Paul Metrey, SVP of Regulatory Affairs, NADA

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00This is In the Dirt with ASOTU.

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‍Paul Daly: 0:04

Okay, I'm here right now with Paul Metrey, the Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at NADA, a very busy busy man these days. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today. So just got done speaking at the Auto Team America event about having a new Congress and some new considerations. How would you summarize that for the Dealers who weren't able to hear it? You said,

Paul Metrey: 0:26

Well, typically what you see in a situation where you have a an administration that is really pushing a number of initiatives, and they were doing it legislatively, and they've lost the ability to continue to do it legislatively, a lot of times, they will shift over to the branch of government that they control the executive branch and start to push initiatives there. Now, we've already seen the agencies very active, but we can expect to see even more activity. Because with the House of Representatives in Republican hands, it's unlikely that some of the major initiatives the President have been pushing are likely to get passed. There's also the likelihood of more oversight now that the House has shifted to the Republicans, that's something they talked about. So that's something we're likely to see as well.

Paul Daly: 1:07

So you mentioned during the Obama administration, this was kind of maybe not a precedent. But something we've seen before with increased executive action is what you're

Paul Metrey: 1:16

If you look at the first two years of the Obama says right? administration, there are a lot of major legislative initiatives that passed, we saw the Affordable Care Act, we saw the Dodd-Frank Act, once the Congress flipped, and it flipped in pretty big numbers after that first term, then, of course, the ability to try to move initiatives shifted over to the executive branch. And we started to see a lot of activities from a number of the agencies. So that type of template or that type of precedent we've seen before, and it's something that would not be unlikely to play out now.

Paul Daly: 1:48

So a lot of what was passed this year, the CFPB, a lot of a lot of these initiatives that are happening, that that are stated to be driven by consumer consumer intent or consumer desire. What is your thought position on how much the consumers voice? The real consumers voice is actually getting up the legislative change? And how much of it is is actually just kind of blown out of proportion?

Paul Metrey: 2:11

Well, it's very good question. Certainly,

Paul Daly: 2:14

it's an easy and easy one. Yeah, I

Paul Metrey: 2:16

mean, the the concerns of a lot of that consumer advocates, they want to address problems that they see in the marketplace. And of course, there are problems that can occur, we see that with certain actors. I think what's important to focus on though, is that currently, the Federal Trade Commission, in this instance, they have authority to address these type of concerns, there is no regulatory bill to fill. So they do not have to create a new remedy in order to take care of some existing problems. They have the enforcement authority. The other benefit to that is you can target you can go after an alleged bad actor without saddling other honest businesses, which they say they want to protect with additional burdens and duties on top of an already very heavy regulatory set of burdens that they're dealing with today. So the concern we have is not that they want to tackle things that they've seen that are problematic is the way they're going about it. And if you're going to propose a rule that's going to really comprehensively change the way business is done, and of course, requires a lot of research that requires due diligence, you really got to make sure that you're doing it in a way that's going to help consumers not just based on untested assumptions, and we really think that process has been short circuited, and we're hoping they'll revisit that.

Paul Daly: 3:31

Well, thank you for taking a few minutes. I know you have a lot to do. NADA is just getting started. So thanks for your work. And thanks for a few minutes.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:39

Thank you for listening to in the dirt with ASOTU. We love the automotive industry and the people who make it run day in and day out. We would love to connect with you more through our daily dose of fun, a free email that you can sign up for at ASOTU.com That's a s o t u.com. We put our heart and soul into it every day. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time for more Conversations in the dirt with ASOTU.

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