Sponsors
The bill increases transparency and forces cost-offsets to reduce regulatory costs for businesses and taxpayers, but does so at the risk of delaying rulemaking, dismantling existing protections, increasing agency workload, and raising litigation risk.
Taxpayers and businesses will get clearer, standardized estimates of the expected costs of major federal rules because agencies must prepare cost estimates and publish a 'budget-neutral' statement in the Federal Register.
Small businesses and financial institutions may face lower compliance costs because agencies must identify and repeal existing rules that offset the costs of any new major rule, potentially eliminating redundant or burdensome regulations.
Small businesses and taxpayers will have greater notice and oversight because the bill expands the definition of 'rule' to include guidance and policy statements, bringing previously nonbinding documents into public review.
Taxpayers and small businesses could lose health, safety, or environmental protections if agencies are forced to repeal existing rules to offset the costs of new major rules.
Issuance of major rules may be delayed while agencies run cost estimates and identify repeal candidates, slowing updates to regulatory protections or necessary regulatory improvements.
Treating guidance and policy statements as formal 'rules' could constrain agencies' ability to issue nonbinding clarifications and increase litigation risk for both agencies and regulated parties.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced March 6, 2025 by Beth Van Duyne · Last progress March 6, 2025
Requires each federal agency to estimate the public cost of any "major rule" before issuing it, identify existing agency rules that could be repealed to offset that cost, repeal any identified rules, and publish with the new rule a statement saying whether the action is "budget neutral." The bill defines key terms (including "major rule," "budget neutral," and "cost of the rule") and explicitly covers interpretative rules, policy statements, and guidance while excluding purely internal personnel or organizational rules. These requirements apply at the point of rule issuance and add a mandatory offset test for major rules—agencies must find and repeal existing rules to balance new public costs before proceeding and must disclose the offset result in the Federal Register.