Today the US House passed S. 496, the bill originally sponsored by Minnesota's own Jason Lewis, to reject the December 2016 rule issued by the Obama administration that would vastly expand the reach of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Of course, our local, unelected Met Council is the poster child of MPOs with too much power.

Rep. Lewis says:
"The essence of this bill is local control. The more government is removed from the People, the less responsive it becomes. Self government works best when closest to the People."

The ball got rolling on this bill in January, when I published the report, Midnight Monkey Business - Expanding the Met Council's Regional Boundary.  From there, Kim Crockett at the Center of the American Experiment got word to Rep. Lewis about the rule, how reviled it was by regions across the country. 

The vote in favor of the final bill was a stunning 417-3 - as bipartisan as you can get.  The bill is on its way to the President to sign,  per Lewis' press release.

A victory for accountable, local government. Thank You Rep. Lewis!

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It appears that I missed the fact that an identical bill to reject Obama's expansion of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) has already passed the Senate, back on March 8th. 

We have it from a good source that this Senate bill will be adopted by the full House this week and will be on its way to the President for his signature. 

This deals a bi-partisan blow to Obama's egregious overreach, and a rebuke to our local administrative state monster, the Met Council.

Nice work, Rep. Jason Lewis, who got this all rolling in the House earlier in the year.

An Friday April 6th, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure reported to the full House its findings to repeal the Obama rule that greatly expands the powers of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations.

As I've covered before, this rule is so reviled that its rejection passed through committee unanimously, after bi-partisan sponsorship from Rep. Jason Lewis and Dan Lipinksi. 

While this is great progress, we need to keep in mind that,  per this report from Reuters, all rules that are rejected under the CRA must be signed by April 28th. That means we need quick action from the full House and then the Senate so that President Trump can permanently toss this rule in the dustbin. 

For details on how Obama snuck this vast regulatory overreach into law, see my initial report here.