In contrast to some truly active recent weeks, this past holiday-shortened week was a relative dud. There were nine rulemakings containing some kind of measurable economic impact. Only one of these, however, really left a mark in terms of net cost savings. That rule was yet another regulatory reform proposal from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that joins a recent streak of efforts by that agency to streamline compliance requirements. Overall, federal agencies published roughly $362.9 million in total cost savings and cut 43,222 paperwork burden hours.

REGULATORY TOPLINES

• Proposed Rules This Week: 23
• Final Rules This Week: 47
• 2026 Total Pages: 36,891
• 2026 Final Rule Costs: -$1.1 trillion
• 2026 Proposed Rule Costs: $64.4 billion

NOTABLE REGULATORY ACTIONS

The most significant rulemaking of the week was the proposed rule from SEC regarding “The Trade-Through Rule and Locked and Crossed Markets Provisions of Regulation NMS.”  Specifically, the proposal “would rescind the trade-through rule for NMS stocks, the provision regarding locking and crossing quotations for NMS stocks, and certain defined terms.” SEC estimates that the total net cost savings for affected entities from these changes come out to roughly $383.4 million.[1] This proposal joins a group of other recent actions from SEC in which the commission is clearly looking to consolidate various reporting requirements under its purview.

TRACKING TRUMP 2.0

In assessing 2026 rulemakings that include an Executive Order (EO) 14192 determination, there have been 48 “deregulatory” rules with combined total savings of $1.1 trillion against 10 “regulatory” rules that involve roughly $45.7 billion in costs. Adding that to the total agencies produced during 2025 (at least from rules that had a clear “regulatory” or “deregulatory” designation), the Trump Administration has enacted $1.2 trillion in total cost reductions thus far under EO 14192. Rules for which agencies have claimed one of the EO’s exemptions have accounted for an additional $7.6 billion in costs so far in 2026.

CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW ACT (CRA)

The AAF CRA tracker provides a full survey of activity under the law thus far into this term. As of today, members of the 119th Congress have introduced CRA resolutions of disapproval addressing 137 “rules” across the Biden and Trump Administrations that collectively involve $173.6 billion in estimated compliance costs. Of these, 23 have been passed into law, repealing a series of Biden Administration rules that had a combined $3 billion in associated compliance costs. The Trump Administration estimates that the repeal of this rule yields an additional $936 million in savings. 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 the start of 2026, the federal government has published $987.2 billion in total regulatory net cost savings (with $1.1 trillion in reductions from finalized rules) and 106.8 million hours of net annual paperwork increases (with 81.9 million hours coming from final rules).

[1] SEC included a lower and upper bound for potential savings. The net figure recorded here is the costs minus the midpoint of the savings range.