On July 9 and 10, GOP congressional committee leaders wrote 40 letters to the heads of executive branch agencies to remind them of how Loper Bright has set limits on an agency’s authority. As previously covered by InfoBytes, Loper Bright overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine stipulating that courts cannot reference an agency’s interpretation of law they claim is ambiguous. The letters to the financial regulators claimed that the agency’s rules have been based on “aggressive interpretations” of statutes, which the GOP alleged to “undermine” our government and “overwhelm the founders’ system of checks and balances.”

Each congressional committee wrote to the agency for which each maintains oversight; thus, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) both wrote to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, NCUA Chairman Todd Harper, OCC Acting Director Michael Hsu, SEC Chair Gary Gensler, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

In their letters, they reminded the financial regulators that they plan to “reassert forcefully” Congress’s Article I responsibilities and ensure the Biden administration respected the limits placed by the ruling. They requested information concerning the following proposed, initiated or completed actions during the Biden administration, no later than August 7: lists of all rulemaking legislative rules, adjudications, enforcement actions, interpretative rules, and judicial decisions that may be impacted by Loper Bright.