House conservatives have a message for President-elect Donald Trump: use your first 100 days to scrap regulations on everything from catfish to ceiling fans to the Export-Import Bank.
The House Freedom Caucus wish list, sent by chairman Mark Meadows to Trump’s transition team, includes 228 federal regulations to examine or revoke. It’s designed to hold Trump to his campaign promise to use his presidential pen to loosen rules on businesses. It’s also certain to trigger partisan fights in Congress.
Cutting regulation is a top priority next year as it can help boost U.S. economic growth and "reignite animal spirits," House Speaker Paul Ryan said today in Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is also on board. "The president-elect has made it clear he’s going to move on as many regulatory changes as he can make as soon as he takes office," McConnell said at a news conference this week.
High on the Freedom Caucus’s agenda are ending President Barack Obama’s executive actions protecting undocumented immigrants who arrived as children and ending the Export-Import Bank, of which Boeing Co. is the biggest beneficiary. The list also calls for undoing the law that created the Overseas Private Investment Corp., which helps U.S. businesses gain a foothold in emerging markets, in 1971.
The list also targets First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative against childhood obesity, rules requiring for-profit colleges to teach employable skills, regulations intended to make ceiling fans and washing machines more energy efficient. Net neutrality rules that benefit internet content providers over broadband providers also make the list.
Kombucha, Fiduciary Rules
The caucus also included southern lawmaker-authored protections for the domestic catfish growers and alcohol transport regulations that hit the kombucha tea industry. It wants the federal rule barring the transport of drinks with more than 0.5 percent alcohol to be raised, "in order to support the growing kombucha industry."
For Wall Street, the group is targeted the new fiduciary rule for advisers on retirement plans as well as Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules for swaps dealers.
The caucus wants paid sick leave and minimum wage increases for federal contractors to be reversed, along with Obama’s increase in the threshold for overtime pay nationwide.