Biden stays course on hundreds of regulations after Chevron (1)

President Joe BidenThe administration plans to advance hundreds of priorities it has set for 2021, such as curbing climate change and lowering fees like mortgage costs, even in the face of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited federal agencies’ authority to create and defend those rules in court.

Biden’s regulatory agenda, detailed Friday afternoon, includes more than 2,300 items. The agenda, typically released twice a year, offers a window into how the administration plans to use dozens of Cabinet-level departments, executive branch agencies and federal commissions to advance the president’s priorities.

Many of the agenda items echo what the administration has said several times. New items include plans for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to propose a rule next year on collecting payroll data from employers.

Other new items include a list indicating that the Treasury Department is working on new rules to strengthen tax treatment of international income and assets, as well as energy credits and tax maneuvers for corporations and partnerships.

In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to address the issue of “mortgage refinancing and closing costs,” on which the agency asked for initial public comment in May.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans additional changes for existing coal-fired power plants after finalizing new standards under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act in April. The agency has yet to set greenhouse gas emission guidelines for existing fossil-fuel-fired power plants, setting a proposal date of December 2024. Energy industry groups are challenging the standards finalized in April in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Curbing climate change has been a central part of the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda. The regulatory agenda shows the Securities and Exchange Commission has moved two rules on its regulatory agenda from April to October: one that updates a regulation requiring companies to disclose details about their workforces, and another that would require investment firms and investment advisers to disclose more information about their environmental, social and governance investment practices.

The Biden administration plans to finalize rules that would protect construction workers from injuries and make it easier for foreigners with college degrees to work in the U.S.

The last item on the agenda before the elections?

Friday’s agenda is expected to be the last one released before the November election.

“These actions continue this administration’s progress toward achieving our goals for the American people,” Sam Berger, deputy administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the team that developed the program, said in a statement. OIRA did not respond to questions from Bloomberg Law before publication.

Opponents of Biden’s rules will have an easier time challenging them in court after U.S. Supreme Court splits on case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo rejected a decades-old legal doctrine that gave federal regulators the ability to interpret ambiguous regulations.

Loper Light make it harder for the Biden administration to defend its rules before federal judges. Many of Biden’s policy goals rely on executive branch interpretations based on older laws or rulemaking in which Congress called for standards but left it up to agencies to create them.

Biden is facing increasing pressure to end his re-election campaign after stumbling repeatedly in his answers during a June debate with the former president Donald TrumpThe performance, punctuated by botched lines and coughing, heightened fears he would lose in November.

—With assistance from Evan Weinberger, Maja Earls, and David Hood.