THE HILL – President Biden’s administration is working overtime to ensure his health care priorities are protected from a potential second Trump White House.
In recent weeks, regulatory agencies have been racing against the clock to finalize some of their most consequential policies, such as abortion data privacy, antidiscrimination protections for transgender patients and nursing home minimum staffing.
At issue is the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a fast-track legislative tool that allows lawmakers to nullify rules even after the executive branch has completed them. The CRA also bars agencies from pursuing “substantially similar” rules going forward, unless Congress orders it.
Rules can be protected if they are finished before the “look-back” window opens in the last 60 legislative days of the 2024 session. But because of the quirks of the congressional calendar, nobody will likely know when that is until after Congress adjourns for the year.
According to a review from the George Washington University, that window has often fallen between May and August, most regularly occurring in July.
Most of the major rules that supporters of the administration were concerned about were published in April. Advocacy groups praised the White House for finalizing regulations they said will protect vulnerable populations.
“The administration is advancing important work with respect to health care, affordability, and access,” said Ben Anderson, deputy senior director of health policy at the left-leaning consumer advocacy group Families USA. “If rules aren’t finalized soon enough in the calendar, then everything’s sort of at risk of being undone by a future Congress.”
