Today on the Hill: DeVos Vote Set for Monday as Congress Reverses More Obama Rules; Trump Signs Dodd-Frank EO

Despite efforts from Democrats to slow down the process, the Senate is moving forward on confirming President Trump’s Cabinet nominees, starting with a final vote on Betsy DeVos’ nomination to be Education Secretary scheduled for Monday. The upper chamber successfully invoked cloture on DeVos’ confirmation this morning on a 52-48 party-line vote. However, Republican Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have both signaled that they will oppose DeVos in the final vote, meaning that Vice President Mike Pence will need to vote to break the tie – assuming there are no other Republican defections. Following the DeVos vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) plans to race through floor action on the nominations of Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General, Rep. Tom Price to be Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury Secretary, and Scott Pruitt to be Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Democrats are largely opposed to all of those selections, but without Republican defections, they are powerless to stop them from moving forward.

At the White House, President Trump revealed more details on his plans to cut financial rules this morning, signing an executive order directing a review of rules stemming from the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. While the order falls short of undermining the law, it sets the Administration and Republican Congress up for more significant action on rolling back the regulations imposed by the federal government following the 2008 financial crisis. The Administration is also directing the Department of Labor to review the contentious “fiduciary rule” finalized last year that requires retirement investment advisers to act in their client’s best interest. The rule has long split Republicans – who claim it’s too onerous and will reduce access to advice for small accounts – and Democrats, who view it as a critical tool to preventing the financial exploitation of retirement savers. President Trump is reportedly asking the DOL to determine whether the rule should be revised or withdrawn completely.  

In floor action today, the Senate will continue to move House-passed resolutions undoing Obama-era rules forward to the president’s desk by voting on a measure (H.J. Res. 41) that would reverse a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule requiring energy companies to disclose their payments to local and foreign governments in order to extract natural resources. The House is also taking aim at the past administration’s executive action by voting on a resolution (H.J. Res. 36) that would disapprove of the Bureau of Land Management’s rule requiring oil and gas production operations to reduce their output of the potent greenhouse gas methane. President Trump is expected to sign the series of resolutions that will nullify the rules under the authority granted by the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which also stipulates that similar rules cannot be resubmitted by agencies without Congressional approval.

Expect more of the same next week as the Senate works through confirmations and the House broadens its regulatory rollback to target Education Department rules on teacher preparation programs and school accountability, as well as a BLM regulation that updated the office’s land-use planning process. The first Education Department rule (H.J. Res. 58) due for rollback was finalized on Oct. 31 and would require states to report more information on the effectiveness of their teacher preparation programs. The second rule set to be overturned would implement new standards related to the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act that Republicans have accused of overreaching and diminishing the authority of local education leaders. House lawmakers will need to work through the resolutions on an abbreviated schedule as the lower chamber is due to break on Wednesday to allow Democrats to attend their annual issues retreat in Baltimore.