Sponsors (2)
The bill increases transparency and pressures agencies to cut regulatory costs by prioritizing monetized benefits—benefiting businesses and taxpayers financially and making analyses more comparable—but at the risk of weakening long-term health, safety, and environmental protections and raising litigation, compliance, and delay costs.
Small-business owners and taxpayers will face fewer costly or unnecessary regulations because agencies are required to prioritize rules with clear dollar benefits, potentially lowering compliance costs and economic burdens.
Taxpayers, state and local governments, and federal employees will get clearer, more consistent information because agencies must publish full economic analyses and OMB must issue updated guidance, improving transparency and comparability of regulatory decisions.
Affected private parties (including taxpayers and state/local governments) gain a clearer legal route to challenge rules that rely on unquantified or non-monetized factors, increasing stakeholder enforcement options.
Middle-class families and taxpayers could lose health and safety protections because rules that deliver long-term or hard-to-quantify public-health benefits may be downscaled or dropped when judged only by short-term monetized benefits.
Communities and consumers face greater long-term environmental risks and costs because agencies may underinvest in protections whose benefits (biodiversity, cultural values, justice) are hard to monetize.
Federal agencies, taxpayers, and regulated entities will likely face higher litigation risk, administrative and compliance costs, and greater regulatory uncertainty because of mandatory disclosure requirements and a new private right of action.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires federal agencies to rely only on quantified, monetized benefits and costs when conducting regulatory impact analyses and benefit–cost analyses, and bars consideration of non‑monetized or unquantified factors. It also requires agencies to publish full analyses in the Federal Register, directs the OMB Director to issue revised guidance within 90 days, gives a private right of action to sue to invalidate rules that relied on non‑monetized factors, and makes the changes effective 30 days after enactment (applying to rules issued on or after Nov. 9, 2023).
Introduced January 21, 2025 by Pete Sessions · Last progress January 21, 2025