The Regulatory Cooling Off Act of 2025 mandates longer public comment periods, a six-month delay for new federal rules, and expanded congressional and judicial oversight of agency actions.
Harriet Hageman
Representative
WY
The Regulatory Cooling Off Act of 2025 reforms federal rulemaking by extending public comment periods and mandating a six-month waiting period before new regulations can take effect. The bill increases congressional oversight, improves transparency through enhanced online disclosure, and expands the legal venues available for challenging agency actions.
Regulatory Cooling Off Act of 2025: New Bill Mandates 6-Month Delay for Federal Rules and Expands Legal Challenges
Imagine you’re a small business owner preparing for a new safety regulation, or a tech worker waiting on new data privacy rules. Right now, federal agencies can often flip the switch on new rules just 30 days after they’re finalized. The Regulatory Cooling Off Act of 2025 wants to pull the emergency brake on that process. Under this bill, the minimum waiting period for a rule to take effect would jump from 30 days to a full 6 months (amending 5 U.S.C. § 553(d)). It also doubles the minimum public comment window to 60 days, giving you more time to weigh in before a rule is even finished.
The Six-Month Sabbatical
The heart of this bill is about slowing things down. Beyond the 6-month wait for rules to go live, agencies would be required to hand over finalized rules to Congress at least half a year in advance. For 'major rules'—the big ones that move the needle on the economy—the Congressional review period is also getting stretched from 60 days to 6 months. For a construction foreman or a local pharmacist, this means a lot more lead time to adjust budgets or workflows. However, it also means that if a sudden crisis hits—like a new public health threat or a financial loophole—the government’s ability to react with new protections could be stuck in a 180-day waiting room.
Taking the Fight to Your Backyard
If you’ve ever wanted to challenge a federal regulation in court, you usually had to travel to specific, often restrictive, legal venues. This bill changes the game by amending 5 U.S.C. § 702 to allow lawsuits in any federal district where the person suing lives or where the agency has an office. This makes it much easier for a local farmer or a startup founder to sue the government without needing a D.C. legal team. While this levels the playing field for regular folks, it also opens the door for 'venue shopping,' where well-funded groups can pick and choose the friendliest courts to tie up regulations in years of litigation.
Transparency or Red Tape?
The bill adds some digital-age common sense by requiring agencies to post any proposed or final rule on their website at least 24 hours before it hits the official Federal Register (new subsection (g)). While more transparency is generally a win for everyone, the cumulative effect of these changes is a significantly heavier lift for government agencies. For the average person, the trade-off is clear: you get more predictability and a louder voice in the process, but you might also find that the protections you actually want—like cleaner water standards or fairer banking rules—take a lot longer to arrive, if they ever make it through the gauntlet at all.