Reg Reform Draft Circulated

Wading into an area that proved extremely treacherous to the last Congress, Senate Governmental Affairs Chairman Thompson and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., are circulating draft regulatory reform legislation among industry and environmental groups, sources said.

Both senators said at the beginning of the 105th Congress that they hoped to produce bipartisan, consensus-based regulatory reform following the failure in 1995 of legislation to attain cloture on the Senate floor.

Sources said they want to introduce legislation before July 4.

One source said the legislation includes cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment requirements for new environmental and health regulations, but the draft has limited judicial review so the provisions do not constitute a "super-mandate" affecting all relevant statutes.

A source said that business groups are meeting Friday with Thompson to discuss their opinions on the draft, and environmental groups are supposed to get back to Levin by Tuesday.

Environmental groups strenuously opposed regulatory reform legislation introduced in 1995 by then-Senate Majority Leader Dole.

Dole brought the legislation to the floor in July of that year, but failed three times to win a cloture vote on the bill.

At that time, Levin was part of a group of Senate Democrats who attempted to craft a compromise on the measure, but it never went back to the floor.

Proposals drafted by Levin during that fight sought to avoid the perception of a super-mandate, sources said, but would have allowed courts to use agency procedures as evidence to determine whether the agency acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner in promulgating a new regulation.

A regulatory reform measure faces lukewarm support in the business community, where many officials believe they cannot pass a bill that would satisfy their concerns.

Many environmental groups strongly oppose legislation, contending that it is not needed.

The "green" community mounted a massive public relations campaign against reg reform legislation in the last Congress, infuriating supporters of reform with television advertisements claiming that the bill would "roll back" health and safety standards, and can be expected to do so again if the issue picks up steam.

This year, a Senate source said, the controversy over EPA's proposed air quality standards, which have drawn bipartisan opposition, will be the backdrop to debate over regulatory reform.

Senators and House members on both sides of the aisle have raised strong objections to the standards, and the Senate may divide differently in this Congress on regulatory reform than it did in the last Congress, the source said.