OPINION:
Congress can stop the “death by decree” simply by writing regulation into statute (“Congress must stop death by decree,” Web, Feb. 19). Members and staff who draft legislation can concurrently envision how they want the law carried out and put those ideas (including a cost cap) into the proposed statute, thus leaving no ambiguity or discretion to the executive branch.
Additionally, to set it in legislative concrete, the sponsoring member and a co-sponsoring member can engage in a floor colloquy for the congressional record that lays out in unambiguous language the legislative intent of a bill or measure for the executive and judicial branches.
The preceding two actions are important because if, after the bill’s enactment into law, the now federal statute’s legislative history is under review by the federal judiciary due to a legal challenge to it, the judges reviewing it have a clear record. That record would make it more difficult for them to thwart Congress by remaking a new statute out of whole cloth using their judicial imposition of regulations on business and industry not intended by the author of the legislation.
WAYNE RONALD BOYLES
Alexandria
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