Protect People, Not Polluters: The Fight Against GOP Deregulation— A Corporate Coup In Disguise

From Flint To FTX: Why We Can’t Afford Republican Deregulation

For decades, conservatives have waged war on regulations — and not because they’re inefficient or outdated, but because they work. Regulations are how we, the people, put a leash on overbearing corporate power. They’re the democratic guardrails that keep Wall Street from gambling away the economy, that protect the water we drink and the air we breathe, that stop pharmaceutical giants from flooding the market with untested drugs, and fossil fuel companies from strip-mining the planet with impunity. Conservatives don't hate regulations because they fail— they hate them because they succeed at curbing the worst abuses of capitalism.

At its core, this crusade against regulation is about power. Conservatives, particularly Republicans— especially those whose careers are bankrolled by oil barons, hedge fund managers and libertarian billionaires— see federal regulations as an affront to private capital’s divine right to profit without restraint. They dress it up in the language of “freedom” and “job creation,” but what they really mean is freedom for corporations to exploit, pollute and profiteer without public oversight. The working class doesn’t benefit when rules are shredded; CEOs do. And the proposed inclusion of the REINS Act into the GOP's budget reconciliation package is a Trojan horse— a backdoor way to permanently kneecap the federal government's ability to protect people from corporate abuse.

Let’s be clear: The GOP’s dream isn’t just deregulation— it’s deconstruction. They want to strip away every last mechanism of public accountability and reduce government to a hollow shell that serves only the rich. If they succeed, it won’t just be climate rules or banking safeguards on the chopping block— it’ll be food safety, worker protections, disability rights and beyond. The far-right wants a world where private profit trumps public interest every time. Regulations are one of the last lines of defense we have. That’s why they’re under attack. When Republicans target regulations, they’re not just attacking red tape— they’re going after the hard-won protections that shield working people from predatory systems. On the environmental front, they’ve relentlessly fought to dismantle the Clean Air Act, gut the EPA’s authority, and let fossil fuel companies off the hook for poisoning communities. On labor, their deregulatory agenda aims to weaken OSHA, undo child labor protections and kill rules that ensure workers get paid overtime. Financially, they want to unravel Dodd-Frank and other post-crisis safeguards, making it easier for Wall Street to gamble with people’s homes, savings, and futures. None of this is about efficiency or “cutting costs”— it’s about transferring risk and harm away from the wealthy and onto the rest of us. Every regulation they destroy is another way to let corporations act without consequence while ordinary Americans are left to deal with the fallout.

We’ve already seen this play out during Señor Trumpanzee’s first term, when he made gutting regulations a cornerstone of his presidency. He slashed over 100 environmental rules, opening the door for coal companies to dump toxic waste into waterways and letting oil and gas giants sidestep methane emissions limits. His Labor Department made it easier for employers to misclassify workers as “independent contractors,” robbing them of health benefits and wage protections. And on the financial front, he handed Wall Street a wish list: weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, rolling back oversight of banks with assets under $250 billion, and neutering fiduciary rules meant to protect retirees from shady investment advice. The result? A regulatory vacuum where corporate power runs wild, and working people are left exposed. If Republicans succeed in codifying the REINS Act into law, they won’t just be picking up where they left off— they’ll be locking in a permanent state of corporate impunity.

Andres Picon’s report yesterday emphasized that “conservative Republicans have spent more than a decade working toward a wholesale rollback of federal regulations— and now they think they have the legislative battle plan to make it happen. Advocates of the rule-shredding proposal are seeking to give their legislation a coveted spot in the GOP’s party-line, energy, tax and border security megabit, a maneuver that would defuse the filibuster threat that has repeatedly thwarted their dreams. They say they have spent the better part of the past year crafting ways to ensure their latest iteration can pass muster in the Senate. The proposal would turn Congress into a gatekeeper for certain major rules and allow lawmakers to roll back countless regulations for the remainder of Trump’s term, drastically transforming the way the federal government oversees everything from businesses and banks to health care and energy development. The House Judiciary Committee advanced it last week as part of the Republicans’ broader budget reconciliation package— a potentially major step toward finally catapulting the deregulatory proposal to Trump’s desk.”

The proposal would require any “major rule that increases revenue” to be approved via a joint resolution of the House and Senate before taking effect. It would also allow lawmakers to retroactively terminate countless rules that federal agencies have already implemented by requiring them to submit them to Congress for review. Rules that Congress does not approve would automatically sunset.

The legislation would also allow Congress to repeal numerous recently finalized regulations through the use of a single resolution rather than repealing them one by one, as is current practice.

“It would be a war on regulations,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the minority whip. “To take that authority away from the executive branch would be a serious mistake.”

Democrats and progressive advocates argue that the REINS Act could empower congressional majorities to reject regulations they oppose, allowing partisan divisions to effectively sideline rules crafted by dedicated experts across federal agencies.

…Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, said during the markup that Republicans are “trying to handcuff the agencies that work to make sure that our food and drugs are safe and our air and water are clean.”

Raskin also blasted the provision that would allow Congress to repeal numerous regulations through the use of a single resolution, asserting that such action would be used to “hide the most destructive deregulatory votes among dozens of others, completely burying it in darkness.”

“This is not what the American people are looking for,” he said.