From: Notice & Comment | A Blog from the Yale Journal on Regulation and the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice
Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a proposed rule that may turn out to be the first opportunity to test the Congressional Review Act (CRA) post-disapproval restriction on rulemaking.
The CRA authorizes Congress to use an expedited process to nullify recent rules. It has been used successfully 17 times, 16 of which were in the Trump Administration. (The other was at the start of the George W. Bush Administration.) Congressional disapproval does not merely eliminate the disapproved rule, though, it goes further: “A [disapproved rule] may not be reissued in substantially the same form, and a new rule that is substantially the same as such a rule may not be issued, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule.” 5 U.S.C. 801(b)(2).