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A group of Republican House members this week introduced a bill aimed at preventing overreach by the executive branch in substituting Congress-passed laws with its own rulemaking. This comes about two months after the Senate introduced an identical bill. The bill, known as the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act of 2021, seeks to affirm Congress’s legislative power by requiring every new “major rule” proposed by federal agencies be approved by both the House and Senate before they can be enforced. The proposed law defines “major rule” as any federal rule or regulation that may result in an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more; a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, government agencies, or geographic regions; or cause significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or the ability of U.S.-based enterprises to compete with foreign-based enterprises. The bill was i...

 

 

  President  Joe Biden  was sued by 12 states over a climate change-related executive  order , saying it has the potential to severely affect states’ economies. State attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah joined a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. “Manufacturing, agriculture, and energy production are essential to Missouri’s economy and employ thousands of hard-working Missourians across the state. Under President Biden’s executive order, which he didn’t have the authority to enact, these hard-working Missourians who have lived and worked this land for generations could be left in the dust,” Schmitt, a Republican, said in a March 8  statement . The lawsuit challenges Biden’s Executive Order 13990, titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” and accuses the Biden administration of not...

  A 21-year-old man was sentenced to 14 years in Chinese jail and suffered repeated  torture  for allegedly posting personal details about the Chinese leader  Xi Jinping ’s close family, his mother told The Epoch Times. “The lawyer told me after seeing him that he saw cigarette burns on his arm. He can’t move his right arm and has to eat with his left hand,” mother of Niu Tengyu, the jailed administrator of a wiki-based forum Esu Wiki, said in an interview. “They injected some unknown substances into his feet that caused pus. It was so painful that he can’t sleep at night.” Niu’s supposed offense stemmed from posts dating back to May 2019 that revealed photos, the identification number, and the passport photo of Xi’s Harvard-educated daughter Xi Mingze, as well as details of his brother-in-law Deng Jiagui. The forum, characterized by parodies of celebrities and nationalistic memes, has since been shut down. Niu, a self-taught coder, received the harshest punishment a...

  The United States House of Representatives is being urged by the Biden administration to pass two measures that fortify federal  background checks  for gun purchases. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said on Monday that “Gun violence is a public health crisis.” “Every day, gun violence—community violence, domestic violence, suicides, and mass shootings—takes American lives and forever alters many more,” OMB said. “Last year, we saw record levels of homicides in cities throughout our country, violence that disproportionately impacts Black and Latino communities.” The OMB said that the federal background check system is a “proven tool to reduce gun violence and save lives.” “This system, called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, has kept millions of guns out of potentially dangerous hands.” “The Administration encourages the House to pass two bills that would help close existing loopholes in the system,” OMB said. “The Administr...