Sponsors (3)
The bill locks the FTC's negative-option protections into statute to give consumers stronger, clearer protections and regulatory certainty, at the cost of higher compliance burdens for some businesses and reduced procedural avenues to revise or challenge the rule.
Consumers (including taxpayers) gain a clear, enforceable ban on deceptive 'negative option' recurring-payment practices, strengthening protections when people sign subscription or recurring-payment contracts.
Small businesses and consumers get greater regulatory certainty because the FTC rule's text is fixed as of July 7, 2025, reducing future rulemaking ambiguity and clarifying compliance expectations.
Small businesses that rely on negative-option or subscription models face increased legal exposure and compliance costs, which could raise prices or force changes to business models.
Converting an existing administrative FTC rule into statute bypasses ordinary rulemaking and judicial-review pathways, reducing stakeholders' ability to seek changes or updates and limiting checks on the agency.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Codifies the FTC's Part 425 “negative option” rule (as of July 7, 2025) into federal law without changing the rule text.
Makes the Federal Trade Commission’s “negative option” rule—Part 425 of title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations as it existed on July 7, 2025—into binding federal law by giving that regulatory text the force and effect of statute. The bill does not change the text of the rule; it simply codifies the existing regulatory requirements so they carry the weight of a statute.
Official title: Codify the Federal Trade Commission's negative option rule.
Introduced July 10, 2025 by Ruben Gallego · Last progress July 10, 2025