Clarifying the Congressional Review Act
This post was originally published on Legal Planet. Reprinted with permission.
Soon after Trump took office, Republicans used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn sixteen Obama-era regulations. If they win control of the government in 2024, they'll undoubtedly do the same thing to Biden regulations. It behooves us, then, to understand the effect of these legislative interventions. A Ninth Circuit ruling last week in a case involving bear baiting, Safari Club v. Haaland sheds new light on this murky subject.
The CRA provides a fast-track process for Congress to repeal administrative regulations. Such a repeal also impacts the agency's power to issue new regulations. In the absence of further legislation, an agency may not reissue the rule in "substantially the same form" or issue a "new rule that is substantially the same" as the overturned rule. As a thorough report by the Congressional Research Service explains, however, no one really knows what "substantially the same" means. More than "a little similar" and less than "identical," presumably, but that leaves a very large gray area.
Some agencies have concluded that they can't even issue a rule dealing with the same subject as the old one. A couple of agencies …
During the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of the Interior undermined its statutory obligations to protect lands and natural resources managed by the federal government. It also accelerated the extraction of fossil fuels from federal lands and constructed barriers to a shift to renewable energy, hindering efforts to abate climate disruption.
On March 15, 2021, the Senate confirmed Deb Haaland as new secretary of the department, which houses the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — three agencies that together are responsible for managing millions of acres of some of the nation's most precious terrain.
Before Haaland's confirmation, the Center for Progressive Reform identified five priorities for the department. Here is an update on progress so far.
- Restore curbs on methane waste. In his first week in office, President Biden issued an executive order that enunciated a policy …
Update: On March 15, 2021, the Senate voted to confirm Deb Haaland as Secretary of Interior.
President-elect Joe Biden tapped Deb Haaland to head up the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees our nation's public lands, wildlife conservation, and key aspects of energy development. Currently a House representative from New Mexico, Haaland has led the national parks, forests, and public lands subcommittee on the House Natural Resources Committee. She would be the first Native American to lead the department.
If confirmed, Haaland will oversee an agency the Trump administration systematically worked to dismantle. Secretaries Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt did everything in their power to make the department as industry friendly as possible — shrinking national monuments, gutting endangered species protections, throwing open the doors to fossil fuel extraction, and more.
Though Haaland will face significant challenges, she can begin to reverse harmful policies and ensure …
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