The Reclaim the Reins Act inserts a package of new reporting, review, and approval requirements into chapter 8 of title 5 of the U.S. Code that materially expands congressional oversight of agency rulemaking. It directs agencies to produce more detailed economic and jobs-related analyses, gives OMB’s OIRA a formal role in labeling rules as major or nonmajor, authorizes GAO determinations on rule status upon request, and creates a mechanism by which certain agency rules require an affirmative joint resolution of Congress to take effect.
The bill also creates a rolling review of existing rules, including annual designations by agencies and a statutory sunset for designated ‘‘eligible’’ rules that Congress does not affirmatively approve. It provides appropriations to OMB and GAO to implement these provisions and directs GAO to inventory rules and estimate aggregate economic costs.
The measure reshapes who controls when and how rules take effect, increasing congressional leverage while imposing new analytical and procedural obligations on agencies and regulated parties.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends chapter 8 of title 5 by adding new sections that require agencies to include specific budgetary, cost, jobs and inflation estimates with rule reports, expand the definition of 'rule' to capture guidance and interpretive materials, and require congressional approval for major rules that increase revenue. It also mandates periodic review of existing rules and empowers GAO and OIRA to make determinations about rule status and majorness.
Who It Affects
Federal agencies that promulgate rules and guidance, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within OMB, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) when consulted, regulated industries that would be subject to revenue-increasing rules, and Congress itself, which gains new formal vote points.
Why It Matters
The bill shifts significant practical control over the timing and continuation of rules from agencies and courts toward Congress, increases analytical burdens on agencies, and creates fast-track processes (and potential sunsets) that could delay, block, or remove existing regulatory requirements. Compliance officers, counsel, and regulatory affairs teams will need to plan for new reporting inputs, possible congressional actions, and heightened litigation risk.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Reclaim the Reins Act creates four new statutory sections added to chapter 8 of title 5 (sections 809–812) and adjusts existing definitional language so that 'rule' expressly includes interpretative rules, general statements of policy, and other guidance documents. Under the bill, any agency report that would normally be sent to Congress under section 801(a)(1)(A) must now include an itemized set of analyses: estimated budgetary effects of enactment and enforcement, direct and reasonably foreseeable indirect costs, industry-level job gains and losses (identified by NAICS code and separated between public and private sector impacts), the data and studies supporting the rule, the rule’s estimated effect on inflation, and the constitutional authority relied upon.
The bill also requires the Administrator of OIRA to determine whether the rule is major or nonmajor and explain that finding against the statutory major-rule criteria.
Procedurally, the bill creates an approval hurdle: a major rule that increases revenues cannot take effect unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of approval. If Congress does not enact such a resolution within a statutory window after the agency report, the rule is treated as not approved and cannot take effect.
The bill also provides for GAO involvement: upon a member’s written request GAO must decide whether an agency action qualifies as a rule and, in coordination with CBO, whether it qualifies as a major rule — with short statutory turnaround times for those determinations.For existing rules, the bill forces an aggressive review posture. Beginning six months after enactment agencies must designate at least 20 percent of their eligible rules for review each year over a four-year period (with no repeat designations), submit those rules for the same reporting and congressional-review procedures, and face automatic sunsets for eligible rules that Congress has not approved after a five-year window.
The statute allows a single joint resolution to approve multiple designated rules for a year, but also permits any Member to move that a particular rule require a separate resolution, opening the door for both consolidation and fragmentation of congressional votes.The bill funds implementation activity at OMB/OIRA and at GAO and directs GAO to produce an inventory and cost estimate of the rules that exist at enactment. It also clarifies that courts may adjudicate whether agencies have satisfied the statute’s procedural requirements for a rule to take effect, effectively preserving judicial review over compliance with the new chapter 8 procedures.
Finally, the bill amends the existing table of chapters and contains conforming technical changes to ensure that revenue-increasing major rules are specifically routed into the new approval process.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill appropriates $10,000,000 to the Director of OMB and $10,000,000 to the Comptroller General for implementation, with those funds available through September 30, 2034.
GAO must, upon written request from a Member of Congress, determine whether an agency action qualifies as a rule within 60 days and whether it is a 'major' rule within 90 days in consultation with CBO.
A major rule that increases revenues cannot take effect unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of approval; if Congress does not approve within 60 session days or legislative days (as applicable) after receipt of the report, the rule is deemed not approved and may not take effect.
Beginning six months after enactment, agencies must designate at least 20% of their eligible in-effect rules for review annually over four years (no rule may be re-designated), and any eligible rule not approved by Congress within five years of enactment will cease to be in effect.
The bill expands the statutory definition of 'rule' to expressly include interpretative rules, general statements of policy, and other guidance documents, while leaving specified narrow exceptions (e.g.
certain rate-setting, management/personnel, and procedural items).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Implementation funding for OMB and GAO
This provision supplies dedicated implementation money to both the Office of Management and Budget (for OIRA activities) and the Comptroller General to carry out the bill’s reporting, determination, and study requirements. The funds are drawn from the Treasury and are explicitly available through the end of fiscal year 2034, which gives the agencies roughly a decade of budget authority to build systems, hire staff, and produce statutory products without immediate annual appropriations adjustments.
New analytical disclosures required in agency reports
Section 809 forces agencies, when they file the existing section 801(a)(1)(A) report, to attach a granular set of analyses: budgetary effects, direct and indirect costs, NAICS-coded job impacts broken out between public and private sectors, the datasets and studies supporting the rule, an inflation effect estimate, and a statement of constitutional authority. Practically, agencies will need to expand regulatory impact analyses, track employment impacts at industry resolution, and document constitutional bases — increasing the preparatory work before rule publication and creating a fixed checklist for congressional and judicial review.
