Biden’s legacy long game: Rain regulations — now

The Biden administration is pumping out dozens of federal rules this spring in a mad dash to cement the president’s legacy on everything from airfare refunds to beef labeling.

President Joe Biden and his allies are already campaigning on these policies, working to bolster his support among constituencies including young people, labor unions, rural communities and climate-conscious voters. But beyond the campaign trail, the timing of this blitz is designed to ensure that Biden’s policies have their best shot at surviving the deregulatory fervor of another potential Donald Trump White House and Republican-controlled Congress.

Biden’s agencies are trying to avoid making the same mistake as President Barack Obama, who left several key rules unfinished until late in the last year of his presidency. A law called the Congressional Review Act makes it easier for Congress to roll back federal rules within 60 legislative days after they are issued — a power Trump and his GOP allies tapped more effectively than any of his predecessors to trash regulations on issues like gun safety and labor protections in 2017.

With the number of days that Congress is in session rapidly dwindling, the Biden administration only has another week or so to wrap up regulations or risk leaving them within Trump’s reach.

The White House declined to comment but Trump is already planning to do whatever he can to undo Biden’s actions.

“President Trump will not be deterred from rolling back Joe Biden’s costly, burdensome and dumb regulations — he will do what’s best for the American people, no matter how long it takes,” Karoline Keavitt, the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in an email.

Here are some of the key areas where Biden is trying to Trump-proof his legacy:

A light on corporate America’s climate footprint

Environmental activists, Democratic lawmakers and financial reform advocates have long pushed for more data on how big business is contributing to the climate crisis — then Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission delivered.

The Wall Street regulator adopted a new rule in March aimed at arming investors with new and detailed information from publicly traded companies in the U.S. about their carbon emissions, how they are navigating the changing climate and the risks their businesses face from severe weather events.

Once a key item on the White House’s climate to-do list, the rule could prove fruitful for Biden on the campaign trail even though it’s tied up in court. The president is pushing to win over younger voters who want stronger and bolder moves on climate change.

The agency is fending off challenges by conservative-led states and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Some environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, are suing as well, arguing that the rule should have gone further. But the rule still marks a massive shake-up to U.S. corporate reporting, while beefing up Biden’s climate record.  

— Declan Harty

A new shield from GOP abortion investigations

The Biden campaign is already making abortion rights a central issue in 2024, and the administration is trying to shore up what’s left of them while Republicans still control the House.

In April, the Biden administration finalized rules allowing the federal government to use a health privacy law — commonly known as HIPAA — to safeguard access to abortion. The rules, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, bolster protections for people seeking, obtaining or providing abortions from investigation in states with significant limits on the procedure.

It marked one of the most significant steps the administration has taken to protect abortion access in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision that turned abortion rights back to the states and triggered a spike in cross-border travel among those seeking the procedure.

Abortion access has repeatedly drawn out Democratic voters in droves to oppose state limits and Biden has every reason to expand his credentials in the space leading to November. He’s already promised to codify the protections that Roe v. Wade once offered into law, namely the right to abortion until viability, typically around 24 weeks into a pregnancy — but he can’t do that without a second term and a lot more Democrats in Congress.

— Dan Goldberg

Truly American-made beef

American-raised beef is one of the most sought-after meats in the world. But in recent years, meatpackers used a loophole to label beef from Brazil, Mexico and other countries with a “Product of the USA” sticker if it was repackaged in a US plant.

While it might seem minor for everyday grocery shoppers, beef is serious business for some rural communities where Biden would love to make inroads among voters who overwhelmingly show up for Trump.

Ranchers have railed against this loophole, arguing that it allows large, multinational corporations to scoop up ill-gotten profits even as family ranchers struggle to stay in the black.

A previous attempt at tightening country-of-origin labeling was stymied at the World Trade Organization, but the Biden administration found an alternative. In March, the Agriculture Department finalized a voluntary labeling rule, requiring meat, poultry and egg products with the “Product of the USA” label to be born, raised, slaughtered and packaged in the U.S.

Although the change is popular in rural communities, Mexico and other U.S. trading partners have threatened to challenge it as an unfair barrier to trade. That international friction hasn’t stopped Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack from bragging about the rule, touting it as part of the Biden administration’s broadside against big agribusiness meant to help small farmers and ranchers.

— Marcia Brown

Fighting with credit card companies

Biden’s war on “junk fees” is such an animating topic for the president’s efforts to convince voters that he cares about their everyday challenges that it got top billing in his State of the Union address.

Late fees for missing a credit card payment are being slashed by up to 80 percent under a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that’s become a centerpiece of the Biden campaign’s pitch to working Americans.

“The banks and credit card companies don’t like it,” he said “Why? I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with all of the junk fees I’m eliminating.”

The White House estimates consumers would save $10 billion a year from the credit card rule alone, which was finalized in March. While it was slated to take effect May 14, banks successfully sued to temporarily block the regulation’s implementation.

Banking lobbyists argue that late payment fines, which are disclosed and meant to deter poor financial behavior, are fundamentally different from the hidden fees charged by resorts and concert ticket vendors that the White House has also targeted. The bureau’s pledge to defend its credit card late fee rule and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to endorse the agency’s Congress-free funding structure helps Biden press the issue with voters.

