Congressional Review Act Cleanup: Technical Fixes Simplify How Congress Overturns Federal Rules

This bill, officially titled the Congressional Review Reform Act of 2025, is primarily a procedural cleanup of the Congressional Review Act (CRA)—the law that lets Congress undo new federal regulations. Think of this as the legislative equivalent of reorganizing your file cabinets: it doesn’t change what’s inside, but it makes everything easier to find and use. This section of the bill focuses on technical tweaks to Chapter 8 of title 5 of the U.S. Code, which houses the CRA rules.

Defining the Disapproval Button

The most important change here is the clarification of what Congress uses to overturn a rule. The bill revises Section 802(a) to tighten up the definition of a "joint resolution" used for disapproving a rule. This joint resolution must be introduced after the agency has officially reported the new rule to Congress. Crucially, the language within this resolution is being updated to state clearly that if Congress passes it, the rule "shall have no force or effect." While that has always been the practical outcome of a successful CRA resolution, this update makes the statutory language direct and unambiguous.

Legislative Housekeeping

The rest of this section is pure structural maintenance. The bill shuffles the lettering of various subsections within the CRA. For example, some old subsections are removed entirely, and the remaining ones are re-labeled to keep the numbering sequential and tidy. This kind of legislative housekeeping might seem boring, but it matters because it prevents confusion when congressional staff or federal agencies cite specific parts of the law. For the average person, these changes don't alter the power of the CRA, but they do make the rulebook clearer for the people who have to use it to oversee federal agencies—the people whose job it is to ensure new rules don't unnecessarily complicate your life or your business.