EXCLUSIVE – Freshman Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is introducing legislation today that’s aimed at putting new limits on the “administrative state” and its ability to impose “overbearing federal regulations.”
Schmitt says his first bill as a senator, the Expediting Reform and Stopping Excess Regulations Act, or ERASER Act, “provides the framework to ensure government bureaucrats think more critically about new rules and regulations.”
He says the bill builds on former President Donald Trump’s 2017 executive order that required agencies to remove two regulations when issuing a new one.
“Joe Biden is the poster child for excessive regulations on hardworking Americans – somebody needs to lead the way in taking on the administrative state, and I’m proud to lead that fight,” Schmitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
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Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. ( Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The administrative state is comprised of thousands of unelected bureaucrats at alphabet agencies that have immense power over the lives of Missourians and Americans,” he added.
If enacted, the bill would take the Trump EO a step further by prohibiting agencies from issuing a new major rule unless it has repealed three or more rules. It also requires the agency to count the cost of a new rule and only install it if the cost is less than or equal to the cost of the rules repealed, as certified by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
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Major rules are defined in the bill as regulations that cost $100 million or more, cause a major increase in costs or prices for consumers or individual industries, or have a significant adverse effect on competition, employment, investment, or innovation of U.S. businesses.
The bill will also require the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on all rules currently in effect as of the date of the bill’s enactment.
U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt speaks on the 1st day of Conservative Political Action Conference Washington, D.C. ((Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images))
Schmitt claims that Trump’s EO saved $733 million in regulation costs for small businesses, and notes that one of President Biden’s first actions was to repeal that executive order.
Overregulation from federal agencies has long been on the kill-list for conservatives who say these rules are particularly damaging to blue-collar businesses.
In the House, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., introduced the REINS Act earlier this year to similar curb federal regulations which she called the “silent killer [of the] American dream.”
Last month, former Attorney General Bill Barr announced he’d be spearheading a legal group to battle the Biden administration’s “bureaucratic overreach and excessive regulation” that he says is crippling to American business.
Schmitt’s bill is the latest effort from Republicans to deflate what they view is a bloated federal government.
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The ERASER Act is cosponsored by Sens Mike Braun, R-Ind., Katie Britt, R-Ala., Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