“The credit card lobby’s lawsuit is an attempt to derail a rule that will save families $10 billion each year in order to continue making tens of billions of dollars in profits by charging borrowers late fees that far exceed their actual costs,” CFPB spokesperson Sam Gilford said.

— Katy O’Donnell

A policy buffet for workers

As the self-proclaimed most pro-labor president ever, Biden is openly wielding federal agencies to produce a flurry of worker-friendly regulations opposed by business groups and the GOP ahead of the CRA lookback window.

The Labor Department is expanding overtime pay guarantees to an estimated four million workers and imposing strict fiduciary obligations on sellers of retirement investments like annuities and 401(k) rollovers. The Federal Trade Commission — testing the bounds of its authority — voted last month to ban nearly all forms of agreements that keep workers from joining a competing business.

Together, the rules substantially change the balance of power between workers and employers and could help boost paychecks in a lot of places, including across Rust Belt states Biden needs in November. Business groups and conservatives have already launched a battery of lawsuits that could freeze at least some of the regulations, denying the president a tangible win that voters’ would be able to see in their pocketbooks.

Since the CRA’s first successful use in 2001, which dismantled a Clinton-era workplace ergonomic standard, the process has been used several times to target labor policy. Trump successfully rolled back four separate Labor Department rules and Biden has already used his veto pen to protect others.

— Nick Niedzwiadek

Winning over Gen Z with more climate action

Biden locked down the most expansive climate law in US history with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 but much of the president’s attack on greenhouse gasses would be overwhelmed without a suite of regulations working in tandem.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule last month designed to ratchet down pollution from existing coal and future natural gas-fired power plants — a core part of Biden's pitch to environmentalists and young people, two constituencies critical to his reelection.

It’s the agency’s third attempt to regulate greenhouse gasses from power plants, the result of a marathon campaign by green groups and climate-minded Democrats spanning both the Obama and Trump administrations. Earlier versions were struck down by the courts, a fate that could await this rule, too. But it’s the type of policy stick US climate officials love to wave around on the global stage.

The new rule sets stringent requirements on the nation's dwindling fleet of coal-fired power plants, requiring them to capture most of their carbon emissions using technology many electric utilities say isn't ready for widespread deployment.

Another wing of Biden’s climate activism is getting the polluters on the move: The administration finalized new vehicle emissions limits in March that are designed to dramatically reduce pollution from passenger cars over the next decade — all while keeping union auto workers in their jobs.

Under the new rule, automakers will need to meet tighter pollution standards that the agency expects will make two-thirds of vehicles sold in the U.S. either battery-powered or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles by 2032. That’s nearly eight times their market share in 2023 — a major win for climate advocates who want to drive gas guzzlers off the road.

But the administration also sought to appease union voters in the industrial Midwest with its final rule, moderating aspects of the initial proposal amid concerns from the United Auto Workers that the rapid push to electrification threatens union jobs.

— Alex Guillén and James Bikales

Boasting about airline refunds

The boom in air travel that came as the pandemic began to ease was also a ripe political opening for a president eager to lament about all the ways he thinks everyday Americans are nickeled and dimed.

As demand for flights surged, so did delays, cancellations and other gridlock that drew the Transportation Department’s attention — and an agency rule last month that required that airlines reimburse passengers for major travel upsets. Flyers get cash back automatically if their flight is significantly delayed or canceled. If potential passengers decline a rebooking, they would get that money returned in as little as a week.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has hit the network news circuit to hype the rule while Biden talked about it on Howard Stern’s program. Even Comedy Central’s satirical news program, “The Daily Show,” did an unabashedly positive take on the regulation.

Biden has touted the change as getting passengers the “cash refunds they’re owed, without having to jump through hoops.” Lawmakers on Capitol Hill essentially codified the Transportation Department’s cash refund rule in their recent reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, putting the decision in the hands of the passenger instead of the airline — which notoriously has given out vouchers or credit for future travel instead of the cash-back option.

DOT has introduced a series of proposals to help strengthen consumer protections for airline passengers, including another finalized rule that would give air travelers better understanding of the upfront fees they’re paying for when they buy a ticket. Biden has also talked about “hidden” or “junk fees” with a tough-cop approach, doubling down at the State of the Union two years in a row for more transparency on what consumers are paying.

— Oriana Pawlyk 

Health care for undocumented immigrants

Obamacare plans will be open to tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children but do not qualify for government-subsidized health insurance because of their legal status, under a Biden administration rule finalized this month.

The announcement comes as Biden moves to make health care and his defense of the Affordable Care Act a centerpiece of his reelection bid as his campaign accuses Trump of planning to dismantle the system.

Specifically, the rule amends the definition of “lawfully present” to include people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as Dreamers, when it comes to qualifying for Obamacare subsidies.

“I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed,” Biden said in a statement at the time the rule was finalized.

The change will also allow DACA recipients in Minnesota, New York and, soon, Oregon to enroll in their state’s basic health program, another coverage option established under the Affordable Care Act for people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but find Obamacare plans too expensive.

Federal health officials estimate that roughly 100,000 DACA recipients will sign up for subsidized plans through the health insurance marketplace over the next year under the rule. Trump also tried to terminate the DACA program, though the Supreme Court blocked his attempt in June 2020.

— Dan Goldberg