The House on Regulation: NLRB, EPA, and “Pay Fors”

During the remainder of the week, the House of Representatives will take up H.R. 2587, a measure to insulate businesses from NLRB’s capricious, union-friendly actions. 

The legislation, sponsored by Representative Tim Scott (R-SC), would amend the National Labor Relations Act to deny NLRB the power to “order an employer (or seek an order against an employer) to restore or reinstate any work, product, production line, or equipment….” 

Representative Scott’s legislation is designed to address NLRB’s action that might stop Boeing from relocating part of its 787 Dreamliner production line to South Carolina.

Next week, according to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s schedule, the House will take up the Utility MACT (Toxics Rule) and the latest Interstate Transport final rule.  Here’s a brief snapshot of these two rules:

• Costs: combined, the two rules could impose more than $13.6 billion in direct costs;
• Paperwork Burden: 514,605 estimated annual paperwork burden hours;
• Job Losses: 45,000 for the Toxics Rule and up to 3,000 for the Interstate Transport rule.

Finally, the President’s jobs bill does include provisions for regulatory action.  One of the revenue “pay fors” in the legislation amends the Communications Act of 1934 to allow FCC to “collect fees from the first class or classes of spectrum license.” 

Over a ten year period this amounts to a significant revenue boost to the federal government.  Based on the draft language, from fiscal years 2012 to 2021 FCC is scheduled to collect “at least” $4.7 billion in spectrum fees.