Notice & Comment

“New Life for the Congressional Review Act?” — Revisited

Earlier this year,* I moderated a teleforum for the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice’s Rulemaking Committee on the Congressional Review Act. You can access the recording for free here. The panel discusses the CRA from a number of different perspectives.

After the events of this week, the CRA has become much more significant. As this report explains, “agency final rules submitted to Congress after May 16, 2016, will be subject to renewed review periods in 2017 by a new President and a new Congress.” That “May 16” date was just an estimate. Indeed, according to Politico, “changes to the legislative calendar pushed the deadline back to May 23. The addition of a lame-duck session could push the deadline into June.” But you get the idea. It seems a fair bet that we will be hearing more about the CRA in the coming months.

* I see that my earlier post contains a slight error–I said “economically significant” regulations instead of “major rule[s].” As the Congressional Research Service notes, “The definitions for ‘economically significant’ rule and major rule are not identical, but they are very similar. In most cases, a rule determined to be ‘economically significant’ under the executive order will also be major under the CRA, and vice versa.” I apologize.

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