It took a little bit of time, but over the past week – with the government shutdown firmly in the rear-view mirror – federal agencies and Congress have begun to return to a more typical flow of regulatory policy actions. There were 17 rulemakings with some kind of quantified cost-benefit estimate. The most substantial item was a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule on air cargo screening procedures. Additionally, there was legislative movement on multiple Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions of disapproval. Across all rulemakings, federal agencies published roughly $925 million in total costs and added 3.1 million paperwork burden hours.

REGULATORY TOPLINES

• Proposed Rules: 73
• Final Rules: 71
• 2025 Total Pages: 52,725
• 2025 Final Rule Costs: -$73.2 billion
• 2025 Proposed Rule Costs: -$627.8 billion

NOTABLE REGULATORY ACTIONS

The most consequential rulemaking of the week in terms of measurable economic effects was the DHS rule on “Enhanced Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS).” Specifically, the rule makes changes to the:

Regulations pertaining to the Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS) program to require the transmission of additional data elements. The ACAS program enhances the security of flights carrying cargo into the United States by requiring the transmission of certain air cargo data and performing targeted risk assessments based on the transmitted data prior to an aircraft’s departure for the United States.

The agency estimates that these additional reporting requirements will result in roughly 3.1 million hours of paperwork each year. Over a 10-year period, DHS estimates that affected entities will bear $877 million in total costs to update their systems to come into compliance.

The other consequential rulemaking of the week was the proposed rule jointly released by the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers that would establish the “Updated Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’ [WOTUS].” The American Action Forum (AAF) provided some commentary on the proposal’s place in the long and winding history of all things WOTUS here. The rulemaking does not currently include any quantified costs or savings estimates, but given the subject matter it covers, it represents one of the more significant regulatory developments thus far into the second Trump term.

TRACKING TRUMP 2.0

Congress also returned some of its attention toward regulatory policy issues with a handful of votes on some CRA resolutions. The House passed a pair of resolutions (H.J. Res 130 and 131) that seek to repeal certain Biden-era Department of Interior (DOI) land use determinations. AAF has previously discussed how such DOI determinations fall under the auspices of the CRA here. The Senate also voted to advance H.J. Res 130, sending it now to the White House for President Trump’s expected signature.

The AAF CRA tracker provides a full survey of activity under the law thus far in 2025. As of today, members of the 119th Congress have introduced CRA resolutions of disapproval addressing 69 rulemakings across the Biden and Trump Administrations that collectively involve $138 billion in compliance costs. Of these, 16 have been passed into law, repealing a series of Biden Administration rules that had a combined $3 billion in associated compliance costs – roughly 2 percent of that potential $138 billion total. While the main window of CRA action has largely passed, there are still outstanding resolutions that could move legislatively. AAF will continue to monitor and update such developments as appropriate.

TOTAL BURDENS

Since January 1, the federal government has published $701.1 billion in total regulatory net cost savings (with $73.2 billion in cost savings from finalized rules) and 69 million hours of net annual paperwork cuts (with 44.8 million hours coming from final rules).