MRA Hearing To Take Place Today

The Midnight Rule Act, or MRA, will be up for discussion today, as the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law has included it in a hearing entitled "Midnight Rulemaking: Shedding Some Light", dedicated to the last-minute changes by the Bush administration.

The Midnight Rule Act has been included in a list of hearings that will take place today at the Rayburn House Office Building. The MRA's main purpose is to allow present Cabinet secretaries to approve or disapprove the last laws and
regulations that came into power from the Bush administration,
including the UIGEA. If it passes, the bill could help overturn the online poker regulations across the United States.

The Midnight Rule Act, or MRA, was first introduced to the Congress in
November 2008 by Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, but since the holiday break was just around the corner,
the bill was re-added on the 6th of January, as the Congress was back in session.

When he reintroduced the MRA, Nadler said: "I am reintroducing the Midnight Rule Act to reverse President Bush's
last minute attempts to weaken key legal protections within our federal
agencies. As expected, the Bush Administration has, in its final moments,
proposed a series of retrograde and dangerous regulatory changes."

The MRA is on the list as HR34 and according to the Library of Congress, it is designed to "delay the implementation of agency rules adopted within the final 90 days of the final term a President serves."

The bill itself does not state what kind of procedures the new administration should follow, but it says that they can express their disagreement with a specific last-minute rule by "publishing a statement of disapproval in the Federal Register and
sending a notice of disapproval to the congressional committees of
jurisdiction."

Should the Midnight Rule Act pass the hearing, it will then be possible for the UIGEA to be reviewed. "We have reason to believe that some form of this bill will make it through. We’re hopeful that it will be this specific bill," said one of Congressman Nadler's spokesperson.