Federal Appeals Court Issues Ruling On CRA

For nearly three decades, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) has been one of Congress’s sharpest tools to rein in the excesses of federal agencies. It was designed with one clear purpose: if the people’s elected representatives and the President strike down a regulation, unelected bureaucrats cannot simply reissue it under a new name or disguise.

That safeguard, however, was just gutted by a panel of liberal judges — a decision with enormous implications for the balance of power between Congress and the Administrative State.

The case involves a regulation from the Federal Communications Commission. In 2017, President Trump and congressional Republicans repealed the rule using the CRA, as part of a broader rollback of Obama-era regulations that lifted billions of dollars in compliance costs off the backs of businesses and taxpayers.

By the law’s plain text, the FCC was barred from reissuing the same or “substantially similar” rule. But when former President Biden took office, the FCC resurrected the regulation, repackaged it narrowly, and claimed it was not “substantially the same.”

Led by liberal judges, a federal court just undermined one of Congress’s most powerful tools to rein in the Administrative State.

The court’s decision allows unelected bureaucrats in DC to impose rules that Congress and the President expressly rejected.

Let me explain. pic.twitter.com/nbbqD2R2YP

— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) August 18, 2025

Businesses impacted by the move sued — arguing, quite reasonably, that the agency was violating the CRA. Yet the 6th Circuit upheld the FCC’s maneuver. Their reasoning? The original rule covered issues A and B, while the new rule only covered A. By this logic, the new regulation was not “substantially the same.”

Senator Eric Schmitt cut through the legalese with a straightforward analogy: imagine a mother tells her son he cannot stay out past 11 p.m. with his friends. The son then stays out past midnight, but alone. Has he disobeyed? Of course. Yet by the court’s logic, the answer is no. That is the absurdity now enshrined in case law.

The consequences extend far beyond the FCC. If this ruling stands, every federal agency can simply wait for a new administration and reissue regulations Congress and the President already struck down — carving up broad rules into smaller pieces to evade the CRA’s prohibition. In practice, this renders the CRA toothless.

Schmitt is calling for the 6th Circuit to rehear the case en banc, and if not, for the Supreme Court to step in and restore the plain meaning of the law. Without intervention, the Administrative State gains yet another avenue to run circles around Congress and the American people.

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