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congressional review act
Senate GOP Kills Bill That Would've Reversed $10 Billion Trump Corporate Tax Break
Sen. Ron Wyden called the tax giveaway "indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
Feb 10, 2026
Nearly all US Senate Republicans on Tuesday voted to block a resolution that would have reversed a Trump administration regulatory change set to give some of the country's richest companies a $10.3 billion tax break.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution was spearheaded by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Angus King (I-Maine). The vote on whether to advance it was 47-51. The only Republican to vote in favor was the other Mainer, Susan Collins, who just confirmed she is running for another term, despite two strong Democratic challengers.
In a statement after the vote, Wyden tied the target of his resolution—an Internal Revenue Service guidance undermining the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT)—to the sweeping budget package that GOP lawmakers passed and President Donald Trump signed last summer, which also featured significant tax breaks for the rich.
"The ink is barely dry on the megabill Trump and Republicans passed to give $1 trillion in new tax breaks to giant corporations, and now his Treasury Department is throwing another $10 billion handout to the most profitable corporations in America," Wyden said.
"The pattern we're seeing is that the Trump administration gives big corporations and ultrawealthy donors whatever tax benefits they want the second they walk through the door at the Treasury Department, but that doesn't mean the Senate has to allow this giveaway to happen," he stressed. "Stuffing $10 billion into the coffers of corporations that are already raking in enormous profits is indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
King similarly declared that "it's downright unfair to give billions in tax relief to America's most successful corporations when Maine people are struggling to afford their prescription drugs, childcare, and groceries." He described their resolution as "a commonsense step toward a fairer tax policy that prioritizes people over profits and levels the playing field."
Although the defeat was predictable, economic justice advocates lambasted Senate Republicans for killing the resolution.
Americans for Tax Fairness executive director David Kass said in a statement that "after passing historic tax giveaways for billionaires and big business through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), blowing up the deficit, and cutting billions from critical healthcare and nutrition programs to pay for it, Trump and his GOP allies in the Senate are taking every opportunity to ensure economic elites can avoid paying their fair share."
"This guidance would effectively circumvent Congress and create numerous opportunities for corporate tax evasion while increasing the deficit and national debt, thus creating more imbalance in a tax code that already favors the wealthy and large corporations," Kass said. "Sen. Wyden is right to lead the charge to stop this guidance—average Americans should not be forced to subsidize some of the most profitable companies on Earth."
Like the Senate, the House of Representatives is also narrowly controlled by the GOP. Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in a Tuesday blog post that "even if lawmakers of both parties had sufficient backbone to retake the legislative power that the executive branch has usurped, President Trump would veto such a bill."
"But as a matter of educating lawmakers and the public, the recently rejected measure was a success given that tax legislation (such as this resolution) up for a vote in Congress usually gets an official budget score from Congress' revenue estimators at the Joint Committee on Taxation," he wrote. "And in this case, that reveals that this unilateral corporate tax cut from the Trump administration will cost $10 billion over a decade unless it is reversed."
"The Senate's failure to ratify Wyden's resolution may be only the opening salvo for members of Congress who want to retake the power given them under the Constitution to make tax law," Gardner suggested. "The regulation in question is not the first, and surely not the last, attempt by President Trump to unilaterally cut corporate taxes."
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Senate GOP Sends Trump Bill Handing Over Arctic Refuge to Big Oil
"Once again, oil and gas development is taking precedence over science-based solutions for conserving wildlife and mitigating climate change," said one campaigner.
Dec 04, 2025
Climate campaigners, conservationists, and Indigenous people vowed to keep defending the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after US Senate Republicans on Thursday sent legislation that would restart fossil fuel leasing in ANWR's Coastal Plain to President Donald Trump's desk.
All Republicans present except Sen. Susan Collins of Maine supported House Joint Resolution 131. The 49-45 vote came after three Democrats—Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), and Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)—joined all GOP House members but Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) in advancing the bill last month.
If Big Oil-backed Trump signs the joint resolution of disapproval, as expected, it will nullify the Biden administration's December 2024 efforts to protect over 1 million acres of land in Alaska from planet-wrecking oil and gas exploration.
"Simply put, the Arctic refuge is the crown jewel of the American National Wildlife Refuge System," Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) said in a Wednesday floor speech against the measure, noting that the area is "home to hundreds of iconic wildlife species."
