The House of Representatives has wrapped up the first five months of the 115^th Congress and I am pleased to report that this current House has been the most productive during the first 100 days of a new presidency in nearly 30 years.

During the first 100 days, the House passed 103 pieces of legislation. That is more than the 94 bills passed under the Obama administration and 42 bills that were passed under George W. Bush’s administration. One of those bills was a major regulatory reform package called the Regulatory Accountability Act – and included in that package was a piece of commonsense legislation that I authored, the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act. As a whole, the bills in the package were all designed to to cut through federal red tape and reverse the regulatory onslaught that has buried so many American workers and small businesses over the last eight years. My bill, the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act would require each government agency, in providing notice of a rule making, to include a link to a 100 word plain language summary of the proposed rule.

Additionally, during the first 100 days, there were 30 bills that were signed into law under President Trump – exactly two times more than under President Obama.

Lastly, we made historic use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a tool that gives Congress the power to invalidate a rule or regulation from the executive branch within 60 days of it being issued. In its 20 year history, the CRA has only been used once successfully and that was to overturn a Department of Labor rule on ergonomics. However, I am pleased to report that there have been 14 CRAs signed into law in 2017. This includes saving over 3 billion dollars in regulatory costs and saving over 4 million hours filling out paperwork. One important CRA that has been signed into law overturned an Obama era regulation that was designed to make sure that abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, could continue to receive grants for family planning under Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The Department of Health and Human Services rule prohibited states from preventing money from going to certain organizations for any reason other than their ability to provide Title X services. The House passed, the Senate passed, and President Trump signed this into law and the HHS rule was successfully repealed.

This is just the beginning of the 115^th Congress and my colleagues and I have only skimmed the surface of what the House of Representatives expects to accomplish. I will continue to work on behalf of the priorities of the 3^rd District to reverse harmful rules and regulations from the previous administration and pass bills that will empower Americans and get the government out of the way.