On April 6, the Biden Administration’s Education Department announced a proposed change to its Title IX regulations on students’ eligibility for athletic teams. The rule would make it illegal for schools to protect women and girls in sports by requiring schools to allow transgender students to compete on sports teams based on their “gender identity.”
President Biden signed an executive order on April 6 entitled “Modernizing Regulatory Review.” The order unveils a series of tangible policy positions (including a push to place greater emphasis on “equity considerations”) based on the administration’s core regulatory principles. The April 6 executive order represents a significant shift in the manner in which federal agencies engage in regulatory analysis in order to justify rulemaking, and will lead to a review process that is less rigorous. Biden’s order, and subsequent memoranda from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), could also make it far easier for agencies to use the pretext of “more expansive benefits” to justify actions that are more costly.
On April 6, President Biden vetoed a resolution overturning his WOTUS rule that was produced by a bipartisan effort in the House of Representatives and Senate. The President’s veto ensures that the expansive overreach of executive power relating to WOTUS will stand.
President Biden signed an executive order on April 21 designed to advance environmental justice. The order creates a new Office of Environmental Justice and directs federal agencies to take a “whole-of government approach to environmental justice.” This order continues the Biden administration’s long-standing policy of expanding the administrative state wherever possible. The presidential action is a transparent attempt to entrench “environmental justice” in the bureaucracy, in the latest example of the Biden administration attempting to weaponize the federal government.
