The White House issued a few hours after President Joe Biden was sworn into presidency, a broad “regulatory freeze” directing the heads of executive departments and agencies across the federal government to withdraw or delay action on last minute regulations. This statement issued by Chief of Staff, Ronald A. Klain is an effort to ensure that President Biden’s appointees and designees have the opportunity to review any new or pending rules at the discretion of the President.
According to this “regulatory freeze,” rules which have not been sent to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) or rules that have not been published in the Federal Register should be “immediately withdraw them from the OFR for review and approval” and to consider postponing their effective dates for 60 days for the purpose of reviewing questions of fact, law and policy that may be raised during this review period. For rules that are postponed because of these questions, to “consider” a 30-day comment period to allow interested parties to provide comments about issues in fact, law, and policy and consider pending petitions for reconsideration involving the rules under review. This statement freezes dozens of rules with exceptions for emergency situations or other urgent circumstances related to health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security matters.
The memorandum comes as an effort to address the concerns of many who believe that Trump-appointed regulators with positions in the federal government could have rushed out numerous policy changes before President Biden took office. With this temporary freeze in place, the new Biden Administration may review these rules. The statement announced the process for the rules in subject to be reviewed during the 60-day period:
- for those rules that raise no substantial questions of fact, law, or policy, no further action needs to be taken; and
- for those rules that raise substantial questions of fact, law, or policy, agencies should notify the OMB Director and take further appropriate action in consultation with the OMB Director.
Rules which are subject to statutory deadlines or judicial deadlines must be brought to the OMB Director as soon as possible. The OMB Director will be responsible for reviewing the exceptions as well.
The Chief of Staff provided an additional note for the heads of executive departments and agencies across the federal government, “Should actions be identified that were undertaken before noon on January 20, 2021, to frustrate the purpose underlying this memorandum, I may modify or extend this memorandum, pursuant to the direction of the President, to request that agency heads consider taking steps to address those actions.”
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