WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is abandoning efforts to provide some protections for transgender student-athletes and cancel student loans for more than 38 million Americans. These are the first steps in an administration-wide plan to jettison pending regulations to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from retooling them to achieve his own goals.

The White House expects to withdraw unfinished rules across multiple agencies if there is not enough time to complete them before Trump takes office. If the proposed regulations were left in their current state, the next administration would be able to redraft them and advance its agenda more quickly.

Even as the Biden administration seeks to repeal the rules, it pushed for repeal through other avenues on Friday. The Education Department said it is processing loans for an additional 55,000 borrowers who gained eligibility through a program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness, created by Congress in 2007 and expanded by the Biden administration.

With pending Biden regulations being withdrawn, there is nothing stopping Trump from enforcing his own regulations on the same issues when he returns to the White House, but he would have to start over in a process that could take months or even years.

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” said Melissa Byrne, an activist who advocates for student debt relief. “Unfortunately, this is the most prudent measure at this time.”

She blamed Republicans for putting the Biden administration in this situation. “It’s a disgrace that we have a GOP committed to keeping the American working class further indebted,” Byrne said.

The withdrawals come as Washington prepares for a possible government shutdown that could further complicate the Biden administration’s efforts to resolve outstanding issues.

In documents withdrawing the student loan proposals, the Education Department insisted it had the authority to cancel the debt but tried to focus on other priorities in the administration’s final weeks. It said the administration would focus on helping borrowers get back on track with their payments following the coronavirus pandemic, when payments were paused.

“The department currently intends to use its limited operational resources to help at-risk borrowers successfully return to repayment,” the agency wrote.

As for the transgender student rule, the department said it was withdrawing the proposal because of ongoing litigation over how Title IX, the landmark law preventing sex discrimination, should address gender identity issues. In addition, according to the department, there were 150,000 public comments with a range of feedback, including suggested changes that needed to be considered.

At that time, the department wrote, “We do not intend to issue a final rule.”

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump, accused the White House of “creating more bureaucracy and making it harder for him to govern.”

“President Trump will not be deterred by their dirty tricks and will use every lever of power to reverse the damage Biden has done and implement his America First agenda,” Leavitt said.

Kate Shaw, who served in the White House counsel’s office under President Barack Obama, said it is not unusual for governments to speed up or slow down legislation. It’s more typical, she said, for the federal government to struggle to finalize regulations during a transition period, but that can be difficult when time is short.

“If you don’t start it early enough, you won’t be able to complete it,” she said.

A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the government continues to support the goals of its regulatory proposals. However, the process can be lengthy as it requires legal reviews and gathering input from the public.

Federal agencies are currently analyzing which rules to end before the end of Biden’s term and which to roll back, the official said.

In recent years, presidents have tended to rely more heavily on executive orders and federal regulations to overcome gridlock in Congress. However, the rulemaking process can be less sustained than legislation, making policy more susceptible to shifts between administrations.

Across the Department of Education and other agencies, dozens of additional regulations are pending, ranging from relatively minor updates to sweeping policies that have serious implications for the nation’s schools and businesses.

If a rule has already gone through a public feedback process under Biden, Trump could simply replace it with his own proposal and go straight to adopting the policy, effectively bypassing the comment period.

The two student loan proposals, which are expected to be withdrawn on Friday, represented Biden’s second attempt at comprehensive debt relief after the Supreme Court rejected his first plan.

One is a proposal from April that would have provided targeted debt relief for 30 million Americans. This identified several categories of borrowers who are eligible for relief. Borrowers whose balances ballooned due to interest would have had their accrued interest canceled. Those who had been repaying their loans for 20 years or more would have had their loans wiped out.

That proposal was halted by a federal judge in September after Republican-led states sued, and it remains mired in litigation.

The second rule being withdrawn is an October proposal that would have allowed the Education Department to cancel loans for people facing various hardships, including those struggling with high medical bills or child care costs have.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said Biden never had the authority to implement those plans.

“With today’s withdrawal, they admit that these schemes were nothing more than a dishonest attempt to buy votes by transferring debts to taxpayers who never studied or worked to pay off their loans,” he said in a statement.

Although Biden did not follow through on the sweeping loan cancellations he initially promised, his administration has forgiven an unprecedented $180 billion in federal student loans under existing programs.

“Thanks to our actions, millions of people across the country now have the opportunity to start businesses, save for retirement and pursue life plans that they had to put on hold because of student loan debt burdens,” Biden said in a statement.

On Friday, officials announced they would pay off the debts of another 55,000 workers — including teachers, nurses and law enforcement officers — through public service loan forgiveness. The program promises to cancel loans for borrowers who have worked in government or a nonprofit organization for 10 years.

The $4.28 billion in relief is expected to be the final round of public service loan forgiveness before Biden leaves office in January.

Biden’s transgender sports rule was proposed in 2023 but was delayed several times. It was intended to be a follow-up to his broader rule that extended civil rights protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students.

The sports rule would have prevented schools from banning transgender athletes outright, while allowing restrictions for specific reasons — for example, when it came to “fairness” in competition or reducing the risk of injury.

Biden’s proposal led to both sides of the issue demanding more. Advocates for transgender athletes said it doesn’t go far enough to protect transgender students from school policies that could unfairly exclude them. Opponents said it was not enough to protect girls and ensure justice.

The regulation faded into the background during the presidential campaign as the issue became the subject of Republican outrage. Trump promised during the campaign to ban transgender athletes and promised to “keep men out of women’s sports.”

Had Biden’s proposal been finalized, it would certainly have faced legal challenges from conservatives who claimed Biden had overstepped his authority. Biden’s broader Title IX policy, finalized in April, faced a barrage of legal challenges that prevented it from taking effect in 26 states.