NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in Texas removed a Biden-era finalized rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would have removed medical debt from credit reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Jordan of Texas’s Eastern District last week found that the rule exceeded the CFPB ‘s authority.

Jordan said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not permitted to remove medical debt from credit reports according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which protects information collected by consumer reporting agencies.

Removing medical debts from consumer credit reports was expected to increase the credit scores of millions of families by an average of 20 points, the bureau said.

The CFPB states that its research has shown outstanding health-care claims to be a poor predictor of an individual’s ability to repay a loan, yet they are often used to deny mortgage applications.

The three national credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — announced last year that they would remove medical collections under $500 from consumer credit reports.

The CFPB’s rule was projected to ban all outstanding medical bills from appearing on credit reports and prohibit lenders from using the information.

The CFPB estimated the rule would have removed $49 million in medical debt from the credit reports of 15 million Americans.

According to the agency, one in five Americans has at least one medical debt collection account on their credit reports and more than half of the collection entries on credit reports are for medical debts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis to monitor credit card companies, mortgage providers, debt collectors and other segments of the consumer finance industry.