“We have been very busy,” said Senate finance president Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “We unquestionably approved the most significant piece of legislation in decades and we are now making great strides in the next steps – for example, infrastructure and tax reform. These are big problems and there are only a few hours in the day. “
Still, almost two months after the start of the new administration, time is running out to use the maneuver, given the restrictions on using the so-called CRA within 60 legislative days of a new regulation. The Senate is currently working on a series of cabinet confirmations and is expected to have a two-week break at the end of the month. Most of the committee’s leaders said on Monday that they had not made any final decisions.
Senate banking president Sherrod Brown said his committee is still considering whether to overturn some of Trump’s regulations and that the lack of action so far does not mean that Democrats will not act.
“The fact that nothing has happened yet is because everything was happening before,” said Brown of Trump’s regulatory pace. Ohioan added that it has until the end of next month to try to reverse some elements of the ex-president’s agenda.
The Democrats’ deliberative approach differs greatly from that of former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who in early February 2017 had already begun to reverse an EPA flow protection regulation and a resource extraction regulation issued as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
In all, the Republican Party blitz hit 14 Obama regulations in mid-May 2017. Before Trump became president, the law had been used successfully only once, to reverse an ergonomic regulation from former President Bill’s government Clinton.
“It was an important tool that we were able to use,” said Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), who was the leader in 2017.
However, some Democrats are afraid to act against Trump’s regulations now because of an untested clause that could limit the Biden administration’s ability to rewrite those rules. The law prohibits the rewriting of new regulations that are disapproved by Congress if they are “substantially the same way” as the previous vetoed regulations.
In other words, if Congress strikes a Trump EPA October rule reversing methane limits in new oil and gas wells, some environmental advocates fear that Biden would have his hands tied to rewrite it. This means that Biden and the Democrats in Congress need to coordinate closely whether Congress should act or leave it to the new government.
“This can prevent the executive branch from making good policies. So, we are considering each one on a case-by-case basis, ”said Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
The revision law “is a blunt instrument”, in the words of Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Who said that Democrats have not yet had a broad discussion of the caucus on zeroing Trump’s actions. “If you are successful, you will not only revoke the regulation you don’t like, but you can put an obstacle in your own way.”
Still, Democrats have not entirely ruled out using the CRA’s direct mechanism to eliminate Trump’s deregulatory actions. The chairman of the House’s Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Last week began evaluating support for three resolutions to block revisions to the Trump-era banking and real estate rules. One of the proposals would annul a rule that would make it more difficult to bring complaints of discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.
“There were discussions. But nothing has been decided yet, ”said Patty Murray (D-Wash.), President of the Senate for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Democrats also need to assess the best use of their time at this stage of Biden’s presidency. The Senate has yet to fill several positions in the Biden Cabinet, including director of the CIA and secretary of health and human services, with limited time of use and many competing imperatives.
“It is not that we are deciding not to do this. We just haven’t got there yet because of Covid. And we have to make these confirmations, ”said Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Who chairs the Agriculture Committee and serves on the leadership.
Another factor at stake in the regulatory debate: Democrats currently enjoy smaller majorities in both chambers than Republicans had in 2017. This means that they would need to make sure they had an almost total party unit before they could start to burn a good portion of the time on the floor in the Senate.
“I know that a lot of work has been done to find out what is possible, what makes sense, whether or not there are more than 50 votes for each of these things,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (DN.M.). While there are Trump actions that Heinrich said he personally wants to revoke, he added: “This is different from doing the analysis to make sure that we will also be successful.”
Anthony Adragna and Zachary Warmbrodt contributed to this report.