"The Arctic refuge is also deeply connected to the traditions and daily life of the people who have lived there for thousands of years," the senator continued, ripping "the Trump administration's relentless attacks on public lands."
Heinrich's speech was welcomed by groups including the Alaska Wilderness League, League of Conservation Voters, and Defenders of Wildlife, whose vice president of government relations, Robert Dewey, also blasted lawmakers' use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal the refuge's protections.
"Once again, oil and gas development is taking precedence over science-based solutions for conserving wildlife and mitigating climate change. In these instances, the use of the CRA accomplishes nothing meaningful and instead harms iconic species such as polar bears, caribou, wolves, and migratory birds," Dewey said after the vote. "In addition to threatening wildlife, severe regulatory disruption in Alaska is the inevitable result of targeted rollbacks in one of America's most ecologically critical regions."
Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at Alaska Wilderness League, said Thursday that "while we are deeply disappointed by the final vote, we're grateful to see bipartisan support from lawmakers who stood up for the Refuge and upheld a long-standing, cross-party legacy of protecting this truly incredible place."
"America's public lands—including the iconic Arctic refuge—shouldn't be on the shortlist for a public land selloff to the oil and gas industry," Moderow continued. "We'll continue fighting the management chaos brought by today's vote in favor of actions that respect the Arctic Refuge for what it actually is: a national wildlife refuge, and not an oilfield."
Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, a group formed decades ago by Alaska Natives in response to proposed oil drilling in the Coastal Plain, also spoke out after the Senate vote.
"The Gwich'in Nation views the decision by lawmakers to leverage the Congressional Review Act to advance oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a deliberate attempt to undercut the standards and laws that are designed to protect this sacred landscape," Moreland said.
"This action from DC ignores years of consultation and communication with our Gwich'in communities that rely on this landscape for not only our subsistence and survival, but also our culture and spiritual health and well-being," she added. "We stand united in our opposition to any oil and gas development in the Arctic refuge, and will continue to fight this effort from the Trump administration and decision-makers who ignore our voices."
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'Latest Betrayal of Democracy': Trump Signs Order Blocking CA Effort to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars
"There is no reason politicians in Washington should be stepping in at this late date to try and undercut states' protections for their residents," said one climate advocate.
Jun 12, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed multiple Congressional Review Act resolutions that target California's efforts to adopt electric vehicles statewide and phase out gas-powered cars, in a move that one climate campaigner called "Trump's latest betrayal of democracy."
Trump reversed a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency waiver granted to California during the waning days of the Biden administration that allowed the state to enforce tougher vehicle pollution standards. That decision allowed California to require that gasoline-powered cars be phased out, and implement a ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered cars completely in 2035.
The other resolutions signed by Trump revoked waivers for a policy that required half of all new trucks sold in California be electric by 2035, and overturned a policy that placed limits on "allowable emissions of nitrogen oxide from cars and trucks," according to The New York Times.
Congress, which is Republican-controlled, passed a measure in May that paved the way for Thursday's signing. At the time, the Senate parliamentarian, the unelected arbiter of the chamber's procedures, said that the EPA waivers did not qualify as federal rules for the purpose of the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The Government Accountability Office has also said they aren't subject to the law.
The CRA gives lawmakers a limited window to overturn federal rules, and resolutions brought under the law are not subject to the Senate filibuster.
Green groups sharply condemned Trump's signing of the resolutions.
"Signing this bill is a flagrant abuse of the law to reward Big Oil and Big Auto corporations at the expense of everyday people's health and their wallets," said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, on Thursday.
Simon Mui, managing director for transportation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Thursday that "California's vehicle standards reduce costs for drivers, increase customer choice, boost domestic manufacturing, improve air quality, and help address the climate crisis."
"There is no reason politicians in Washington should be stepping in at this late date to try and undercut states' protections for their residents," Mui continued. "The oil industry may be celebrating today, but the rest of us are going to continue to keep fighting for cleaner air, lower energy bills, and a safer climate."
Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign, said on Thursday that "instead of investing in electric vehicle manufacturing here in the U.S. and leading us towards a healthier future, the administration is dead set on pushing us backwards and ceding EV innovation and leadership to China."
Shortly after Trump signed the resolutions, California officials announced they had filed a lawsuit over the move. A statement from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office called the resolutions "illegal."
