The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will be "closely involved" as the Trump administration writes "new regulations to undo or replace bad ones," and will be pushing to ensure the Regulatory Accountability Act is passed into law, Tom Donohue, the pro-business group's CEO, said Wednesday during Chamber's 2018 State of American Business address in Washington.
The Act would add new hurdles for agencies in proposing regulations, including requiring exhaustive economic analysis.
The Labor Department will be one branch of the administration that works this year to revamp its fiduciary rule.
David Hirschmann, president and CEO of the Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, told ThinkAdvisor after the Wednesday event that a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in the case the Chamber brought with eight other plaintiffs against Labor's fiduciary rule is "absolutely needed," as it will "give guidance to DOL on the challenges to its [fiduciary] approach."
Plaintiffs in the 5th Circuit case included the Chamber, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Financial Services Institute. A ruling by the 5th Circuit had been anticipated in December.
During his remarks, Donohue said that a "major pro-growth" initiative that Chamber influenced in 2017 was "reining in the regulatory state after eight long years of regulation run amok" under the Obama administration.
In 2017, Donohue said, Chamber "helped unravel a slew of major Obama-era regulations," and "we saw regulatory actions fall to a 17-year low, down 40% from their peak in 2011."
"On health care and more, the administration must now write new regulations to undo and replace bad ones," Donohue said. "The Chamber will be closely involved."
Last year, Chamber, he continued, helped beat back "burdensome labor regulations that hampered business operations and harmed workers, and onerous financial rules that would have suppressed retirement investment and disadvantaged consumers," referring to the Labor Department's fiduciary rule.
Donohue also pledge that Chamber will continue "advocating for systemic regulatory reform," including passage of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which passed the House last year.
