Biden’s Regulatory Race: What Happens If Trump Wins and Rescinds Them

The Biden administration is rapidly implementing federal regulations, with 37 proposed new rules and 56 finalized rules in the past week alone that will amount to a cost of $875.3 billion for businesses.

According to The Washington Times, this total cost is just $20 billion less than the total of the Obama administration. The American Action Forum (AAF), a right-leaning economic think tank that monitors federal regulations and their costs, reported this data. The Biden administration is moving quickly in anticipation of potential changes in the November election.

“I think in this past week you really started to see an uptick in activity,” said Dan Goldbeck, director of regulatory policy at the AAF. “They are prioritizing some really big items.

“For the rest of the year, you are going to see a concerted effort to get some of these items across the finish line so they can avoid scrutiny next year if the election goes a certain way.”

Some of the new regulations include:

• A Health and Human Services mandate requiring a minimum number of staffers in nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding.
• An Environmental Protection Agency rule establishing strict emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, buses, and large vehicles starting in 2027.
• A Department of Labor rule enforcing stricter standards on retirement investment advisers.
• A rule to reduce emissions from new natural gas and existing coal-fired power plants.

The Biden administration is rushing to enact as many regulations as possible to prevent potential reversals if Trump wins in November and if Republicans maintain their majority in the House, as reported by the Times.

Many of these regulations can be overturned through the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which allows Congress to rescind agency rules within 60 congressional session days of finalization. It only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass.

Trump and the GOP-led Congress utilized this act to overturn 16 Obama administration regulations. President Joe Biden has used the act three times to revoke Trump-era regulations that relaxed oil and gas emissions standards, as reported by the Times. Additionally, he has utilized executive orders to reverse many of Trump’s policies.