Biden will issue memo on inauguration day to halt damaging ‘midnight regulations’ by Trump

Trump Administration lame-duck rules to weaken environmental laws, limit immigration, and make it harder to get food stamps

President-elect Joe Biden will issue a memo on inauguration day stopping or slowing down any midnight regulations put in place by the Trump Administration that will not yet have taken effect. 

So-called 'midnight regulations’ are any rules or guidance issued by the executive branch of the American federal government in the lame-duck period between the election and the inauguration of a new President.

The memo will take effect after noon eastern time on January 20, incoming Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a virtual press conference on Wednesday. Psaki said that "this freeze will apply not only to regulations but also guidance documents that can have enormous consequences on the lives of the American people".

Every administration since when Jimmy Carter left office in 1981 has scrambled to put forward new regulations before they leave the White House, according to the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University. It's often a struggle between the two parties. In 2016, House Republicans passed a law giving themselves the authority to invalidate any midnight regulations coming out of the Obama White House. 

As the Trump Administration has tried this time around to muddy the waters, Mr Biden slammed outgoing Trump officials for not cooperating with the transition.

“Right now we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Mr Biden said. “It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”

The official start of the administration was delayed for weeks after Mr Trump refused to concede, something he still has not done, baselessly claiming that he lost because the election was fraudulent.

Ms Psaki pointed to a Trump Labor Department rule that would make it easier for companies to categorise their workers as independent contractors instead of employees to avoid paying for overtime and benefits as one of the midnight rules that the incoming Biden Administration wants to put a stop to.

A CNN report from earlier this month said that the Trump Administration is planning late rules on a wide variety of subjects. The regulations would limit immigration, weaken environmental laws, and could remove food assistance for millions of struggling Americans.

The Biden Administration is planning to not only halt Mr Trump's late laws but also institute a number of their own executive orders like rejoining the Paris climate accords and the World Health Organisation. Mr Trump withdrew the US from the WHO earlier this year but leaving requires a one year notice, so Mr Biden will be able to reaffirm US commitment to the organisation without the US ever fully leaving.

Mr Biden still has a few cabinet appointments to make, including Attorney General, Secretary of Labor and Commerce, Director of the CIA, and the running of the Small Business Administration.

The number of regulations put forward by the Trump Administration in its waning days looks to be around the same as that of the Obama Administration as it was leaving the White House, but the priorities of the two Administrations couldn't be more different. The rules coming out of the current White House would make it easier to pollute and harder to get food stamps as millions of Americans are unemployed during a raging pandemic, ABC News reported. Mr Trump and his officials are also trying to auction off drilling rights in the arctic with limited success, according to The New York Times.