Regulatory activity across the various agencies continued to slog along at a minimal pace last week. There were only six rulemakings with some kind of quantifiable economic impact, with the “most significant” item being yet another routine airworthiness directive. The real action of the week came from the halls of Congress, where lawmakers finally held a series of votes on Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions of disapproval. Those votes included the passage of one such resolution – pending President Trump’s signature – that marks the first Biden Administration rule repealed under the CRA this year. Across all rulemakings, agencies published $14.7 million in total costs and added 13,406 paperwork burden hours.

REGULATORY TOPLINES

• Proposed Rules: 13
• Final Rules: 33
• 2025 Total Pages: 10,993
• 2025 Final Rule Costs: $6.1 billion
• 2025 Proposed Rule Costs: $180.1 billion

NOTABLE REGULATORY ACTIONS

As noted above, there were only a handful of rulemakings with appreciable economic effects. Of these, the costliest was an airworthiness directive regarding “ATR-GIE Avions de Transport Régional Airplanes” that involves roughly $11.7 million in compliance costs.

TRACKING TRUMP 2.0

The most significant developments in regulatory policy this past week happened on Capitol Hill as the House and Senate held the first floor votes on resolutions of disapproval under the CRA. Each chamber passed two CRA resolutions on the following votes:

HOUSE

• H.J. Res 35 (Passed 220-206)
• H.J. Res 20 (Passed 221-198)

SENATE

• S.J. Res 11 (Passed 54-44)
• H.J. Res 35 (Passed 52-47)

With H.J. Res 35 passing through both chambers, it now heads to President Trump’s desk where he is expected to sign it into law. The resolution rescinds the Environmental Protection Agency rule regarding “Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions” – commonly referred to as the “Methane Fee” rule – which had $460 million in total estimated compliance costs. This represents the first Biden-era rule repealed under the CRA in this new term. The House plans to vote on another three resolutions this coming week.

Be sure to follow the American Action Forum’s (AAF) updated CRA tracker. As of today, members of the 119th Congress have introduced CRA resolutions of disapproval addressing 33 Biden-era rules that collectively involve $136.9 billion in compliance costs. AAF will continue to update this tracker as additional resolutions are introduced and receive votes on the floors of each chamber.

TOTAL BURDENS

Since January 1, the federal government has published $186.2 billion in total net costs (with $6.1 billion in new costs from finalized rules) and 25 million hours of net annual paperwork cuts (with 1.7 million hours in increases from final rules).