"The president's reckless, politically motivated, and illegal attacks on California continue, this time with his attempt to trample on our longstanding authority to maintain more stringent clean vehicle standards," said California Attorney General Bonta in a statement Thursday announcing the legal challenge. "The president is busy playing partisan games with lives on the line and yanking away good jobs that would bolster the economy—ignoring that these actions have life or death consequences for California communities breathing dirty, toxic air."
California also recently filed a legal challenge over Trump's decision to order the deployment of National Guard members and Marine troops to Los Angeles in response to protests that sprang up in response to federal immigration raids.
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Senate GOP Gives Dems a Chance to Tank Trump's Budget Bill—Will They Take It?
"Given the high stakes of the budget bill—soaring inequality as benefits for the poor are slashed to finance tax cuts for the rich—every tool at Senate Democrats' disposal should be employed," wrote journalist David Dayen.
May 29, 2025
By voting to overrule the Senate parliamentarian last week, the chamber's Republicans handed their political opponents a procedural weapon that could be used to hold off or even kill the House-passed reconciliation package that's central to President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
The question is: Will Senate Democrats take advantage?
Last Thursday, Senate Republicans used the filibuster-proof Congressional Review Act (CRA) to approve a resolution revoking a federal waiver that allowed California to set tougher vehicle pollution standards. In doing so, the GOP majority ignored the parliamentarian's determination that the waiver did not qualify as a rule subject to the CRA.
Both before and after the vote, Senate Democrats warned their Republican colleagues that the move could come back to bite them in the future.
"Is this really the path we want to go down?" Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked in a floor speech earlier this month. "A future Democratic administration could submit every oil and gas lease issued since 1996 as a rule, as the subject of disapproval resolutions... Is it worth going nuclear, knowing full well the Pandora's Box this would open?"
The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote Wednesday that because the Senate "operates largely on precedent," Republicans' vote effectively means that "virtually any action the executive branch takes could be construed as a rule, and therefore subject to fast-track congressional review."
"For this reason, Democrats could subject the Senate to time-consuming resolution votes repeatedly, to such a degree that the Senate would not have time to do anything else for the rest of this session of Congress," Dayen wrote. "In other words, Democrats could respond to the waiver vote by paralyzing the Senate, and stopping the giant Trump tax bill from ever reaching the floor."
While Democrats are in the Senate minority, it only takes 30 senators to force a CRA resolution of disapproval to the floor of the upper chamber. Under CRA procedures, "any senator may make a nondebatable motion to proceed to consider the disapproval resolution on the floor." If that privileged motion is approved, the disapproval resolution would be subject to up to 10 hours of debate.
"The bottom line is this: If you found something like 1,000 current or former agency actions—a reasonable number considering all the work executive branch agencies do—you would probably have enough to keep the Senate debating and voting on CRA resolutions through the duration of this Congress," Dayen wrote. "Given the high stakes of the budget bill—soaring inequality as benefits for the poor are slashed to finance tax cuts for the rich—every tool at Senate Democrats' disposal should be employed. Republicans just handed them a big one."
As Dayen pointed out, Senate Democrats—including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—are aware of the hugely disruptive potential of the precedent set by their Republican counterparts.
In a May 1 letter to top Senate Republicans, Schumer and 19 other Democrats warned that if the GOP moved ahead with their plan to bypass the parliamentarian, "the CRA could be weaponized to retroactively invalidate decades of agency actions—including adjudications, permits, and licensing decisions that were never previously considered 'rules'—and effectively hijack the Senate floor."
It's far from clear that Democrats would be open to exploiting the procedural loophole Republicans created, even as members of the minority party face growing pressure from their base to fight back more aggressively against the Trump-GOP agenda—which includes catastrophic cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and green energy programs.
In a piece for the Prospect earlier this month, former House Oversight Committee staffer Todd Phillips outlined the potential CRA strategy. Asked by the Prospect on Wednesday, Phillips said he had not yet received any response on the idea from congressional Democrats.
"But we know they're aware of it; they have said it out loud," wrote Dayen on Wednesday. "They could start the campaign any day now."
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GOP 'Backdoor Nuclear Option' on Filibuster Spells More Harm for American People, Critics Warn
With Trump in office and the wholesale dismantling of democracy underway, one watchdog called what Republicans are planning "the last thing the country needs right now."
