What’s Next on Gun Control: Obama and the Loophole
The White House will likely go around Congress and require background checks for all “in the business” of selling firearms.
Bloomberg: The next shoe to drop on gun control may come by mid-January, when President Barack Obama is expected to issue an executive order requiring everyone “in the business” of selling firearms to perform background checks.
Wait a second, you might be saying. Doesn’t federal law already oblige gun retailers to do computerized criminal checks via the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s data base? Yes and no.
Yes, when it comes to federally licensed dealers. But no, when you’re talking about people who lack federal licenses and sell guns from their personal collections.
The problem is that an awful lot of firearms are sold in the latter fashion by individuals who aren’t technically gun retailers but who sell weapons at weekend gun shows or from their homes. Forthcoming research by the Harvard School of Public Health estimates that 40 percent of all gun transfers occur without background checks (that’s the so-called gun show loophole). Presumably the background-check gap permits some criminals and mentally disabled people to buy guns who otherwise might be stopped.
Following another a year of shooting massacres of Americans, Obama has let it be known from his holiday retreat in Hawaii, through unidentified advisers, that soon after New Years Day he plans to follow through on plans to expand the definition of who’s “in the business” of selling firearms—and who’s thus required to perform background checks. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, among others, has strongly backed this idea, and now Obama appears ready to make its implementation one of the first major acts of his final year in office.
Another fan of expanded background checks: Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg LP and founder of Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s leading nonprofit advocating tougher regulation of firearms. Bloomberg visited Obama at the White House last week to discuss gun-safety strategies.
The timing of the expected Obama move on background checks guarantees it will receive a hostile reaction from gun-rights advocates, thousands of whom will gather next month in Las Vegas for the firearm industry’s annual Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show, known as SHOT.
An ironic twist is that many of the attendees at SHOT each year are federally licensed bricks-and-mortar gun dealers who sometimes concede privately that they have no real problem with all gun sellers being forced to do background checks. These full-time retailers resent competition from casual unlicensed sellers at gun shows.
But the National Rifle Association’s orthodoxy—that any additional gun control is merely a first step toward bans and confiscation—holds sway in the firearms world, making outward expressions of support among gun sellers for Obama’s proposal unlikely. While the enormous gathering in Las Vegas isn’t technically an NRA event, the group’s strong anti-Obama stance will almost certainly be evident there, and a fresh proposal to stiffen regulation may have the effect of pouring gasoline on a fire already burning hot.
There will probably be calls to challenge Obama’s authority to broaden the background check mandate without congressional involvement. Lawsuits and objections from pro-gun Republicans on Capitol Hill will likely follow, as has happened with other efforts by the administration to use executive authority in the environmental arena.
Another sure thing: Texas Senator Ted Cruz and other Republican presidential candidates will condemn the Obama proposal. In other words, the Great American Gun Debate will continue in 2016.
The Hill: President Obama is preparing to unleash a wave of new regulations in 2016 as he looks to shore up his legacy on public protection issues during his final year in office.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Labor are all expected to finalize major federal rules that critics say are long overdue. The regulations include a final rule from the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that will force companies to compare the paychecks of their top executives with company performance, final rules for cigars and electronic cigarettes proposed well over a year ago, and a final regulation to protect constructions workers from deadly silica dust.
Here’s a look at the top regulations expected to come from the administration in 2016.
Pay for performance
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to finalize its “pay for performance” rule that will require publicly traded corporations to disclose how much their top executives are paid and compare that to the companies’ overall financial performance.
The agency, which first proposed the rule in May, set an October 2016 deadline for the final rule last month. The SEC contends it will allow shareholders to make more informed decisions when electing directors.
Arbitration
Regulatory experts are expecting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to propose new rules in 2016 to protect consumers’ right to file or join a class-action lawsuit against a financial company.
More and more companies are adding arbitration clauses to contracts that prevent consumers from resolving a dispute through the court system. Instead, the language, which can often be found in credit card and cellphone contracts, typically states that disputes about a product can only be resolved by privately appointed individuals or arbitrators.
Dodd-Frank directed the CFPB to do a study of arbitration agreements and issue a report of its findings to Congress. After the agency completed the report in March, it announced plans to proceed with a rulemaking.
E-cigarettes
Industry and health groups may not agree on the rules, but both are exasperated by the delay in first-ever regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for cigars and electronic cigarettes.
Health groups were frantic in the days leading up to the release of the $1.1 trillion government spending deal earlier this month, fearing that industry had successfully lobbied for a change that would have exempted many e-cigarette and cigar products from the restrictions.
Industry groups, however, came up empty-handed and will now wait to see if attempts to lobby the White House for last-minute changes paid off. Those organizations are most concerned about a provision in the proposed rule that would require all products that hit store shelves after Feb. 15, 2007, to apply retroactively for approval, a process that companies say would put them out of business.
The FDA originally said the final rules would be out last summer but changed the deadline to November. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is reviewing the final rule, was still meeting with industry and health groups last week.
Silica dust
The Department of Labor is in the process of finalizing a years-in-the-making rule to protect workers from silica dust.
Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s safety and health director, said the labor group has been awaiting the rule since 1997. Exposure to silica dust, common at construction worksites and shipyards, can cause an irreversible lung disease known as silicosis.
The Labor Department sent the final rule to the OMB last week for final review, a process that can take up to 90 days.
“I’m sure they will give it a thorough review and it’ll be issued sometime, we hope, in the first quarter of the year,” Seminario said.
The DOL is gearing up for a busy year, with plans to also finalize a rule that will require employers to report and keep records of workplace injuries and illnesses. Seminario said the draft of the final rule went to OMB in October. Labor groups are hoping to see a final rule in the first quarter.
Overtime pay
Perhaps the most sweeping action to in the new year will be a final rule to extend overtime pay to nearly 5 millions white-collar workers. The Labor Department proposed the rule in June as a result of an executive order President Obama issued in May. Under the rule, any worker earning up to $50,000 annually would be eligible for overtime.
Department spokesman Jason Surbey said the agency is reviewing the more than 270,000 comments it received.
“We’re on track to issue a final rule by July 2016, with an effective date sometime after that,” he said.
Predatory lending
The CFPB is planning a February rollout of its proposed rules to crack down on predatory payday lenders.
The agency released a framework for the rules in March that considered forcing lenders to ensure a borrower’s ability to repay a loan, limiting short-term credits to 45 days or less and establishing a 60-day “cooling-off” period for borrowers who take out three loans in a row.
Payday lenders have already balked at the rules, calling them unnecessary and damaging for consumers who have nowhere else to turn for their short-term lending needs.
Food safety
The FDA is expected to issue final requirements in March for the sanitary transportation of animal and human food.
The rules, which were are mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, establish requirements for shippers, carriers and receivers to use sanitary practices to ensure that that food does not become contaminated when being transported. The final rules were originally expected to be released in April 2015.
Financial advisers
The Labor Department is also expected to issue a final rule in 2016 that would require financial advisers to disclose more information to their clients about the compensation they receive. In October, under mounting pressure from business groups, Labor Secretary Tom Perez said the department planned to make some changes to the contentious regulations — commonly called the “fiduciary rule” — but would not detail what those changes would be.
Methane
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finalize new rules to limit methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The rule would require drillers to use new technologies to track and block both accidental and purposeful leaks when producing and transmitting oil and gas. The EPA has set a June deadline for the release of this final rule.
