Midnight Rules Relief Act: Congress Gets Fast-Track Power to Kill End-of-Term Regulations

The "Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2025" changes how Congress can deal with regulations put in place at the tail end of a presidential term—those last-minute, often controversial "midnight rules." Instead of reviewing each regulation one by one, this bill lets Congress bundle them together into a single, up-or-down vote.

Speeding Up the Axe

This act amends the existing rules in Title 5 of the U.S. Code, which governs how Congress reviews agency actions. The core change? It greenlights "en bloc" consideration of resolutions. What this means is that instead of individual debates and votes on each late-term regulation, Congress can now lump them together. The bill (Section 2) even provides the exact wording for these bundled resolutions: they'll state that Congress disapproves of specific rules from named agencies on particular subjects, and that these rules will have "no force or effect."

Real-World Rollbacks

Imagine a scenario: A president, in their final months, pushes through new environmental protections on water quality. Under the current system, Congress would have to challenge each specific regulation individually. With the Midnight Rules Relief Act, a new Congress could group that water quality rule with, say, a contested labor regulation and kill them both with a single vote. For a farmer relying on those water protections, or a construction worker counting on that labor rule, this means those safeguards could vanish quickly, with potentially less debate and scrutiny than before.

The Bigger Picture: Power Shift

While this might sound like procedural inside baseball, it has real teeth. It gives significant power to a new Congress to swiftly undo the actions of a previous administration. This could be a win for businesses facing regulations they see as burdensome. For instance, if the outgoing administration tightened rules on financial disclosures, a new, business-friendly Congress could use this act to wipe those out, benefiting sectors like Securities & Investment. But it also creates uncertainty. Regulations impacting everything from consumer protections to workplace safety could be on the chopping block, depending on the political winds.

Potential Pitfalls

The bill is designed to streamline the process, but it might streamline it too much. By considering multiple rules together, individual regulations might not get the careful review they deserve. This could lead to unintended consequences, like harming public health or environmental standards, all in the name of efficiency. The language in Section 2 is broad, and there is a real question of how 'midnight rules' will be defined in practice, opening up potential for disputes and wider-than-intended application.