May 09, 2025
Government watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers are sounding alarms over a Senate GOP plan to overrule the chamber's parliamentarian and repeal federal waivers that have allowed California to enact stricter pollution standards.
But critics warned that the implications of the Republican plan, which the party's leadership is still discussing, are far-reaching and could enable the GOP to advance other unpopular elements of their pro-corporate, far-right agenda.
"If senators are willing to overrule the Senate parliamentarian and circumvent Senate rules on the filibuster for the Congressional Review Act, there is nothing to stop them from going nuclear over and over with policies that would harm Americans and destabilize our democracy," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, on Thursday. "This could happen with other CRA proposals or in the reconciliation process."
The CRA allows lawmakers to review and—with the support of a simple majority in both chambers of Congress—overturn federal rules within a limited timeframe. CRA resolutions of disapproval are not subject to the Senate's 60-vote filibuster, a relic of the Jim Crow era that Republicans have selectively defended or scrapped depending on whether they're in the majority.
Republicans want to use the filibuster-proof CRA to block California's Clean Air Act waivers, but the Senate parliamentarian—the chamber's unelected arbiter of Senate rules and procedures—has said the waivers don't qualify as rules subject to the CRA.
Defying the parliamentarian—something Republicans have already done as they craft their bill to slash safety net programs and taxes for the rich—to undo the waivers would effectively gut the filibuster, opponents of the GOP plan warned. Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled House voted to revoke the California waivers using the CRA.
"Anti-democratic and authoritarian measures, corporate giveaways, and rights infringements that could never become law if normal Senate rules were followed—legislation making it harder to vote, repealing core environmental standards, stripping abortion rights, and more—might suddenly become law," Gilbert warned Thursday. "A backdoor nuclear option sets an atrocious precedent and must not be allowed. Critical checks hang in the balance."
"Think about how the Trump administration might abuse this."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, echoed those concerns, saying in a floor speech Thursday that "the import of overruling the parliamentarian extends far beyond CRA resolutions."
"Think about how the Trump administration might abuse this," said Whitehouse. "Everyone knows by now that President Trump has a beef with a whole host of media outlets, some of which are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. What's to stop the FCC from submitting CBS' license as a 'rule' and members from introducing a disapproval resolution? Is this really the path we want to go down?"
In a floor speech of his own, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) directly quoted Senate Majority Leader John Thune's (R-S.D.) warning earlier this year against overruling the parliamentarian.
"That's totally akin to killing the filibuster. We can't go there," Thune said in January. "People need to understand that."
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) delivers a speech on the Senate floor on May 8, 2025. (Photo: Sen. Alex Padilla)
Earlier this week, Thune said his caucus is "still looking at" voting on a CRA resolution to revoke the California waivers. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told Axios last week that the upper chamber would "absolutely" take up the House-passed CRA resolution.
Gilbert of Public Citizen said Thursday that "this backdoor nuclear option would not only make the Senate more like the House—it would make the Senate more like the chaotic, make-it-up-as-you-go White House."
"That's the last thing the country needs right now," she added.
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'When Big Oil Says Jump, Republicans Ask How High?' GOP Sends Climate-Killing Bill to Trump's Desk
"It's a sorry testament to the influence of Big Oil on Capitol Hill that one of the top priorities of Congress is a blatant handout to the worst actors in the fossil fuel industry," said one critic.
Feb 28, 2025
Climate advocates are blasting congressional Republicans this week for their latest gift to the fossil fuel industry: sending a resolution to kill the federal Methane Emissions Reduction Program to the desk of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Big Oil-backed Trump is expected to sign the Congressional Review Act resolution, which senators passed along party lines on Thursday. That followed a Wednesday vote in the House of Representatives, where Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Vincente Gonzalez (Texas), Adam Gray (Calif.), Kristen Donald Rivet (Mich.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) supported the measure alongside all Republicans present except Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Methane has more than 80 times as much warming power as carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. The pollution program was established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last November. The Associated Press reported Thursday that "most major oil and gas companies do not release enough methane to trigger the fee, which is $900 per ton, an amount that would increase to $1,500 by 2026."
The GOP resolution will end the program, but not the mandate from the 2022 law. Mahyar Sorour, Sierra Club's director of beyond fossil fuels policy, declared that "this attack on EPA's implementation of the methane waste emissions charge is short-sighted and harmful. It remains a legal requirement for EPA to hold the biggest methane polluters accountable for their negligence."
