Senate Republicans are working out a way to nullify regulations they don't like, possibly going back decades, with a new interpretation of an existing law, the Congressional Review Act. Their starting point is, of course, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's 2013 safeguards to prevent racial discrimination in auto lending. Of course.
While Republicans in the Trump era have already taken advantage of the 1996 law to remove more than a dozen recently issued rules, this would be the first time that Congress will have used it to kill a regulatory policy that is several years old.
Now, actions going back to President Bill Clinton’s administration could be in play under the procedure GOP lawmakers are undertaking, forcing numerous agencies to reconsider how they roll out new regulations.
“It’s a hugely important precedent,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), the architect of the effort, said in an interview. “It’s potentially a big, big opening.”
While conservatives are applauding the effort as a way to rein in rogue bureaucrats and boost the economy, consumer advocates are warning that the consequences could be dire.
“This takes an already incredibly dangerous law and cranks it up to 11,” said James Goodwin, senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform.
If you think "that's not how the CRA is supposed to work" you are right. The CRA allows for fast-tracked, simple majority votes to overturn regulations, but within a limited time period after the regulations have gone into effect—60 congressional working days. Now they've found a new way to use the law to get rid of older rules they don't like. If they weren't enacted as formal rules under the Administrative Procedure Act but rather as guidance documents, then Republicans think they can go after them. But first, Toomey figured out, they have to get the Government Accountability Office to determine if they would meet the legal definition as a rule for the purposes of the CRA.
Please contribute $3 to the fund to take back the Senate.
That ruling came down from the GAO on the anti-discrimination guidance from the CFPB in December and that started the 60-day clock, Republicans argue. Never mind the guidance is five years old. Or is intended to make sure people of color don't get targeted for rip-offs in trying to get auto financing. It's enough to make you think Republicans want lenders to be able to discriminate against people of color.
This isn't likely to be the end of it. "You have this unimaginably large universe of stuff that is now eligible for repeal under the CRA," says Goodwin. "Agencies don't submit all this stuff because it would be an administrative nightmare." Senate Republicans will happily spend the rest of their time between now and the midterm election undoing all these regulations that actually help people. That and confirming Trump's deplorable nominees.
Once again, Senate Democrats have to go figure out how to shut this shit down. Democrats also have to take back the Senate. That, we can help with.