural requirements. It would be much more difficult for agencies to 
develop and issue new financial reform rules and consumer protection rules required under 
recently enacted legislation. 
The manager's amendment that has been released by the majority does nothing to cure 
the problems with this bill. If anything the amendment makes the bill even worse by expanding 
its burdensome analytical and procedural requirements to additional rules and guidance 
documents, and making agency actions under the Information Quality Act judicially reviewable. 
The Regulatory Accountability Act would further tilt the regulatory process in favor of 
business groups and others who want to stop regulations, and make it much more difficult for the 
government to protect workers and the public. The AFL-CIO strongly opposes H.R. 3010 and 
urges committee members to vote against this damaging legislation. 
Sincerely, 
William Samuel, Director 
Government Affairs Department 
1 
/ 
c: Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary 


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