"Trump’s Last Minute Flubs Gift Biden Time to Rewrite Regulations"

"Skeptical courts are giving President Joe Biden a window to reopen last-minute rules that the Trump administration tried to rush out to beat a regulatory freeze.

Recent decisions gave Biden’s administration opportunities to move faster than rulemaking processes would usually allow to undo limits on how the EPA uses science when writing its regulations, and rules that redefined how U.S. companies pay highly skilled foreign workers.

The legal rebukes mean the rules will either be set aside or get caught up in the regulatory freeze the Trump administration sought to avoid, making it easier for the Biden team to reverse course.

The law permits an agency to skip collecting public feedback or a customary waiting period on making a regulation effective if it has “good cause” that doing so would be “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” The courts have said that at least three last-minute Trump administration rules didn’t meet that criteria."

Courtney Rozen reports for Bloomberg Environment February 4, 2021.

Source: Bloomberg Environment, 02/04/2021