"Forcing the agency to implement the charge some other way after conducting a thorough, well-researched process is as wasteful of taxpayer resources as these oil and gas operators are wasteful of harmful methane," Sorour argued. "Technology to monitor and stop leaks is readily available and easy to implement, so only wasteful, careless corporations will face a fee for excessive methane pollution. Despite this setback, Sierra Club will not stop fighting to make polluters pay for their egregious actions."
The resolution hit Trump's desk just over a month after his return to office. Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, said that "it's a sorry testament to the influence of Big Oil on Capitol Hill that one of the top priorities of Congress is a blatant handout to the worst actors in the fossil fuel industry. Congress is showing its hypocrisy by claiming to seek to rein in government spending, while voting to repeal a revenue-raising fee that only applies to wasteful oil and gas companies."
"The methane fee was paired with a $1.5 billion government spending program to help oil and gas companies reduce harmful emissions," noted Slocum, who then took aim at Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency. "Voting to repeal the fee while allowing profitable corporations to pocket hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is an affront to the millions of working Americans disrupted by indiscriminate DOGE cost-cutting."
"It should not be too much to ask fossil fuel producers to do the bare minimum to capture leaking methane," he added. "Any child knows that when you make a mess, you should clean it up. The fee was intended to be a key part of enforcing standards on an industry that has repeatedly cut corners in its endless drive to extract more fossil fuels."
Critics highlighted how the rollback is expected to affect not only the warming planet but also public health. Moms Clean Air Force national field director Patrice Tomcik said that "as a mother living with oil and gas operations in my neighborhood, I have concerns about the impact of oil and gas pollution on the health of my children and neighbors."
"Polling shows that support for stronger standards on oil and gas operations is widespread across the country, including in oil and gas states, such as Pennsylvania, where my family lives," Tomcik pointed out. "Protecting the air our children breathe and combating the global heating fueling extreme weather should be nonnegotiable."
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As Musk Attacks CFPB, GOP Lawmakers Take Aim at Overdraft Rule—A Gift to Wall Street
"This is just the latest broken promise from Republicans, who have used their short time in power to already cater to special interests over hardworking Americans," said one watchdog leader.
Feb 18, 2025
A U.S. watchdog group on Tuesday slammed Republicans in Congress for trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's overdraft rule as U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk target the CFPB as a whole.
The Accountable.US statement came in response to Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) recently introducing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the rule that capped most overdraft fees at $5, which was finalized in December, near the end of the former President Joe Biden's term.
"Overdraft fees affect a huge portion of American families with 17% of households with checking accounts paying overdraft or [nonsufficient funds] fees in 2023," Accountable.US noted. "This action would open the door for $35 overdraft fees—a decision that would cost American households an average of $225 each year."
The watchdog's executive director, Tony Carrk, declared that "undoing the CFPB's overdraft fee rule is a gift to big banks and a gut punch to the wallets of millions of Americans across the country."
"Deceitful and excessive overdraft fees cost Americans billions of dollars every year, but the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress don't seem to care any longer about lowering costs for Americans now that they're in charge," he continued. "This is just the latest broken promise from Republicans, who have used their short time in power to already cater to special interests over hardworking Americans."
When the Republican chairs introduced their CRA resolution last week, Scott called the Biden-era CFPB rule an example of the "pursuit of political headlines over sound policies," and Hill described it "midnight rulemaking" and "another form of government price controls that hurt consumers who deserve financial protections and greater choice."
Meanwhile, when the CFPB finalized the rule, the agency said that it "took action to close an outdated overdraft loophole that exempted overdraft loans from lending laws." At the time, the bureau was still directed by Biden appointee Rohit Chopra, who highlighted that large banks' exploitation of the loophole had "drained billions of dollars from Americans' deposit accounts."
The rule "was scheduled to become effective in October," but "because of acting Director Russ Vought's unlawful order stalling all CFPB work, the effective date has been suspended," The American Prospect reported Monday. "If Congress passes the CRA resolution, the overdraft rule could not come back in any 'substantially similar' form. So it matters if congressional Republicans decide to support allowing banks to impose additional junk fees worth billions of dollars."
The outlet also pointed out that "because CRA resolutions cannot be stopped by a filibuster, they represent some of the most likely legislative actions of the early Trump term," given Republicans' narrow majorities in Congress."
