Regulatory Action Center Review – December 3, 2020

Welcome to this week’s Regulatory Action Center (RAC) Review! RAC proudly keeps you up to date on what we’re up to and what we’re keeping our eyes on here in the swamp. We offer resources for you to get involved in the rulemaking process to hold unelected bureaucrats accountable and occasionally offer praise in the event they have a good impulse. We will also highlight the incredible work our activists have done to advance the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, free markets, personal liberty, and the rule of law. For more ways to get involved and stay informed, check the links at the bottom of this post.

RACtivists by the Numbers

This year, FreedomWorks Foundation’s RACtivists submitted 1,583 comments in support of the Federal Communications Commission’s retargeting of universal service funding to establish the 5G Fund for Rural America. This rule was merely one of several actions taken by the FCC to help expand broadband access to rural Americans under the Chairmanship of Ajit Pai who recently announced that he will leave FCC on January 20th. Read FreedomWorks’ statement on Chairman Pai’s departure: HERE

5G Fund

Four Things to Know

1) Sen. Mike Lee: It’s Time to Unify Our Antitrust Enforcers

In a recent opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) announced his legislative effort to “put all federal antitrust enforcement under one roof,” the One Agency Act. In response to the haphazard way that both Congress and executive agencies have handled recent concerns about antitrust surrounding “Big Tech,” Sen. Lee has proposed consolidating antitrust enforcement solely within the purview of the Department of Justice (DOJ). Currently, antitrust enforcement is split between the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ, resulting in turf wars between the agencies.

More resources on this:

Read about the One Agency Act: HERE

Read more on antitrust: HERE

2) Bad Science Plagues Federal Dietary Guidelines

Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) convenes to consider the latest scientific research on dietary health and produce a recommendation for federal dietary guidelines. Unfortunately, it appears that this year’s committee ignored the vast majority of scientific literature in order to support a biased agenda. The most obvious flaw in this year’s guidelines is the changed recommendation that men only consume one alcoholic drink per day rather than the standard two drinks that the committee has recommended for the past few decades. In a scathing comment to the Food and Nutrition Service, five professors at Harvard Medical School lambasted the committee’s unscientific recommendations, stating that DGAC “failed to demonstrate that, in the last 5 years, sufficient new data emerged to change all previous guidance.”

More resources on this:

Read the formal comment: HERE

Read a bipartisan letter from 28 members of Congress asking DGAC to explain their reasoning: HERE

3) Trump Administration Allows Chevron to Stay in Venezuela

In an abrupt reversal, the Trump administration recently announced that it would extend Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela. Earlier this year, the Department of the Treasury announced that the United States would increase economic pressure on despotic Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro by forcing American companies like Chevron to cease and desist all existing operations in the country. Instead, the Trump administration determined to extend Chevron’s waiver that was set to expire on December 1st until June 3rd, preventing Chevron’s Venezuelan assets from being expropriated by PdVSA and Russneft.

More resources on this:

Read more on America’s sanctions on Venezuela: HERE

Read FreedomWorks’ letter to the Trump administration: HERE

Read about Putin’s meeting with Maduro: HERE

4) Working Paper: Regulation in the Biden Administration

A new working paper from Professor Richard Pierce of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center outlines what to expect from a Biden administration. According to Pierce and his colleagues, the Biden team is already teeing up a plethora of executive orders and guidance documents for immediately after inauguration that seek to revert our regulatory structure back to that of the Obama administration. They also predict that the more progressive parts of the Biden agenda will be put on hold “at least as long as Republicans control the Senate.”

More resources on this:

Check out GWU’s Regulatory Studies Center: HERE

Take a look at the possibilities for Biden’s cabinet: HERE

RAC Resources

You can always find all RAC content (blogs, updates, press releases, and comment campaigns) HERE.

You can always sign up to become an elite RACtivist, if you haven’t already, HERE.

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