Congressional approval required for revenue-raising major rules
This section creates a new gate: any rule labeled 'major' that increases revenues cannot go into effect absent a joint resolution of approval by Congress. The statute borrows the procedural template of section 802 (used for disapprovals) but flips it — Congress must affirmatively approve. If Congress fails to pass the joint resolution within the specified 60 session or legislative day window after receiving the agency report, the rule is treated as not approved and cannot take effect. The bill also states that such approval is not to be interpreted as a grant of substantive statutory authority or a waiver of legal challenges.
Carryover review for revenue-raising rules submitted late in a President's term
Section 811 applies special treatment to any revenue-increasing rules submitted in the final year of a President’s term: those rules are subject to the joint-resolution procedures in the succeeding Congress and may be packaged together in a single resolution. That mechanism prevents a lame-duck executive from unilaterally pushing significant revenue-raising rules into effect without giving the next Congress a formal vote on approval.
Systematic review, annual designation, and sunset for designated rules
Section 812 requires agencies, beginning six months after enactment, to annually designate at least 20% of 'eligible rules' for review during each of the next four years (and to report on them using the new reporting template). No rule may be re-designated; if Congress has not enacted a joint resolution approving an eligible rule within five years of enactment, that rule will cease to be in effect. The statute permits a single joint resolution to approve multiple rules for a given year but allows members to demand separate votes on particular rules, creating both streamlining and friction points for congressional consideration.
Definition changes, table of chapters, and GAO inventory
The bill narrows certain exclusions and expands the statutory definition of 'rule' to include guidance and interpretive materials, updates the chapter table, and makes conforming edits to route revenue-raising major rules into the new approval workflow. Separately, it directs GAO to complete an inventory within one year of enactment of how many rules and major rules are in effect and to estimate the total economic cost imposed by those rules, providing a baseline for Congress and agencies as reviews proceed.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Government across all five countries.
Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Congress — Gains formal, recurring vote points: The bill gives both Houses statutory authority to approve or disapprove certain rules and to force votes on packages of rules, increasing legislative leverage over executive regulatory outcomes.
- Oversight offices (GAO and CBO) — Expanded role and visibility: GAO gets statutory deadlines and funding to make rule determinations and produce an inventory and cost estimate; CBO is explicitly called to consult on majorness determinations, increasing their institutional involvement.
- Entities opposing certain regulations — Strategic advantage: Regulated parties that view specific rules as burdensome (especially revenue-raising ones) gain an avenue to press Congress to block or delay those rules via the approval process.
- Regulatory analysts and vendors — New business and consulting demand: Agencies and regulated firms will need more granular economic, inflation and employment analyses, creating demand for specialized analytical capacity and private-sector advisory services.
Who Bears the Cost
- Federal agencies — Compliance and analytical burden: Agencies will need to expand cost-benefit work, track industry-specific job impacts, estimate inflation effects, prepare constitutional justifications and respond to GAO/OIRA inquiries, increasing staffing and contracting costs.
- Companies and regulated industries — Increased uncertainty and compliance costs: Industries face potential stop-start regulatory outcomes, more intensive impact analyses, and the prospect of rules being rescinded or re-opened for review, complicating long-term planning.
- Congressional staff and committees — Workload and politicization: Committees and personal offices must process joint resolutions, evaluate voluminous agency reports, and reconcile consolidated vs. separate-resolution strategies, adding time and resource burdens.
- Judicial system — More procedural litigation risk: Because courts can determine whether agencies satisfied the statute’s procedural prerequisites, litigation over compliance with the new reporting and approval steps is likely to increase, adding caseload and complexity.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between democratic accountability and administrative functionality: the bill increases Congress’s ability to block or delay economically significant rules and forces agencies to disclose more analysis, which strengthens legislative oversight and transparency, but it also risks paralyzing routine regulatory adjustments, politicizing technical determinations, and imposing heavy analytical burdens that may slow or shrink agencies’ capacity to implement statutory mandates.
The bill's greatest practical consequence is procedural: by making OIRA determinations, GAO reviews, and congressional votes central to whether rules take effect, it substitutes political adjudication for much of the informal judgment agencies normally exercise. That can improve democratic accountability in some cases, but it also creates timing and sequencing risks — agencies may delay rules to satisfy expanded analytical checklists, and Congress may consolidate or fragment consideration in ways that make regulatory outcomes unpredictable.
The expanded analytical requirements (industry-level job counts, inflation estimates, and chained lists of supporting studies) are precise in theory but difficult in practice; agencies must rely on models and assumptions that are contestable and likely to be litigated, and smaller agencies may lack capacity to perform the work without sustained funding.
The bill also raises separation-of-powers and administrative-law questions it does not directly answer. Requiring affirmative congressional approval for major, revenue-increasing rules challenges long-standing delegations of rulemaking authority and may prompt constitutional litigation over whether Congress can effectively veto executive exercise of delegated authority via a nondelegable approval step.
The statute attempts to limit the legal meaning of congressional approval, but courts will still need to decide how to treat Congress’s action (or inaction) when it intersects with APA-based claims and statutory interpretation disputes. Finally, by bringing guidance and interpretive rules within the statutory definition of 'rule,' the bill narrows a common tool agencies use for flexibility; that change may reduce regulatory agility or push agencies toward expensive notice-and-comment procedures for material clarifications.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.