It's not just the rule that's in jeopardy; the entire agency is at risk. Trump and Musk, the leader of the president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—though perhaps not on paper—are working to gut the federal workforce and slash spending, and they have the CFPB in their crosshairs.
An agreement reached Friday in federal court halted mass firings at the CFPB and barred the bureau and its temporary leader, Vought—who also leads the Office of Management and Budget—from purging data or defunding the agency while the case moves forward. However, Trump and Musk are expected to continue their effort.
"The same billionaires trying to kill the CFPB are the ones who profit off predatory loans, sky-high fees, and financial scams that target young people," Corryn G. Freeman, executive director of the youth-focused Future Coalition, said Monday. "The CFPB should be strengthened, not eliminated. If Musk and his allies succeed in gutting this agency, it will be open season on young consumers with no one left to protect them."
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EPA Bans Known Carcinogens Used in Dry Cleaning, Other Industries
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," said one environmental campaigner.
Dec 09, 2024
The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a permanent ban on a pair of carcinogenic chemicals widely used in U.S. industries, including dry cleaning services and automative work.
According to the Washington Post:
The announcement includes the complete ban of trichloroethylene—also known as TCE—a substance found in common consumer and manufacturing products including degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. In addition, the agency banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of Perc—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.
Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, applauded the move but suggested to the Post that it should have come sooner.
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," Kalmuss-Katz.
The EPA's decision, reports the New York Times, was "long sought by environmental and health advocates, even as they braced for what could be a wave of deregulation by the incoming Trump administration."
The Times reports:
TCE is known to cause liver cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and to damage the nervous and immune systems. It has been found in drinking water nationwide and was the subject of a 1995 book that became a movie, “A Civil Action,” starring John Travolta. The E.P.A. is banning all uses of the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was overhauled in 2016 to give the agency greater authority to regulate harmful chemicals.
Though deemed "less harmful" than TCE, the Times notes how Perc has been shown to "cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancer," and can also damage the functioning of kidneys, the liver, and people's immune systems.
Environmentalists celebrated last year when Biden's EPA proposed the ban on TCE, as Common Dreams reported.
Responding to the news at the time, Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the EPA, by putting the ban on the table, was "once again putting the health of workers and consumers first."
While President-elect Donald Trump ran on a having an environmental agenda that would foster the "cleanest air" and the "cleanest water," the late approval of EPA's ban on TCE and Perc in Biden's term means the rule will be subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), meaning the Republican-control Senate could reverse the measure.
In his remarks to the Times, Kalmuss-Katz of Earthjustice said that if Trump and Senate Republicans try to roll back the ban, they will be certain to "encounter serious opposition from communities across the country that have been devastated by TCE, in both blue and red states."
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'War on Workers': Unions Denounce GOP Efforts to Undo Pro-Labor Biden Rules
"It is absolutely critical that those who want to stand with workers do so united in their opposition to these attacks on pro-worker rulemaking."
Jul 10, 2024
Nearly 50 labor organizations representing a wide range of U.S. workers—from teachers to letter carriers to mine workers—are urging members of Congress this week to oppose Republican efforts to roll back a slew of Biden administration rules aimed at protecting the nation's workforce from abusive employers and unscrupulous Wall Street investors.
Led by the AFL-CIO, the country's largest federation of labor unions, the groups sent a letter to lawmakers on Tuesday warning about the GOP's attempted use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn pro-worker rules enacted by the Department of Labor and other U.S. agencies.
Since it became law in 1996, the CRA has been used to overturn just 20 federal rules, with 16 of those rolled back by the Republican-dominated 115th Congress during the first two years of former President Donald Trump's first term.
"Plainly, the CRA has become the latest weapon in a war on workers waged by special interests."
The new letter from labor unions lists more than a dozen recently finalized or pending rules that are in congressional Republicans' crosshairs, including ones designed to expand overtime pay protections for millions of workers and shield employees from junk fees in retirement investment advice—a change that's projected to save workers $55 billion over the next decade.
"Plainly, the CRA has become the latest weapon in a war on workers waged by special interests," the letter states. "Each of the above resolutions, some of which already passed the Congress, carry a threat of permanently undermining critical gains for working people across the country."
