Professor Emily Hammond testified before the House Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, as a minority witness to the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. The Act aims to increase accountability for and transparency in the Federal regulatory process.
In response to the Act, Professor Hammond said this in their testimony:
"I am deeply concerned about the REINS Act. It is impractical and harmful to the people of this country. It is poor governance that eviscerates a core of government legitimacy—reasonableness. And it is likely unconstitutional."
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"The REINS Act would replace science-informed, participatory government decision-making with an utterly impractical system. Congress is neither designed nor staffed to deeply evaluate every single agency’s major rules, particularly within seventy days (and with committee consideration within only fifteen days). For all agencies’ major rules to suddenly flood the halls of Congress would overwhelm the Comptroller General, inundate the committees, and distract the Houses from all their legislative priorities. And to suggest that the entire record of even one agency’s considered effort in creating a rule—which may have been years in the making—could be thoughtfully approved or rejected in such a short time is a fallacy meant to obscure the real aims of the Act."
Watch more of their testimony below, or read their full testimony here.