The Biden administration withdrew seven far-left proposed rules at the end of December, potentially due to receiving hundreds of thousands of critical public comments.

The withdrawals are being hailed as wins by conservatives, who have submitted comments against the rules, which would have compelled allowing male participation in girls sports, prohibited religious exemptions for birth control coverage, taken federal funding away from pregnancy resource centers, and more.

“On balance, withdrawing these rules is a win for everyone who submitted comments opposing them,” Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Rachel Morrison told The Daily Signal. “It means these bad policy proposals by the Biden administration will not go into effect.”

“It won’t require Congress to expend political capital to issue a [Congressional Review Act], it won’t take time away from other important things that Congress is doing, and there doesn’t need to be litigation by any advocates on these rules,” Morrison explained, “which allows them to have time and resources spent towards other things as well.”

The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to invalidate finalized rules at the end of an administration. If the Biden administration had finalized the rules, the Republican-majority Congress would have been able to effectively veto them, and Democrats wouldn’t have been allowed to submit the same rules in the future.

The Biden administration’s intention in withdrawing the rules could be to ensure they can be resubmitted when Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency.

“Any rule finalized within five or six months of the new Congress could be subject to the Congressional Review Act, and if Congress eliminates a rule based on the Congressional Review Act, it becomes a permanent elimination,” Matt Bowman, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “No future administration can reimpose the rule.”

The intention also could be to ensure incoming President Donald Trump cannot adapt the Biden-era rules for his own ends.

“It takes away that opportunity to finalize a rule that changes it substantially from what the Biden administration was trying to achieve, in line with the Trump administration’s response to the comments,” Morrison........

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