House Continues to Waste Valuable Time on REINS Act

WASHINGTON (December 7, 2011) – The Tea Party-dominated House has cast more than 170 anti-environment votes this year, and today's was the worst yet, one that would all but eliminate our ability to create new, needed health protections,  according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Following is a statement by Scott Slesinger, NRDC's legislative director, on passage of H.R. 10, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS Act:

“All year long, the House has put the interests of big polluters ahead of the public's. The REINS Act would replace science and health with politics and pollution. Every nanosecond spent on this misguided effort was precious time that should have been devoted to solving America's very real challenges. The proposal is dead on arrival in the Senate, and the White House already has said the president would veto the measure.

“It's way past time for all public officials to do the hard work we hired them to do--and stop catering to the pollution industry that wants free rein. But we’re not holding our breaths. The House plans on Thursday to consider the mis-named Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act. The measure would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a rule on 'farm dust' that it has no plans to consider, but it also would block limits of harmful pollutants. This is just one more example of the colossal waste of our time and resources by the House.”

For more information on the REINS Act and the other regulatory bills just passed by the House, please click here. Also see this blog post  from NRDC President Frances Beinecke.