CEI Commends Sen. Lankford for Introducing Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act
Photo Credit: Getty
On Thursday, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act. The bill would establish an independent commission to identify regulations harming the COVID-19 response, and compile a package for Congress to vote on.
CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young said:
“The American economy is a lot different than it was a year ago. We are still adapting to the challenges of COVID recovery, and making the country resilient against whatever the next threat might be. Part of that effort needs to include trimming the 185,000-page Code of Federal Regulations. Much of that code is out of date, was hampering the virus response, and will slow the economic recovery going forward.
“An independent commission like the one in the PPRRA is an effective way to go through all those rules and figure out which ones are worth keeping, and which ones the country is better off without. This is not a red-team/blue-team issue. It is a common sense issue, with a bipartisan heritage going back to the successful BRAC commissions of the 1990s that saved billions of dollars in military spending. Congress and President Biden should jointly pursue this bill or something like it.”
CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews said:
“At a time when the administration is passing trillions of dollars of spending in an attempt to jumpstart the economy, powerful deregulatory stimulus, that is, easing or removing unnecessary rules and regulations can make our economy more resilient.
“It is up to Congress has to reassert its primary legislative role and act to reduce regulation, as this juncture ideally can do that via a bipartisan ‘regulatory improvement commission,’ an idea is rooted in bipartisan discussions stretching back over several Congresses.
“The Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act is a logical, sensible, fair and humane approach to dealing with crisis. Under the Act, a bipartisan commission would prepare recommendations for regulatory streamlining, and those would be improved upon by public notice and comment. The resultant report would be issued to Congress, which would have the ability to say yes or no to this new vehicle uniquely expressing an aspect of the will of the people that too often gets neglected. While the regulatory code grows with little relief, the Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act provides a way of disciplining it for the public good, and health.”
Read more: