Ronald Reagan once said about governments’ view of the economy, “If it moves, tax it, if it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” That’s just what the government has been doing for generations.
More and more power has been given to bureaucrats to regulate everything that we eat, drink or use as consumers every day. We are all willing to allow regulations to make certain that consumers are protected. But you’ve heard the phrase, “give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile”. We’ve witnessed that many times.
Remember when we had to change light bulbs because our government bureaucrats were demanding we use a certain type of bulb to consume less energy. Don’t forget the “toilet regs”. These brilliant people demanded that we use toilets that only held a certain amount of water for flushing, to save water. We learned very quickly that one flush would not seal the deal. Consequently, we had to use more flushes and more water.
This is nothing new. These regulatory agencies have always done this, but the Biden Administration has put everything on overdrive. Biden has pushed through more job-killing regulations than any previous president. In his first year alone, he has initiated 69. Each of these regulations has a price tag of more than $100 million annually. To put that in perspective, Trump only had 22 regulations of that size. Still too many.
You may remember that President Trump actually rolled back (not easy to do) a regulation on dishwashers. President Trump said, “The dishwashers, they had a problem. They didn’t give enough water, so people would run them 10 times, so they end up using more water. And the things are no damn good. We freed it up.”
The liberal left was not happy with this efficiency change. The New York Times had several critical articles and called it a “plot by fossil fuel interests.” Watch for the Biden administration to try to change it back.
The latest attack, from the Biden administration, is gas stoves. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that they were seeking information “on chronic chemical hazards from gas stoves.” A commissioner, Richard Trumpka, Jr., wrote, “There is sufficient information available for CPSC to issue (a notice of proposed rulemaking) in fiscal year 2023 proposing to ban gas stoves in homes.”
The Biden administration may have overreached when they went after appliances. That might be a bridge too far. It sure is for me.
It appears that the administration is backtracking after the outrage over the gas stove regulation. But I understand that many local municipalities and some states around the country are already initiating the ban or requiring that new construction does not include gas appliances.
Congress has the authority to decide major questions of nationwide policy. It’s time to “rein” in the bureaucracy that drives up the cost of energy, and everything else, and is busting all our budgets.
The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act would prevent any president from unilaterally enacting rules or regulations that cost more than $100 million. The REINS Act would require Congressional approval for those projects before agencies could implement them.
We’ve all heard that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” That’s very true. When people are aware of these ridiculous rules, they react. The outrage over the ban on gas stoves proves that point.
The problem is that most of this happens under the radar and most folks are not aware of it until it’s too late. The media pays no attention for a variety of reasons. One, it’s not sexy enough and isn’t very interesting to most. Two, the media are lazy and won’t dig down for this innocuous trivia. Three, many are in favor of these types of regulations and don’t want you to know.
Make no mistake about it. None of this is about safety. It is about control.
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Joyce Krawiec serves in the North Carolina Senate. She represents Davie County and Forsyth County, NC. Christian, wife, mother, small business owner, and conservative.