WASHINGTON — House Republicans are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.

With everyone from President Obama to his Republican challengers in the 2012 campaign focusing on ways to spur economic growth, House Republicans rolled out plans Monday to fight regulations from the National Labor Relations Board, pollution rules handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency, and regulations that affect health plans for small businesses. In addition, the lawmakers plan to urge a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses.

“It is essential that the House continue our focus on the jobs crisis,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., wrote in a memo to GOP lawmakers.

The push for a jobs agenda comes as Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and others plan to present their own jobs agendas just after Labor Day.

In mid-August, shortly after lawmakers agreed on a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, just 13 percent of voters in a Gallup poll approved of the job Congress was doing, a record low.

Some GOP strategists have been warning party leaders that the focus on cutting spending is not resonating with independent voters who are most concerned about a sagging economy and a jobless rate that has exceeded 9 percent for more than two years.

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The effort to cut regulations, which House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, alerted Obama to in a letter on Friday, is likely to meet stiff resistance from the Democrat-controlled Senate. And liberal activists have accused Republicans of exaggerating the impact the rules have on job growth and of discounting their benefits.

“They save lives and reduce illness. Less pollution, for instance, means fewer cases of asthma and lung disease. Having safer toys on store shelves means fewer children dying after choking on small parts,” said Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group.

In Wyoming last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the tools to boost an economic recovery are “outside the province of the central bank,” suggesting that Congress and Obama must find the right mix.

In his letter, Boehner asked the president to report “all pending and planned rulemakings” that would have an impact of more than $1 billion on the economy.

The Cantor memo provided additional details on the regulatory focus. The week of Sept. 12, House Republicans will try to rescind an NLRB ruling that restricts Boeing’s effort to transfer an assembly line from Washington state to South Carolina. Business leaders accuse the Obama administration of interfering to try to help its labor allies, because South Carolina is a right-to-work state with fewer unions. Labor leaders say the aerospace company is seeking a location with cheaper labor.

The next month or so will focus on EPA regulations. House Republicans would pull back an effort to regulate coal ash in mining-heavy states that they say would hinder concrete production and cost more than 100,000 jobs. Through the fall and winter, Cantor said, the caucus will vote on at least 10 regulations that committee chairmen have identified as “costly bureaucratic handcuffs.”

The result of these votes is likely to mirror failed efforts this year to repeal landmark legislation that was approved during Obama’s first two years in office – his health care law and the Dodd-Frank consumer protection bill – but it will provide a framework for Republicans to highlight a jobs agenda. Also, leaders have pushed several of their freshmen lawmakers to advance the anti-regulation bills, providing the newcomers with a chance to tout proposals that could resonate with voters in their districts.

Republicans also plan to push some tax proposals, including their long-standing support for a plan that would allow businesses with fewer than 500 employees to deduct 20 percent of their annual income. This proposal was part of their Pledge to America, a campaign-style manifesto that was announced just before the 2010 midterm elections.

 


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