House Aiming to Destroy Regulatory System—Not Reform It

WASHINGTON  -- The House this week approved two major anti-regulatory bills, and is set to introduce a third early next week. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who has jurisdiction over the measures, held a press conference this morning.

The following is a statement from David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council:

“The Regulatory Accountability Act, along with the two bills the House passed this week, is an effort to destroy, not reform, our whole system of setting environmental and other standards.  It will leave Americans unprotected, giving industry a free hand to pollute, to damage health and to engage in financial mischief. 

“The Regulatory Accountability Act would effectively rewrite bedrock environmental laws – including the Toxic Substances Control Act that Congress updated last year on a bipartisan basis – so that pollutants and toxins are no longer limited solely on the basis of what problems they cause to human health.”

“Chairman Goodlatte failed miserably in his closed door effort to gut ethics oversight. Now he’s trying to take away the public’s ability to hold corporations to account.  Congress should defeat this bill.”

For more information, see this blog by David Goldston, NRDC’s director of government affairs.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 2 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Chicago; Bozeman, Montana; and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC