Republicans Plan to Undo Some Biden Administration Rules Next Congress

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in Washington on Nov. 13, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Among the final bills introduced in the current lame-duck Congress, and the first resolutions to be filed in the new Congress that convenes on Jan. 3, will be resolutions seeking to suspend implementation of the Biden administration’s “midnight regulations.”

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on several occasions this week said the incoming Senate majority is preparing Congressional Review Act resolutions to “rein in Washington bureaucrats” while agency rules are reviewed by the new GOP-majority Congress.

The Biden administration’s regulations for 2024 “alone amount to the second-highest annual total by pages in the Federal Register,” he said in a Nov. 20 statement, noting that since assuming office, the administration has “imposed regulatory costs that, by one estimate, surpass $1.8 trillion.”

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows Congress to suspend, in simple majority resolutions, the implementation of any rules and regulations adopted in the past 60 legislative days.

The CRA has often been used to blunt “midnight” rule-making by a departing administration. A CRA resolution does not repeal a rule; it prohibits agencies from implementing it. Once adopted in both chambers, the resolution is enacted by the president’s signature.

The CRA’s “lookback” provision allows the new Congress extra time to introduce a CRA resolution. That cutoff, or “lookback” date, is uncertain until the current lame-duck Congress adjourns and the newly elected one convenes on Jan. 3, 2025.

The Congressional Research Service in late August estimated that the “lookback” clock began ticking on Aug. 1, meaning that all rules and regulations finalized since then could fall under the scope of the CRA.

The George Washington University (GWU) Regulatory Studies Center created a CRA dashboard that calculates that up to 907 final rules could fall under CRA purview, using the Aug. 1 date.

Earlier this year, the center reported that “federal agencies broke records by publishing 66 significant final rules” in April 2024.

“The surge of rules is related to the expectation that rules finalized later in the year may be at risk of being overturned through the Congressional Review Act,” Zhoudan Xie, senior policy analyst at GWU’s Regulatory Studies Center, wrote in the report.

Among potentially CRA-vulnerable rules are some already targeted by a bipartisan bill in the lame-duck Congress: Department of Treasury final rules adopted on Oct. 28 for Section 45X advanced manufacturing production credits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) have co-introduced a resolution to block the implementation of the 45x credit because it allows Chinese-affiliated companies to qualify for producing clean energy components.

An analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News found that at least eight companies linked to China have spent more than $1.2 billion to build 23.6 gigawatts of solar module capacity since the IRA passed.

For instance, Trina Solar, based in Changzhou, China, was in line to receive nearly $1.8 billion in IRA tax credits before selling its 5-gigawatt, 1.35 million-square-foot Texas solar panel factory six days after opening it—and one day after President-elect Donald Trump won reelection on Nov. 5—to Norway-founded FREYR Battery for $340 million.

“Under no circumstance should the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) be allowed to benefit from the tax dollars of hardworking American families,” said Moolenaar, whose Michigan district is home to the under-construction battery factory from Gotion High Tech, a Chinese company.

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s 45X rule has left the door open for CCP-affiliated companies, like Gotion, to reap billions in taxpayer funding,” he said in a statement on Nov. 20. “That’s wrong and the commonsense bipartisan legislation we are introducing today will stop it.”

Although it’s unlikely because of the rule’s earlier date, the CRA bullseye could potentially zero on the Department of Transportation’s June rule enacting stricter fuel economy and emission standards for passenger vehicles and light trucks being challenged in court by 26 Republican state attorneys general.

Others that could be targeted are a Health and Human Services Department August rule that boosts wage and benefit requirements for Head Start workers and an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule from October requiring drinking water systems to replace lead pipes within the next decade, which could cost utilities an estimated $2.6 billion.

Among rules finalized in that spate to beat the CRA clock are the Bureau of Land Management’s Conservation and Landscape rule, which puts conservation on equal footing with other uses of public lands, and the EPA’s new standards for power plant emissions.

Republicans used the CRA in 2017 to suspend 16 regulations issued in the final months of the Obama Administration. Congressional Democrats used it in 2021 to revoke three Trump rules.

“GOP lawmakers plan to do the same with President Joe Biden’s administration rules,” McConnell said. “Two weeks ago, the American people gave Republicans a legitimate, crystal clear mandate. And come January, we ought to use it to hit the brakes on runaway regulation.”