REINS Act

EPA’s end-run around democracy is just the most egregious example of a more pervasive disorder. Regulation without representation — Congress’s delegation of lawmaking power to non-elected bureaucrats — is the malady.  The cure is the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which would require congressional approval before major agency rules can take effect.

Or so I argue today in “Put the REINS on EPA,” at Pajamas Media.Com.

My column harks back to the political philosphy of the American Founders and one of their great teachers, the English philosopher John Locke, who said:

The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it on to others.