In one of the first major actions taken by the newly convened Congress, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives quickly responded to the outgoing Obama Administration’s aggressive regulatory agenda by passing three major regulatory reform measures. Collectively, the three bills would make it easier to undo controversial regulations adopted in the last year of the Obama Administration, make it harder for agencies to promulgate new major rules, and limit judicial deference to agency interpretations of statutes and the agencies’ own regulations.
Because all three House-passed bills are, at least at this stage, highly partisan — there were only a handful of Democratic votes for any one of them — they are not likely to clear the Senate, where regulatory reform supporters would need support from at least eight Democrats to overcome an expected filibuster.
We should point out that lack of action by the Senate on these bills does not necessarily mean that there will not be some major regulatory changes coming in the near future. For example, among other things, President-elect Trump is expected to immediately wield his executive authority to undue many regulatory executive actions taken by President Obama.
In addition, there is one existing tool that Congress might utilize to overturn a regulation. Under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Congress can give expedited consideration to a “resolution of disapproval” to revoke a regulation. The CRA process is complex, however, and has been used only once since its enactment, in that case to overturn a Clinton-era regulation issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.