Sen. Mike Lee says he has two stacks of paper on his desk in his Washington, D.C. office.
One stack is a few feet tall, around 5,000 pages, give or take, of laws that Congress has passed in the last year. The other stack, he says, towers at 13 feet tall, with 100,000 pages of the federal rules, regulations and executive orders of the Federal Register.
Published daily, the register tracks government regulation, as well as proposed rules and special notices.
“The laws promulgated in the form of rules and regulations by executive branch agencies outweigh, outnumber — out-heft, in every respect imaginable — those passed by Congress,” Lee said. “There’s a problem with that.”
He discussed his plan to make Congress more powerful at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics on Monday. The event was the last in the Sutherland Institute’s 2024 Congressional Series, a series of conversations with Utah’s congressional delegation.
The Sutherland Institute is a Salt Lake City-based think tank with aims to advance “principled public policy that promotes the constitutional values of faith, family and freedom.”
Lee said the executive branch of the federal government has steadily consolidated power over decades, stepping on Congress’ constitutional lawmaking authority. The rules and regulations developed by the executive branch’s “alphabet soup agencies,” like the EPA, Lee said, effectively become law, which bypasses Congress.
Members of Congress are frequently held accountable by Americans, he said, in elections. In contrast, he believes it is dangerous to give lawmaking powers “to a portion of the executive branch run by unelected, unicameral, nameless, faceless bureaucrats.”
And this Congress has been one of the least productive in recent history, the Washington State Standard reported, passing hundreds fewer bills than previous sessions. An election year, bitter partisanship and party infighting have thwarted productivity in the nation’s Capitol, according to the Standard.
Lee praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the Chevron Doctrine in June — which undercut the rulemaking authority of federal agencies — but added that it didn’t go far enough.
Passing the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, he said, is the solution.
The REINS Act, of which Lee is a co-sponsor, would require Congress to approve “major rules” from federal agencies before they can go into effect. “Major rules,” according to the bill, have an impact of $100 million or more on the economy each year, cause a major increase in prices or adversely affect competition.
“It could effectively restore the primacy of Congress as the lawmaking branch,” he said, ensuring that the House of Representatives and the Senate have the final say.
Critics of the bill say it would allow Congress to shut down important regulations — like the ones that limit harmful chemicals in food or set standards for workplace safety — which would ultimately be a boon for big industries and businesses.
Naysayers also argue that the proposed law is time-consuming and redundant, since federal agencies already research rules.
Lee said the REINS Act would restore the balance of power between the three branches of government, and perhaps inspire a return to federalism.
“I think there would be a renewed discussion,” he said. “Do we really need to be exercising federal authority over every aspect of this?”
“Maybe some of that would have to go back to the states,” Lee contended.
His comments echo Utah’s argument in a recently announced lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management. The state wants millions of acres of public land brought under its control, rather than the federal government’s.
When that lawsuit was announced, Lee said in a statement that it was “an excellent step forward.”
“The federal government controls far too much of Utah (and other western states) impeding access to resources, recreation, housing, and economic development,” he added. “Utah belongs to Utahns.”
