Remember those complaints about congressional gridlock keeping elected US federal legislators from getting anything done? Republicans now in control of both sides of the Capitol seem intent on making such criticism history.
Their robust use of the Congressional Review Act the week of Jan. 30-which had been applied successfully only once since it became law-was particularly striking for the domestic oil and gas industry. The week began with the introduction of resolutions in the House and Senate to disapprove the US Bureau of Land Management's methane emissions rule and its revised Resource Management Plan development requirements.
Republicans spoke about trying to reduce what they considered executive overreach. Democrats said the GOP was simply fighting responsible regulations. There were reports that the bills could pass the full House by the end of the week.
"This fight is about how much we let private industry waste our resources and pollute our planet in the name of making a quick extra buck," House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Minority Member Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in announcing a Feb. 1 minority hearing on the matter.
"Republicans are helping polluters hurt the rest of us and telling us we should thank them," he maintained. "The American people didn't vote for this, they don't support it, and they won't benefit from it."
The House Rules Committee, meanwhile, approved H.J. Res. 41 on Jan. 31, which provides for congressional disapproval of a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring publicly-trade US oil and gas and other extraction companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments.
The American Petroleum Institute has said that requiring US firms to make such disclosures when other governments don't do the same for companies based in their countries would give the non-US firms a competitive advantage. Oxfam America, the Natural Resources Governance Institute, and similar groups say it would make dealings with potentially corrupt foreign governments more transparent.
Back to making policies
All these moves raise the possibility that Republicans in the 115th Congress may try to return to making policies in areas the CRA doesn't cover, which critics of federal regulatory overreach have wanted for years.
One immediate question is whether they will go too far and repeal an entire statute that provides important protections, as an earlier Congress did with the Glass-Stegall law in 1999 that kept commercial and investment banking separate for 70 years.
That will be open to debate, and that's possibly what will happen in the 115th Congress with the Republicans in charge. Nearly everyone in the oil and gas industry would rather have it take place there than in backroom agreements designed to head off lawsuits.
