Sponsors (74)
The bill increases transparency, outreach, equity consideration, and procedural predictability in rulemaking—potentially strengthening public participation and health protections—but does so while expanding agency leeway, imposing new administrative and compliance costs, raising privacy and litigation risks, and narrowing some avenues for frontline stakeholder input.
Broad swaths of the public (taxpayers, nonprofits, state/local governments) gain much greater transparency and formal avenues to engage: agencies must notify quickly, keep participation logs and online dockets, respond to high-signature petitions, publish why drafts changed or were withdrawn, and the bill creates an Office and National Public Advocate to solicit participation.
Underrepresented and disadvantaged communities (including Tribal and low-income communities) get targeted outreach, multilingual materials, and required social equity assessments so rules are more likely to identify and avoid disparate harms.
Rules are more likely to account for public health, safety, and other nonquantifiable benefits, which can produce stronger protections for children, seniors, patients, and other vulnerable populations.
All taxpayers and many agencies will face higher administrative costs and staffing burdens—establishing a new Office, expanded notifications, posting and disclosure duties, and additional paperwork will increase federal spending and divert agency resources.
Civic participants, small organizations, parents, teachers, patients and other frontline stakeholders risk reduced influence: the bill authorizes excluding submissions, raises petition thresholds, and narrows negotiated rulemaking participation to government officials, shrinking direct stakeholder access to rule development.
Several provisions increase judicial deference to agencies and set or shorten review windows (including a six‑year limitations period), which together reduce courts' ability to check agency overreach and make unlawful rules harder to challenge.
Based on analysis of 19 sections of legislative text.
Overhauls federal rulemaking: boosts agency deference, creates an OMB public‑advocate office, tightens disclosure of commenter research, sets OIRA time limits, and narrows negotiated rulemaking to government reps.
Introduced November 19, 2025 by Pramila Jayapal · Last progress November 19, 2025
This bill rewrites many rules for how federal agencies write, review, and defend regulations. It creates an Office of the Public Advocate at OMB to help public participation and require social‑equity assessments, raises transparency and disclosure rules for outside studies and commenters, imposes penalties for companies that knowingly submit false filings to agencies, and sets new deadlines and procedures for agency rulemaking and OIRA review. It also increases judicial deference to agency statutory interpretations, extends the time limit to sue over agency actions, and narrows negotiated rulemaking so only government representatives may serve. The package is wide‑ranging: it requires agencies to post differences between internal drafts and published rules, to respond to large petitions, to make certain submitted scientific/economic work public and disclose funding and conflicts, and to permit agencies to republish rules nullified by a Congressional disapproval within a short window. Many provisions change how courts review agency action and how outside participants can influence rulemaking, while imposing new administrative duties on agencies and disclosure obligations on commenters and researchers.