Why the REINS Act is a danger to Americans

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Quick, take a look at the math formula and see if you know what it’s used for.

Give up? If so, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s used to calculate sulphur dioxide emissions from power plants, and it’s one of a dizzying number of formulas included in regulatory standards on greenhouse gases.

Now for some simpler questions. Do you think members of Congress are so much smarter than the average person that they could work with such formulas? Or even make out heads or tails of them?

Of course not.

That’s a sliver of the reason why the REINS Act is an awful piece of legislation.

REINS stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny. It requires Congress to approve any regulatory rule that would impose compliance costs of more than $100 million a year.

That may sound innocent enough, but it’s far from it. It would effectively repeal any major regulatory standard-setting in such areas as environmental protection, public health, occupational safety and civil rights.

It would do so by essentially turning the current approach to standard-setting on its head.

For decades, Congress has empowered federal regulatory agencies to make detailed decisions to protect Americans. Congress’ role has been to set broad policy — for instance, ruling that power plant emissions should be limited because they pose a danger to public health. Regulatory agencies then determine what types and levels of emissions would pose a risk, which is where formulas like the one accompanying this editorial come into play.

It’s a responsible setup. Not only are regulatory agencies qualified to make determinations about standards, they’re somewhat removed from the political horse-trading that happens in Congress. In other words, decisions can be made in a more nonpartisan environment when done at the regulatory level.

With REINS, which was approved by the House with only two votes in favor by Democrats, Congress would begin making the decisions on those highly technical matters.

Yes, Congress, not the relatively nonpartisan experts.

What’s more, both the Senate and House would have to pass standards within 70 days for them to go into effect, which all but guarantees that standards wouldn’t be implemented. In 2015, for instance, there were more than 40 major federal regulations passed to protect the public in such areas as food safety, predatory lending and power plant emissions. With Republicans now controlling both chambers of Congress — and given the anti-government, anti-regulation attitude that has permeated the Republican Party — there’s a good chance none of those would have passed under the REINS Act.

The time restraint also would help kill standards. After all, could Congress even make a decision about whether to order sandwiches or pizza for lunch in 70 days?

Now, with an almost identical bill before the Senate, a simple majority vote would send the REINS Act to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature.

It would appear that Senate Democrats are the only thing standing in the way of blocking this disastrous legislation. The good news is that they have indicated that they would try to block it procedurally.

We presume Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., would join that fight, and we would urge Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., to break ranks and vote against the measure.

Members of Congress are good at a lot of things — communications, self-promotion, fundraising, coalition building, and manipulating legislative rules and procedures, among them. But congressional delegates generally don’t have nearly the depth of knowledge to take on across-the-board standard-setting. For the Republican majorities to suggest they can handle that responsibility is arrogant and reckless.

The REINS Act needs to be stopped before Americans get hurt.