Biden administration finalizes new regulations amid GOP repeal threats

The Biden administration is preparing new rules that would limit “junk fees,” cap bank overdraft charges and shield Americans from medical debt, as officials race over the next six weeks to finalize the remainder of the president’s economic agenda.

The 11th-hour push has drawn sharp rebukes from President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, who have signaled they plan to unwind any newly issued regulations – along with a vast set of older Biden-era programs – shortly after they assume power in late January.

At the Federal Trade Commission, for example, Chair Lina Khan is expected to ban businesses from hiding fees and misrepresenting the full cost of their products or services, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the confidential proceeding. An earlier version of her proposal targeted car dealers, hotels, ticket sellers and other large industries.

Another watchdog agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is preparing rules to restrict the ways that credit-reporting agencies can include unpaid hospital and doctor bills on patients’ credit reports. Under Director Rohit Chopra, the bureau also seeks to limit financial penalties that banks can assess on customers who overextend their checking accounts.

“I don’t think it makes sense for the CFPB to be a dead fish,” Chopra said at a congressional hearing Wednesday, stressing that “people between Election Day and Inauguration Day are still getting scammed.”

All of the new federal regulations have been in the works for months, sparking objections from industry lobbyists and Republican lawmakers, who have accused both the FTC and CFPB of engaging in regulatory overreach. In the meantime, those opponents have started strategizing over the best way to unwind the final acts of the Biden administration once the GOP takes control of the House, Senate and White House next year.

The swiftest, most powerful tool available is the Congressional Review Act, which permits lawmakers to strike down recent agency actions. More than 1,000 climate, education, health care and labor regulations could be subject to this review, according to a new analysis by the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, a figure that could grow if the CFPB or other agencies act in the waning hours of the Biden administration.

Some groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are preparing their own lists of potential regulatory targets for GOP lawmakers and Trump aides to overturn. They’ve also shared their views with the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, the Elon Musk-backed effort set to review federal spending and regulation, in hopes of further building the case for wide-scale deregulation.

“There’s been some excessive overreach, in our opinion, out of the administration,” said Neil Bradley, an executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber, as he called on lawmakers to unwind the work of the CFPB and other agencies next year.

Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for DOGE declined to comment, as did spokespeople for the CFPB and FTC.

“From the moment he took office, the President has been working tirelessly to increase competition and bring prices down,” White House spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said in a statement. “This is an agenda that Americans across the country support, regardless of their political preferences, and it will continue to be a focus for the President and his team in the final days of this administration.”

The upcoming transfer in power has left many federal regulators facing a complex political calculation: finish their work – often years in the making, and central to Biden’s legacy – or hold off in anticipation that Trump might reverse much of it anyway.

Under Biden, the federal government over the past four years dramatically expanded programs that aim to help the poor, lower prescription drug prices, combat climate change, pursue tax cheats, and reduce fees on everything from airline tickets to cable bills. To achieve these goals, the outgoing administration at times tested the limits of federal power, frequently sparking political battles with Republicans and constitutional showdowns with companies under scrutiny.

But Biden did not finish everything: Across roughly two dozen agencies, at least 132 significant regulations have been proposed but not implemented, according to an analysis of federal records. The unfinished rules illustrate the expansive scope of Biden’s agenda, including long-debated proposals to promote fair housing and a prohibition on the sale of menthol cigarettes.

In addition, the administration is still racing to adopt a series of tax credits to encourage clean energy use, a central goal of Biden’s signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which many Republicans seek to repeal. And it has greatly accelerated its efforts to dole out roughly $53 billion to spur domestic chipmakers – money approved with bipartisan support that some Republicans now oppose.

Officials are also pushing out grants from other laws intended to boost domestic manufacturing of computer chips.

Some agencies may not finish in time, or they may choose to hold off entirely under pressure from incoming Republicans leaders. The dynamic was on display at a House hearing last month, when the nation’s top financial regulators – including officials from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department – each appeared to promise they would pause major bank and capital regulation at the request of Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., a top Trump ally.

