Week in Review

IN THE NEWS: 

• A federal judge granted a motion terminating the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Ethiopia previously issued by the Department of Homeland Security. TPS provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation when their home countries have experienced armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other extraordinary events. This decision follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end TPS protections for Syria and Haiti. Judge Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts dismissed claims that only the attorney general had authority to terminate the protections. Judge Murphy, however, declined to dismiss the plaintiffs’ equal protection claims, which they will continue to litigate.
• The U.S. Department of Justice issued a final rule establishing the National Fraud Enforcement Division, a new division responsible for investigating and prosecuting fraud involving taxpayer-funded programs. The rule delegates authority to an assistant attorney general to supervise this division, which will oversee criminal proceedings involving fraud, tax offenses, trade fraud, health plan fraud, health care fraud, and schemes involving money owed to or paid by the United States. The National Fraud Enforcement Division also will possess the authority to seek injunctions, restitution, and forfeiture of property, and to pursue additional criminal charges uncovered during its investigations. The rule shifts certain fraud matters, including tax fraud and health plan fraud, from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division to the new National Fraud Enforcement Division.
• The Justice Department issued a final rule creating a process for people who are prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law to apply for the restoration of their federal firearm rights. The rule allows individuals to apply for relief under a federal law that permits the Attorney General to restore firearm rights when an applicant is not likely to pose a danger to public safety and restoring the rights would not conflict with the public interest. The Justice Department will consider the facts and circumstances of each application, but applicants whose crimes, conduct, or status indicate a heightened risk to public safety, such as violent felons, registered sex offenders, and people in the country illegally, will be ineligible for relief absent extraordinary circumstances. Gun safety advocates have raised concerns about how the new process will be used, pointing to the Administration’s previous decisions to restore firearm rights to convicted domestic abusers and people convicted of violent offenses related to January 6.
• The U.S. Forest Service proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which prohibits road construction and logging in more than 44 million acres of national forests that do not have roads. The recission aims to reduce wildfire risk and restore authority to local forest managers. U.S. Forest Service chief Tom Schultz stated that over 40 percent of inventoried roadless areas have high or very high wildfire hazard potential, yet only 5 percent have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014. In opposition, the Southern Environmental Law Center argued that this proposal would “do long-lasting harm to countless communities that depend on our national forests for tourism, recreation, and clean drinking water.”
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule that removed six superfund sites from the National Priorities List and partially removed two additional sites after determining that necessary cleanup had been completed. The rule signaled that these sites were removed because they no longer pose a threat to public health or the environment. Deletion from the National Priorities List, however, does not bar additional remediation, and EPA can add a site back to the list if it releases hazardous or polluting substances. EPA encouraged new productive uses for transformed sites such as recreation, conservation, residential development, and commercial activity.
• The U.S. Department of Education proposed regulatory changes to the college accreditation framework. The proposed restructuring of the quality assurance system would aim to simplify the approval process for new colleges. The Education Department claimed the regulatory overhaul would reduce the cost of higher education by increasing access to federal funds and prioritizing student outcomes when accrediting new institutions and allocating aid. The Education Department also indicated that the proposed changes seek to promote academic freedom and research integrity as accreditation criteria.
• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would create new regulations for certain crypto assets offered through investment contracts. The proposal would create two exemptions from federal securities registration requirements, allowing eligible companies to raise up to $5 million over four years under one exemption and up to $75 million in a 12-month period under the other. Companies offering crypto assets would have to provide investors information about their offerings, while companies using the larger exemption would also have to provide financial statements and ongoing reports to their investors. The SEC stated that the proposal would clarify when crypto assets fall under federal securities laws, encourage companies to operate in the United States, and give U.S. investors more opportunities to invest with consistent protections.
• JPMorgan reportedly discontinued its banking relationship with Polymarket due to regulatory concerns. The termination followed a series of legal actions states took against Polymarket and its rival Kalshi for potential violations of state gambling laws. Although the Commodity Futures Trading Commission allowed Polymarket to reopen its platform in the United States in 2025, Polymarket remains under investigation by the Commission. Public officials reportedly voiced concerns over predatory marketing practices used by prediction market companies to target young consumers, after which Polymarket reportedly established a new banking relationship with an undisclosed lender.

WHAT WE’RE READING: 

• In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Joshua Coven of the City University of New York and Sebastian Golder, Arpit Gupta, and Abdoulaye Ndiaye of the New York University Stern School of Business argued that low property taxes exacerbate homeownership disparity between older homeowners and young families. Coven and his coauthors asserted that raising property taxes reduces home prices by lowering the down payment burden for financially constrained young buyers while separately raising the ongoing cost of homeownership for older owners, pushing them to sell their homes. Coven and his coauthors argued that taxing the capital gains on inherited houses at the same rate as purchased houses would lower incentives for elderly people to maintain ownership of their homes. Taxing capital gains this way would encourage elderly homeowners to sell their homes during their lifetimes, rather than hold on to them until death to avoid capital gains taxes.
• In a recent Center for American Progress (CAP) report, Hailey Gibbs, the associate director of early childhood policy at CAP, and Casey Peeks, the former senior director of early childhood policy at CAP, examined access to licensed child care across the United States. Gibbs and Peeks found that 46 percent of children under age six lived in a child care desert in 2025, meaning that there were more than three young children for one of each local licensed child care slot. They found that shortages were particularly severe in rural communities, where 70 percent of children under six lived in a child care desert. Gibbs and Peeks recommended that federal and state policymakers invest in the child care workforce, expand the supply of providers, and improve access for families.
• In a recent New America report, Ivy Love, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Education and Labor at New America, and Braden Goetz, a senior policy advisor at the Center, argued that degree apprenticeships in nursing and allied health fields, which integrate paid work with accredited degree pathways, can help address the country’s workforce health care crisis. Love and Goetz identified 107 degree apprenticeship programs across 15 health care occupations in 29 states, but found that growth remains uneven, with many high-demand occupations offering no such programs. They explained that these programs tackle fundamental challenges such as high rates of early-career attrition and inaccessibility for low-income individuals who cannot afford unpaid clinical hours. Love and Goetz recommended that programs collaborate with accreditors and state regulatory bodies, deliver flexible online instruction, and relieve clinical capacity constraints through employer partnerships.

EDITOR’S CHOICE: 

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Daniel Hayes, the executive director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, argued that the first Trump Administration degraded environmental enforcement by favoring polluters over citizens’ interests. Hayes noted that EPA nearly halved its number of inspections in 2019 compared to the prior Administration’s annual average and that the agency’s civil and criminal enforcement caseload fell to its lowest level in a quarter century. He explained that the administration’s attack extended beyond declining enforcement statistics to a systematic effort to weaken or eliminate foundational environmental protections, including rolling back greenhouse gas emission limits on power plants, vehicle tailpipe emissions, and methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Hayes concluded that the systematic removal of regulatory protections turned environmental enforcement “on its head.”