to order a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Undoing most regulatory rollbacks, however, will require a review process that can take years, often followed by further delays during litigation.
There is an alternative, but it comes with risks.
Biden could take a leaf from the Republicans’ 2017 playbook, when congressional Republicans used a shortcut based on an obscure federal law called the Congressional Review Act to wipe out several Obama administration regulations. Some scholars have called these 2017 repeals arguably “the Trump administration’s chief domestic policy accomplishment of its first 100 days.”
Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of interest in having the new Democratic-controlled Congress turn the tables and use the same procedure against Trump’s regulatory rollbacks.
The Democratic-controlled Congress easily passed legislation Thursday required to confirm retired Gen. Lloyd Austin as President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense, brushing aside concerns that his retirement occurred inside the seven-year window that safeguards civilian leadership of the military.
Evanston Now
President Biden taking the oath of office on Wednesday. (Wikipedia)
When he was a United States senator, Joe Biden commuted every day for years on the train between his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and his work in Washington, DC, earning the nickname “Amtrak Joe.”
Now that “Amtrak Joe” is President Joe, and has a Democratic-controlled Congress, Chicago-area transit agencies see a much improved chance of getting federal dollars to help survive the coronavirus pandemic.
At a virtual meeting of the Regional Transportation Authority board Thursday morning, Government Affairs Director Jeremy LaMarche said the “prospect of additional infrastructure dollars is more likely” due to the power shift in Washington.