On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that concludes that deregulation will not create jobs. The report is the latest piece of evidence that the ongoing congressional attacks on public protections are misguided, at best.

Since the 112th Congress began its work in January, representatives and senators have offered up a slew of bills that would gut crucial safeguards. Some of these attacks, like the TRAIN Act and the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act have specifically targeted standards that would protect millions of Americans from dangerous air pollution and toxic waste. Others, like the REINS Act and the Regulatory Accountability Act, are broad and would grind the rulemaking process to a halt, endangering Americans' quality of life. Despite their supporters' claims, these bills do not constitute a jobs plan. Indeed, the bills' sponsors seem to be motivated by scoring points for future elections and garnering campaign cash.

The CBO report is just the most recent publication showing that there is no trade off between jobs and a good regulatory system. Studies by the Economic Policy Institute, statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, and surveys by McClatchy Newspapers, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Small Business Majority strongly reinforce this point. Individual business owners have testified – on camera – that most regulations are reasonable and that killing off regulations will not generate more jobs. You can listen to some of their stories here, here, here, and here.

Let's be clear: the economy crashed in 2008 because key regulations in the financial sector had been removed. These changes allowed banks and other institutions to take massive risks with other people's money as they raked in record profits themselves. Rolling back environmental, health, and safety standards is another version of this phenomenon: deregulation will allow particular companies to rake in higher profits while the risks and dangers to everyday Americans accumulate.

It's time for conservatives to give up their tired, discredited talking points about "job-killing" public protections and stop promoting efforts to kill rules that safeguard the public. Instead of wasting time with unconstructive attacks on our regulatory system, Congress should focus on making crucial investments in our nation's infrastructure and economy that will get Americans back to work.

Editor's note: This post is being regularly updated to reflect REINS Act-related developments in the Senate. Please check back often for the latest news, which you can find at the bottom of the post.

There are rumblings that as soon as today, the Senate GOP may begin to offer up the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (S. 299) as an amendment to, or a substitute for, bills moving to the Senate floor for a vote. Such a move would limit the public's ability to have a say on this damaging legislation.

The REINS Act, sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), would force all new, major health, safety, and environmental protections through a congressional approval process. Under the bill, if rules are not approved by both houses of Congress within 70 legislative days, those rules would be "tabled," which would essentially kill them. Such political interference with science and expert analysis is indefensible, and given the political chasm and gridlock in Congress, the REINS Act would make it impossible for agencies to carry out the mandate they have been given to safeguard Americans' air, water, food supply, and workplaces.

OMB Watch opposes the REINS Act and hopes that a majority of the Senate rejects any move to sneak such an extreme bill into other legislation.

UPDATE (11/03/2011): This afternoon (Thursday), Senate Republicans are expected to move forward with a so-called "side-by-side" alternative to the Democrats' transportation and infrastructure jobs bill (S. 1769). The Republican proposal, called the Long-Term Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 (S. 1786), is sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and includes several extreme proposals, including the REINS Act, a moratorium on standards that would protect the public from harm, and a rollback of air toxics rules for boilers and cement plants. The strategy here is clear: squelch full, democratic debate on damaging measures while gutting popular, protective laws and hoping that no one is paying attention. If the Hatch bill is successful, the rulemaking process would be stopped dead in its tracks, agencies would be unable to safeguard the American people from a variety of significant hazards, and the nation would be no closer to solving the jobs problem it currently faces.

UPDATE (11/03/2011): Shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Senate rejected a motion to proceed with S. 1786. The White House also issued a strongly worded Statement of Administration Policy on the bill, indicating that the president's senior advisors would have recommended a veto had the bill passed both houses of Congress.

UPDATE (11/08/2011): The Senate is indicating that it will once again take up the REINS Act, along with a host of other anti-regulatory attack legislation, as part of the so-called Jobs Through Growth Act (S. 1720), sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). In addition to REINS, the bill contains a public protections moratorium, legislation targeting a "phantom" U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule on coarse particulate matter that the agency has repeatedly said it would not issue, and many more provisions that would do nothing to solve the country's jobs crisis but would go far in making it impossible to protect the American people from harm. Like S. 1786, the McCain bill is an attempt to thwart democratic discourse by sneaking bills like the REINS Act through the back door with a minimum of public debate.

