Is “Hold rule near and dear” an established English idiom?

Solution 1:

It is a catch phrase, or idiom, Oishi-san, and its full text is "to hold something near and dear to your heart."

It means to heed or mind something well.

Also, the predicate in the first sentence is "traces", and you don't get to the "prohibits" predicate until the second sentence.

Solution 2:

To hold near and dear is just a common idiomatic variant of to hold near [or dear] to one's heart. To place great value or set great store by something.

In OP's sentence it means the Commission is very firmly committed to the ban on "stunting”, and is not likely to abandon that heartfelt position.

LATER: It may not be the most common variant (I really wouldn't want to guess), but this NGram shows the usage certainly isn't particularly uncommon.

Both quoted sentences are perfectly good English, if a little verbose and convoluted.

Solution 3:

It's not an established phrase as such, but "holds it near" and "holds it dear" are both well-known: ?"holds it near and holds it dear" would be so verbose as to be nearly wrong.

And the first sentence is fine; the verb is "traces", and the reader is assumed to realise that an organization set up to "reduce the increasingly carnival atmosphere" is going to be opposed to a stunt like this.