Late Wednesday afternoon, the House voted 212-208 in passing a bill that would allow Congress to review multiple Congressional Review Act (CRA) eligible final rules in a single joint resolution of disapproval.
The Midnight Rules Relief Act (H.R. 77), would potentially allow congressional Republicans and President Trump to overturn up to 1,400 regs finalized in the final months of the Biden administration under special CRA procedures designed to give incoming elected officials a chance to put last-minute regulatory actions, called midnight rules, under scrutiny. (For more background on the bill and the CRA, see here.)
The bill is sponsored by Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who also introduced an identical bill that was passed by the House in the final weeks of the previous Congress. On Monday, the House Rules Committee advanced the bill, and the House the following day approved a resolution to consider it for passage on February 12.
An hour of debate preceded the vote, which saw an exchange of jabs between Biggs and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD). Biggs argued that the CRA “slows Congress’ oversight of agency rulemaking,” especially “during the midnight rulemaking period” wherein “executives agencies historically issue substantially more regulations than at any other time in a president’s term.”
Biggs criticized Democrats for ceding too much Constitutional authority to agency rulemakers, whom he described, collectively, as the Fourth Estate of federal powers. Under current law, it would take too much time to go through the entire CRA process for each disapproval motion when it would be easier to review midnight rules en bloc.
Raskin countered that even if debate on individual regs were technically permitted under the proposed legislation, there would be only time for “10 seconds” of debates, assuming each party is given 30 minutes. The Maryland Democrat sought to amend the bill so that CRA resolutions could not include multiple regs that cover unrelated topics. He accused Republicans of trying to quickly undo waves of Biden-era rules and “hide behind a giant omnibus that obscures” their actions.
The Midnight Rules Relief Act now goes to the Senate, where it last failed to be considered before the end of December.
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