"It is absolutely critical that those who want to stand with workers do so united in their opposition to these attacks on pro-worker rulemaking," the letter continues. "Each vote for one of these CRA disapproval resolutions is a vote against labor," the letter continues. "We ask that you not allow private equity, the financial industry, multinational franchisors, unionbusters, or other special interests to use this tool to undo the progress that workers are making via federal rulemaking."
Should any of the Republican CRA resolutions pass both the House and the Senate, the labor organizations urged President Joe Biden to use his veto power to keep the rules in place—something he's done more than 10 times since taking office in 2024.
The labor groups' call came a day before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce convened a hearing Wednesday to consider H.J. Res. 142, a Republican-authored CRA resolution aimed at overturning a Labor Department rule that would—as Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su put it—"get junk fees out of the retirement savings market."
The rule is scheduled to take effect in September.
Liz Zelnick, director of the Economic Security and Corporate Power Program at Accountable.US, said in a statement Tuesday that the CRA resolution introduced by Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) "was written by and for Wall Street lobbyists, and any vote for it is a vote against increasing retirement savings for middle-class workers."
"Rubber-stamping this resolution means giving greedy retirement advisers a free pass to put their own interests ahead of their clients—undermining retirement security for millions," said Zelnick. "Right-wing lawmakers are eager to do the dirty work of their big bank megadonors while saying no to lower costs for everyday families. These members should answer why they believe the workers they represent are undeserving of the same quality of advice from their financial advisers."
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House GOP Rebuked for 'Cruel and Reckless' Effort to Reverse Student Debt Relief
"Should this become law, it will cause irreparable damage to the student loan system and undermine Americans’ trust in their government," warned the head of the Student Borrower Protection Center.
May 24, 2023
Advocates of student debt relief on Wednesday blasted Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives for passing a resolution that critics said showcases "their contempt for workers and families" who are burdened by loans taken out to access higher education.
H.J. Res. 45 is a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, which U.S. lawmakers can use to overturn federal regulations. The measure passed the House in a 218-203 vote mostly along party lines; Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) were the only members of their party to join Republicans in supporting it.
The resolution is unlikely to go anywhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and even if it did, the White House has already made clear that President Joe Biden would veto it. The GOP measure—a clear message to voters ahead of the 2024 elections—would block Biden's pending student debt cancellation plan and reverse already-delivered relief.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers and the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) released a report detailing the "ruinous impact" the resolution would have on millions of borrowers.
"The record is clear: The damage caused by this cruel and reckless legislation will hurt working people, including millions of its right-wing supporters' own constituents," SBPC executive director Mike Pierce declared after the vote.
Pierce noted that "right-wing proponents have gone to great lengths to mislead their own colleagues and deny the truth—this effort would push hundreds of thousands of public service workers back into debt and require the government to charge tens of millions [of] borrowers for interest that has already been canceled."
"Should this become law, it will cause irreparable damage to the student loan system and undermine Americans' trust in their government," he warned. "This is exactly what extreme conservative lawmakers want, they are just afraid to say it."
SBPC and 260 other groups also criticized the resolution's supporters in a letter to congressional leaders earlier this month, charging that "policymakers now seeking to reverse such critical relief through the CRA are ignoring the economic needs of their own constituents and threatening our nation's financial security."
"Congress should be acting to improve the circumstances of the American people," the coalition argued, "not attempting to thwart the president's efforts to ease the financial pressure that so many are feeling."
Another letter signatory, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), called out the GOP-led effort just ahead of the vote Wednesday.
"This is yet another political stunt from some members of Congress to prevent tens of millions of borrowers, including low-wealth individuals, service members, public service workers, women, and people of color from receiving relief ahead of the Supreme Court's decision regarding the fate of student debt cancellation, said Jaylon Herbin, CRL's director of federal campaigns.
Herbin warned that "resuming the payment pause without student loan forgiveness, let alone requiring students to retroactively pay months' worth of student loan payments, will add thousands of dollars into the average borrower's loan balance, lead millions into forbearance and default, and contribute to a widening racial wealth gap.”
"These actions are not only irresponsible but demonstrate a genuine lack of concern for the nation's overall economic health and the financial well-being of millions of U.S. individuals and families," he added.
The House vote came not only as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a pair of right-wing challenges to Biden's debt relief plan, but also as congressional Republicans threaten to blow up the economy by refusing to raise the debt limit unless Democratic lawmakers and the president agree to spending cuts that would harm working people.
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