Furthermore, all public notice and comment requirements of the
Administrative Procedure Act and the individual laws at issue still
apply when an agency undertakes the substantive action for which a
deadline was missed. Parties and non-parties alike are provided with numerous
opportunities to provide input in advance of the rules being finalized. H.R. 469 undermines protections for the American people, masqueraded
as a measure to prevent undocumented and unfounded allegations of ``sue
and settle'' collusion between public interest plaintiffs and
sympathetic federal agencies entering into consent decrees and
settlements. In fact, H.R. 469 favors industry interests at taxpayer expense and
promotes regulatory uncertainty by making it virtually impossible to
actually enter into consent decrees and settlements that avoid the
costly and time consuming alternative of litigation. But its most serious flaw is that H.R. 469 is really a back door way
to derail the rulemaking process and undermine federal law, shifting
limited agency resources away from the implementation of health and
safety protections for the very people that we are supposed to be
representing.
Keywords matched
undocumented