U.S. Congressman David N. Cicilline (D-RI) today joined House Democrats in opposing the SCRUB Act (H.R. 1155).
"SCRUB is a bill that can't get no love from me," said Cicilline. "While we should be working on addressing the problem of gun violence and investing in job creation, the House Republican Caucus is wasting time on a bill that will never become law. This dangerous proposal would undo health care reform and threaten working families."
Despite Speaker Paul Ryan's promise to hit the reset button in Congress, the SCRUB Act once again puts corporate profits ahead of public health. Cicilline opposed the bill when it was considered before the House Judiciary Committee last year.
The SCRUB Act would establish a commission with virtually unlimited subpoena power to review existing agency rules and make recommendations to Congress for an up or down vote. The scope of the commission would be limitless and force Congress to consider its recommendations as a single package. The commission could devise any methodology for this review and no rules would be exempt.
In addition, the bill would undermine the ability to respond to urgent public health threats by adopting the "cut-go" process and prohibiting new rules from being issued until another rule of equal or greater cost is repealed. Referred to as the "most extreme of all antiregulatory reforms" by the Center for Progressive Reform, regulatory cut-go would prohibit an agency from issuing any new rule or informal statement, even in the case of an emergency or imminent harm to public health,until the agency first offsets the costs of that new rule or guidance by repealing an existing rule specified by the commission.
The White House has already promised to veto the SCRUB Act if it passes Congress. Other groups opposing the proposal include the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Center for American Progress, American Rivers, and the American Sustainable Business Council, which represents more than 200,000 businesses.