Tell Your Members of Congress: Use the CRA to Revoke Trump-State Rules & Regulations
Call BOTH of your Senators.
Call ONE of the Representatives. Note: only one of these Congressmembers represents you. Find out which one here.
Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend. If you use Resistbot or write an email to your elected officials, make sure to use your own words. Copy-pasted emails are discounted by Congressional staff. In-depth, personal stories are most effective.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) gives Congress 60 legislative-days to overturn racist, destructive, and corrupt rules and regulations promulgated by the Trump regime in its last days of power. I am asking you to use your power under the CRA to revoke:
Independent Contractor Status Under the FLSA (Docket# 2020-29274). This Department of Labor rule is clearly designed to make it easier for corporations to evade minimum wage, overtime, and benefit laws by either replacing or reclassifying employees as “independent contractors.”
Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Benefits and Costs in the Clean Air Act Rulemaking Process (Docket# 2020-27368). This new Environmental Protection Agency rule makes it harder to justify air pollution limits, regulations, and orders by prohibiting the EPA from taking into account significant health and environmental benefits.
Fair Access to Financial Services (Docket# 2020-26067). This Treasury Department rule prevents financial institutions from taking environmental impact or social concerns into account when making financial decisions.
Resistbot / Email Script
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) gives Congress 60 legislative-days to overturn racist, destructive, and corrupt rules and regulations promulgated by the Trump regime in its last days of power. I know there is more important legislation that you need pass, but at least some of the worst of the worst of Trump’s atrocities need to be revoked because of the harm they do to the public interest and because inaction is a political statement-of-silence that equals assent to autocratic misrule. I previously asked you to overturn
DHS: Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal,
DoJ: Rule to Eliminate Claims for Title VI Disparate Impact,
EPA: Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions rules.
Now I am asking you to use your power under the CRA to also revoke:
Independent Contractor Status Under the FLSA (Docket# 2020-29274). This Department of Labor rule is clearly designed to make it easier for corporations to evade minimum wage, overtime, and benefit laws by either replacing or reclassifying employees as “independent contractors.” It’s a straight-up give-away to “Gig Economy” companies like Uber and InstaCart who classify their workers as freelancers.
Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Benefits and Costs in the Clean Air Act Rulemaking Process (Docket# 2020-27368). This new Environmental Protection Agency rule makes it harder to justify air pollution limits, regulations, and orders by prohibiting the EPA from taking into account significant health and environmental benefits.
Fair Access to Financial Services (Docket# 2020-26067). This Treasury Department rule prevents financial institutions from taking environmental impact or social concerns into account when making financial decisions.
Background
The processes for creating, amending, and overturning federal rules and regulations are complex, arcane, and lengthy. To oversimplify, there are four possible ways to overturn or revoke Trump regime rules and regulations:
Presidential executive action. President Biden has issued executive orders suspending or freezing some Trump rules, and he has ordered executive branch departments and agencies to begin a review process.
Congressional Review Act (CRA). Under the CRA, Congress has a 60-day window of opportunity to revoke a recently finalized rule or regulation. That process needs to commence forthwith.
Amend existing or issue new rules or regulations. The various federal departments and agencies must undertake the long, complicated process of revoking, amending, or creating rules and regulations.
Enactment of new law. Congress and the president must enact new laws that revoke, amend, or create new rules, regulations, and policies.
These different tracks can only be applied to different rule subsets, some of which overlap and some of which do not. So as a practical matter, to undo the damage of the Trump regime we need to press for action on all four fronts: executive action, CRA, agency action, and new legislation.
Additional References
Tracking the Trump Administration’s “Midnight Regulations” ~ ProPublica