During Joe Biden’s presidency, the Democratic campaign against “junk fees“ never really caught on as a major national issue, but there can be no doubt that helping consumers with these unnecessary costs was a major policy priority for the then-president.

Indeed, with about a month remaining in Biden’s term, the Democratic administration finalized a policy limiting the overdraft fees banks can charge — which the then-president condemned as “exploitative” — discarding the lobbying efforts from the banking industry. The Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concluded that the nation’s biggest banks took in roughly $8 billion via these charges every year, which meant many consumers were poised to receive a significant boost.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, meanwhile, has invested as much time and energy as any member of Congress defending these fees. Indeed, as the new Congress got underway, the former GOP presidential candidate announced that he’d take a leading role in trying to undo the Biden-era consumer protections related to overdraft fees.

This week, the Republican senator and lobbyists representing the banking industry took a big step toward success. The New York Times reported:

The Senate voted Thursday to strike down a rule capping most bank overdraft fees at $5, a measure adopted late last year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that had been expected to save Americans billions of dollars per year. … [I]t passed on a nearly party-line vote, 52-48.

At issue are penalties financial institutions impose on customers when they spend more than they have in their accounts. The Biden-era policy intended to limit the fees and save consumers billions of dollars a year. The GOP majority in the Senate voted to scrap the policy before it even took effect.

At this point, some readers are probably wondering why Senate Democrats didn’t block the effort. They would have, but as a procedural matter, they didn’t have the opportunity: Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress can undo recently adopted regulations by majority rule — and filibusters aren’t an option.

And 52 Republicans — every GOP senator except Missouri’s Josh Hawley — advanced Scott’s measure, despite unanimous opposition from every Senate Democrat.

“Why would we help the big banks at the expense of working people?” Hawley said after the vote. “I just don’t understand it.”

Around the same time, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and the person responsible for helping create the CFPB, wrote online, “Senate Republicans would rather you didn’t find out they just voted to give the biggest banks billions in profits from overdraft fees that kick working people when they’re down.” She went on to call the move “disgraceful.”

The measure now heads to the Republican-led House, where it will likely receive overwhelming GOP support, though it would only take a handful of GOP members to vote the way Hawley did and derail the effort. Watch this space.