New Act Demands Public Index of Every Federal Crime, Including Those Hidden in Agency Rules

The newly proposed Count the Crimes to Cut Act is pretty straightforward: it aims to shine a massive spotlight on the sheer number of federal crimes on the books. Essentially, this legislation mandates that the federal government conduct a sweeping inventory of every single federal criminal offense—whether it was passed by Congress or created by an agency rule—and then publish that list online for everyone to see.

The Great Federal Crime Census

Within one year of the Act becoming law, two major reporting requirements kick in. First, the Attorney General must report on every crime written into federal law (a "criminal statutory offense"). For each one, the report must detail the maximum penalty, the required mental state needed for conviction (the mens rea), and, crucially, how many times the Department of Justice prosecuted that specific crime over the last 15 years. This isn't just a list; it’s a full data dump on the federal criminal code.

Second, and perhaps more significantly for the average person, numerous federal agencies—from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the Departments of Agriculture and Energy—must do the same for their own rules. These are the "criminal regulatory offenses," the crimes that exist because an agency made a rule that carries a criminal penalty. If you’re a small business owner dealing with complex environmental rules or a farmer navigating USDA regulations, this part matters. These agencies must report the penalties, the mens rea, and their referral rate to the DOJ over the past 15 years.

What This Means for Everyday People

Right now, experts estimate there are thousands upon thousands of federal crimes, many buried deep within complex regulatory language that most people—and even many lawyers—don't know about. This bill is a massive transparency win. Two years after enactment, the Attorney General and the heads of all those agencies must create a public, free, and easily accessible online index of every single one of these crimes. Think of it as a searchable, public catalog of every way you could potentially break a federal law.

For the average person, this means that for the first time, you could potentially look up the specific criminal penalties tied to, say, handling certain chemicals under an EPA regulation or filing specific paperwork with the SEC. It pulls these obscure, often technical offenses out of the dark corners of the Federal Register and puts them front and center. If you’re a contractor, a manufacturer, or just someone trying to comply with complex rules, this index offers a clearer picture of the criminal risks involved.

The Unfunded Mandate Catch

While the transparency is a huge benefit, the bill has a tricky caveat: it explicitly states that it does not set aside or authorize any new funding (appropriations) to pay for these reporting and indexing requirements. Compiling 15 years of prosecution data for potentially thousands of offenses across dozens of massive federal agencies is a monumental task. The Department of Justice and agencies like the EPA will have to pull staff and resources away from their current work to fulfill this mandate.

This creates a classic unfunded mandate problem. Agencies are required to perform a complex, time-consuming data collection project, but they aren't given the budget to hire the people or upgrade the systems needed to do it quickly or accurately. The risk here is that without dedicated funding, the quality of the reports might suffer, or the deadlines might be missed, delaying the public index that is the whole point of the Act.