UPDATE (11/10/2011): This afternoon, the Senate soundly rejected S. 1720 in a 56-40 vote. Members from both sides of the aisle joined together to oppose this damaging bill.

Today, Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Susan Collins (R-ME), and Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced their intention to propose a major revision of the Administrative Procedure Act – the basic legal framework that defines how federal rules are made – that would prevent or delay by years important health, safety, and environmental standards. It's hard to imagine a more damaging attack on the federal government's responsibility to protect the public from a wide range of threats.

The most recent draft of the forthcoming bill, currently known as the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011, is a “solution” in search of a problem. The proposal is based on dangerous and misguided assumptions about the connection between regulations and job creation. For decades, economic studies have shown consistently that regulations do not negatively impact employment. In fact, some standards and environmental protections actually create jobs and generate new industries. Corporations and banks are sitting on more than a trillion dollars instead of investing those resources and creating jobs because demand is weak, not because of regulations.

A recent survey of small business owners by the Small Business Majority reveals that they do not believe regulations are affecting their ability to grow their businesses. Rather, economic uncertainty (i.e., lack of demand for their products) and the rising cost of doing business are what they worry about most. Likewise, in an August survey of business economists, a large majority reported that the current regulatory climate in this country is good for business and the economy.

If the provisions of the proposal (as described in a fact sheet from Portman's office) become law, they will result in a near-moratorium on rules by creating even more obstacles for agencies to overcome in issuing standards that keep us safe from contaminated food, product defects, and polluted air and water. In addition, the proposal would shift the locus of regulatory decisions to the courts and out of agencies' hands by providing multiple new opportunities for deep-pocketed corporate interests to challenge agencies at nearly every step of the process. When such special favors are granted to special interests, everyday Americans are further shut out of the regulatory process, giving them less of an opportunity to participate in this essential function of democratic governance.

For example, the proposed bill could allow cost-benefit analysis to be reviewed by the courts at both the proposed and final stages of the rulemaking process. If this happens, rules would not only languish for years, but courts would be empowered to substitute cost considerations for the health and safety of the American people – the basis of important laws like those that protect workers and our environment. This court-dominated process would be incredibly costly, wasting resources instead of enabling agencies to address problems in a timely and responsive fashion. This shift would favor wealthy business interests, not small businesses. The proposal's judicial review provisions would also shift the responsibility for agency oversight from Congress to the courts and swamp an already overburdened federal court system.

If Sens. Pryor, Portman, et al. want to constructively reform the federal regulatory process, they should work to reduce the barriers that make it difficult for agencies to fulfill the missions they’ve been assigned: to enforce the rules that protect the American people from environmental, chemical, and workplace dangers and establish the foundations for healthy economic growth.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to clarify the potential scope of judicial review that the Regulatory Accountability Act would write into law.

Today is the deadline for federal agencies to submit their final plans for reviewing existing regulations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The plans are the second step in a process outlined by the Obama Administration to get rid of redundant, needlessly burdensome and outdated rules.

In a Jan. 18 Executive Order (E.O. 13563), President Obama reaffirmed a Clinton directive that federal agencies should have plans in place to periodically review existing regulations to ensure that rules are up-to-date, relevant and effective. In addition to creating an ongoing plan, the E.O. instructed agencies to submit proposals for specific rules to be modified, streamlined, expanded or repealed. The E.O. also stressed the importance of public participation in the rulemaking process and encouraged agencies to make rules accessible on the Internet in addition to publishing them in the Federal Register.

Thirty government agencies and commissions submitted preliminary plans, which were released to the public on May 25. Some agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT), provided in-depth discussions of the regulatory review process, indicated how the agency will increase public involvement, and included lists of rules to be re-examined. Others provided cursory descriptions of their look-back process and did not specify which rules they will be reviewing. In addition, while the January E.O. indicated that the plan was supposed to cover "existing significant regulations," many agencies announced that all rules will be subject to the review, no matter what stage they are in the rulemaking process. OMB Watch is concerned that the inclusion of unfinished rules in the reviews may lead to political or industry interference in the rulemaking process.

The Obama Administration provided guidelines (here and here) for the content and timeline of the finalized plans. The final versions are expected to contain more cost-savings information and list specific rules to be modified, streamlined, expanded or repealed. They are scheduled to be released to the public on Aug. 22. Check back with OMB Watch later this month for in-depth analysis of these plans.