“Agencies have a lot of important rules in the pipeline. Many of them would enact important consumer protections,” said Lauren Saunders, the associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, which advocates for federal regulation. “Yet they have to consider whether a new Congress would overturn them … even if it’s contrary to the interests of voters, who will feel it in the pocketbook.”

Some federal regulators, however, are not planning to hold back.

The CFPB, in particular, has ramped up its activity in recent weeks, issuing new rules under Chopra that would subject the largest technology companies – including Google – to its most aggressive form of oversight, known as supervision.

The agency this month also proposed to regulate data brokers, which buy and sell troves of data about Americans and their purchasing habits, often without those consumers’ knowledge. And it is still crafting new restrictions targeting mortgage servicing companies, in a bid to protect more troubled homeowners from foreclosure.

In response, Republicans in Congress have ratcheted up attacks on the CFPB and its leader. Sen. Tim Scott, S.C., the top Republican on the Banking Committee, blasted the bureau at a hearing Wednesday for having “pressed forward” with his agenda in spite of Trump’s election victory. Scott also called for significant changes to the CFPB, echoing Musk, who said last month that the government should “delete” the agency entirely.

“The agency is unaccountable to Congress,” Scott added, “and Director Chopra seems intent on proving this to be true.”

But any significant changes to the CFPB – and other cuts contemplated by Musk, fellow technology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their DOGE group – could take considerable time to implement. In the meantime, Ramaswamy last month issued a broad, “friendly reminder” to GOP lawmakers that they can tap their existing powers – through the Congressional Review Act – to cancel any undesirable regulations.

“Now that we’re back in power, it’s time to act,” he said in a post on X, the social media site owned by Musk.

Under the law, known as the CRA, Republicans next year can strike down regulations that were issued up to 60 days before the end of the last legislative session. That date is not yet official, and it depends on when Congress adjourns – but it is expected to be Aug. 1, 2024, meaning any Biden-era rules issued after then could be subject to a vote of disapproval in 2025.

The regulations that could be rolled back include new federal limits on methane emissions and tobacco sales and recently finalized programs to replace lead water pipes and improve pay for some child-care workers. If Republicans introduce a measure targeting these or other rules issued in the next few weeks, and Congress passes it, Trump only has to sign the repeal for it to take effect.

“They will be quite active on the CRA front,” predicted Dan Goldbeck, the director of regulatory policy at the conservative-leaning American Action Forum, which produced a list of some of the at-risk regulations.

Fearing such an outcome, the Biden administration quietly strategized to issue some of its most significant – and widely contested – health, climate, education and labor rules months before the election. That push insulated broad swaths of Biden’s agenda from rapid repeal on Capitol Hill, where some GOP lawmakers have recently introduced legislation that would make it even easier to strike down federal agencies’ actions.

“That somewhat limits the extent to which Congress under the Trump administration can use the CRA as a tool to reach into the most high-salience regulations,” said Sarah Hay, a policy analyst at the GWU Regulatory Studies Center, which analyzed Biden-era rules.

During Trump’s first term, Republicans relied on the law frequently, marshaling votes to unwind more than a dozen health, climate, education and labor rules issued under President Barack Obama.

Even after losing the White House and control of Congress in 2020, Republican lawmakers continued introducing repeal resolutions in a bid to scuttle Biden-era programs that reduce carbon emissions, improve overtime pay and impose coronavirus vaccine requirements on federal workers. But not one of the more than 100 rules targeted in the most recent session of Congress has actually been struck down, since Biden has vetoed the few resolutions that have reached his desk.

Looking toward next year, some senior Republicans now see the review powers as the quickest way to strike back at the Biden administration and unwind its signature accomplishments. Speaking on the chamber floor last month, outgoing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., encouraged his colleagues to seize on a new political “opportunity.”

With the election, he said, “the American people gave Republicans a legitimate, crystal clear mandate. And come January, we ought to use it to hit the brakes on runaway regulation.”