The Biden administration is in a mad rush to finalize a laundry list of regulations because it fears the return of former President Donald Trump with a fully Republican Congress that would act quickly to undo them.

Just this month alone, the Biden administration has finalized or is working to finalize regulations rewriting sex discrimination in Title IX, reinstating net neutrality, banning non-compete agreements, regulating sugar in school meals, requiring airlines to reimburse passengers in cash rather than through travel vouchers, enacting new restrictions on gun purchases, and expanding employment protections for government employees.

The reason for this flurry of regulations is twofold: First, the looming presidential election could very well return Trump to the White House, and the regulations would likely be revisited and revised as a new administration with different policy goals takes office. This lengthy process involves a number of steps, meeting with stakeholders, soliciting comments from the public, and responding to each and every concern and comment. In many cases, this process takes multiple years to complete and is a significant undertaking.

But all of that can be sidestepped through the Congressional Review Act, the second reason the Biden administration is in a hurry to finalize these regulations now, despite the fact that the president’s term in office does not expire until noon on Jan. 20, 2025.

The Congressional Review Act establishes a 60-day window after a regulation is published in the Federal Register, during which Congress may pass a resolution by a simple majority of both chambers repealing a given regulation. But this 60-day window is not measured in regular calendar days. Rather, it is measured by the legislative days that Congress is in session. Thus, the full window of repeal is much larger than simply 60 days after the rule is enacted.

But there is another wrinkle: If a regulation is finalized when the current Congress has fewer than 60 legislative days remaining in its session, the new Congress that is sworn in after a general election is afforded its own 60-day look-back period for it to review the regulation and repeal it. This means that if Trump wins the White House and the 119th Congress is fully controlled by Republicans, they will be able to easily repeal all regulations that were passed by the Biden administration when there were fewer than 60 legislative days in the 118th Congress.

Now, Congressional Review Act resolutions are usually unsuccessful because they require the signature of the president, and a president who enacted a regulation is likely not inclined to sign a bill repealing a policy of his own administration. But this is where the 60-day look-back period matters.

In 2017, Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress used the Congressional Review Act to repeal more than a dozen Obama administration regulations that were enacted in 2016. President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress followed suit in 2021 by repealing three regulations that were finalized in the last months of the Trump administration.

This is what the Biden administration is afraid of. According to the House calendar, Congress will be in session for roughly 12 days each month through the end of December. The exceptions are August and October, when members will be on recess for the entire month. While Congress can add more legislative days to its calendar at any time, the current legislative calendar places the deadline for 60 days on May 22.

Any regulation finalized after May 22, provided Congress does not add any more days to its legislative calendar, will be subject to the Congressional Review Act in the 119th Congress, which will take office on Jan. 3, 2025, and could be easily repealed by Congress and Trump, if he wins the presidential election in November and is sworn in on Jan. 20.

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Fundamentally, the Biden administration is afraid that the electorate will cast it out of office and deliver a stinging rebuke against its radical agenda. For more than three years, Biden has enacted policies and regulations that have harmed the well-being of the working people of the United States while allowing nefarious actors to run rampant abroad. It is no wonder that he is among the most unpopular presidents in history.

Now, as the clock ticks down to Election Day and the end of his term, Biden and his administration are desperate to ensure that their radically unpopular policy agenda cannot easily be undone.