As the National Automobile Dealers Association prepared to open NADA Show 2024 in Las Vegas, a development surfaced back in Washington, D.C., that the organization cheered, too.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a North Dakota Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced H.R. 7101, the FTC Redo Act, in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s recently unveiled Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Rule.

The regulator’s new rule already is facing a challenge in federal court. NADA said in a news release that this legislation would nullify the rule altogether and “require the FTC to follow basic regulatory safeguards — which it failed to follow — should the agency choose to redo the rule.”

NADA explained those safeguards include actions such as allowing for adequate public comment and conducting a cost benefit analysis on actual data.

The association also mentioned companion legislation (S. 3014) was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) last year.

“The FTC’s Vehicle Shopping Rule is simply terrible for consumers,” NADA president and CEO Mike Stanton said in the news release. “It will add massive amounts of time, complexity, paperwork and cost to car shopping for tens of millions of Americans every year.”

In January, NADA and the Texas Automobile Dealers Association (TADA) filed a legal challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to stay the July 20 effective date of the FTC’s rule.

In response to that legal challenge, the FTC issued an order delaying the effective date of the rule pending judicial review of the NADA/TADA petition.

However, despite FTC’s postponement, NADA said the rule remains the law, which is why the FTC Redo Act is necessary.

“Congress needs to pass the REDO Act because of the massive corners cut and significant errors the FTC made in rushing the Vehicle Shopping Rule into effect,” Stanton said. “American consumers deserve far better than the FTC’s improper, rushed, utterly flawed and we believe illegal process that resulted in a rule that will only make car buying more time consuming, costly, confusing and frustrating for everyone.

“America’s franchised dealers applaud Rep. Armstrong for his leadership to protect consumers and small business dealers against the FTC’s latest bureaucratic overreach,” Stanton went on to say.