Sponsors (2)
The bill increases transparency and pushes agencies to seek lower-cost regulatory options to ease household burdens, but at the risk of delaying or blocking beneficial public-health/environmental rules and imposing added administrative and legal costs.
Households (especially taxpayers, middle-class and low-income families) would see proposed federal rules' estimated annual impact on household spending (>= $50) before public comment, improving transparency and allowing consumers to weigh costs.
Middle-class and low-income households would benefit because agencies must consider and publish lower-cost regulatory alternatives, which can reduce compliance burdens and lower prices for affected goods and services.
Taxpayers would gain from OMB's annual report identifying major rules that increased household costs and recommending fixes, enabling corrective agency or legislative action to reduce burdens.
Middle-class and low-income families could lose timely public-health, safety, or environmental protections if rules that produce benefits nonetheless raise household costs by $50/year and are delayed or blocked.
Federal agencies and taxpayers could face higher administrative costs and slower rulemaking because of new analytic and reporting requirements, increasing regulatory backlogs and resource needs.
Households and state governments may face legal uncertainty and litigation risk because the $50/year threshold is a blunt test that can overblock low-impact rules or fail to capture distributional effects.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires household cost impact analyses for major proposed rules and blocks final rules that increase household costs by $50+/year except in narrow statutory or emergency cases.
Official title: To require an agency to prepare a household cost impact analysis before publishing a proposed and final rule, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 30, 2026 by Nancy Mace · Last progress April 30, 2026
Requires federal agencies that use notice-and-comment rulemaking to prepare and publish household cost impact analyses for proposed and final major rules, and bars final rules that would "substantially increase household costs" (defined as $50+ per household per year) unless the rule is required by law or justified by imminent national security or major disaster/ emergency needs. It creates definitions for household costs, gives households standing to sue for compliance, directs OMB to issue guidance within 180 days and an annual Federal Register report identifying costly rules and recommending fixes, and applies to rules proposed on or after enactment.