So this happened:
Yesterday, taking their anti-regulatory zeal to absurd new heights, House Republicans claimed that a proposed rule from the Interior Department that would “designate the Burmese python and eight other snake species as ‘injurious’” — therefore “make it illegal to import them or transport them across state lines” — is a threat to job creation. They even brought a snake breeder to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who said that the rule could “devastate a small but thriving sector of the economy.”
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly responded by pointing to the GOP's failure to focus on jobs at all and demolishing any attempt to connect snake regulation to job loss:
“If regulations and economic growth were inversely related, then sub-Saharan Africa would have the most productive economy on earth,” Connolly said in a statement.
[...]
Connolly objected to the argument to overturn a regulation banning transportation of dangerous snakes across state lines. Connolly said introducing giant Burmese pythons to additional environments would “wreak havoc on our national parks and on many of our native wildlife, plants, and crops…and that will have a negative impact on jobs and our environment.”
For Republicans, this is part of a much broader push against regulations, from those that keep us safe at work to those that keep the air we breathe moderately clean. It's not some kind of stand-alone effort and will be buried under a host of similar efforts. But I still want to see some “Republicans wanted to make it easier for shady snake dealers to bring dangerous foreign snakes into this state” ads come 2012.