Congressional Republicans — in blind subservience to their corporate donors —
are trying to roll back hard-fought consumer and environmental safeguards.

With Donald Trump back in the White House and Republicans controlling both
chambers of Congress, they are taking aim at more than a dozen regulations put
in place by the Biden administration — all to satisfy their billionaire and Big
Business puppet masters.

Here are just a few of the commonsense and popular safeguards Republicans are
trying to overturn as we speak:

* Republicans want to scrap a recent rule that caps the overdraft fees imposed
on hard-working Americans by Big Banks at $5 (rather than the outrageous $35
that was typical before the rule). Public Citizen led the fight to win this
rule, which took years.

* Republicans want to scrap a recent rule that makes the oil and gas industry
pay a fee for highly dangerous and wasteful methane pollution.

* Republicans want to scrap a recent rule that applies time-tested banking
regulations to Big Tech companies that add payment services on their
platforms (like Elon Musk wants to do with whatever’s left of Twitter/X).
What exactly is the problem with requiring companies that provide banking
services to follow rules that keep banking services safe for American
consumers?

* Republicans want to scrap a recent rule that prohibits Big Banks from
including medical debt in credit reports.

* Republicans want to scrap a recent rule that boosts internet access in
schools and public libraries to narrow the “digital divide” that
disproportionately affects low-income students and students in rural areas.
Ted Cruz is really eager to discard this rule, which tells you pretty much
all you need to know.

To do all this damage, and more, Republicans are exploiting a little-known law
called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to hastily repeal
regulations put in place near the end of a previous administration with almost
no debate and a simple majority vote.

The Congressional Review Act had been successfully used only one time prior to
Trump’s first term. It was then used 14 times to overturn rules put in place by
the Obama administration.

In effect, this obscure law has functioned as a way for Republicans — any time
they have a majority in both the House and Senate after a Democratic presidency
— to just throw out regulations they and their corporate backers don’t like,
even though they had every opportunity to block them in the first place through
the normal legislative process.

Tell Congress: [[link removed]]

The only reason to think “regulations” is a bad word is if you are under the
thumb of Big Business. The reality is that regulations are what protect us from
corporate greed and wrongdoing. Do not use the Congressional Review Act to
overturn commonsense safeguards that keep the American people safe.
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- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen


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