Energy Regulations Face One-Year Expiration Clock: New Bill Puts Federal Rules on Mandatory Sunset Schedule

The “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy Act of 2025” isn't about setting budget numbers; it’s about setting expiration dates for nearly every federal rule governing energy and land use. Think of it as putting a mandatory sell-by date on large chunks of the federal regulatory code. This bill mandates that most existing regulations issued by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and key Interior Department bureaus (like the BLM and BSEE) must be automatically set to expire within one year of the bill becoming law. New rules get a slightly longer, but still mandatory, five-year countdown before they also vanish.

The One-Year Ticking Clock

The core of this legislation, found in Section 3, is the “zero-based regulating” requirement. For busy people, this means that every single rule currently on the books covering things like oil drilling safety on the Outer Continental Shelf, coal mining reclamation standards, or even energy efficiency standards for appliances, will automatically cease to exist 365 days after this law passes. The only way an agency can save a rule is to proactively review it, ask the public for feedback on its costs and benefits, and then have the agency head determine that the rule is still necessary. If they miss the deadline—even by a day—the rule instantly loses all legal effect and the agency can no longer enforce it. This creates an immediate, massive administrative burden on agencies that now have to justify decades of regulation in just twelve months.

Who’s Affected and How

This bill directly impacts anyone who relies on federal protections enforced by these agencies. For example, if you live near an active drilling site regulated by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the existing environmental safeguards or pollution reporting requirements are now on the clock. If the BLM, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of rules needing review, fails to renew a specific water safety regulation within that year, that regulation is gone. Likewise, a factory worker relying on a DOE-enforced safety standard could see that rule expire if the agency doesn't prioritize its renewal over the hundreds of other rules it has to review. The bill does allow new rules to skip the five-year sunset if they have a “net deregulatory effect”—meaning they reduce burdens—a term that is highly subjective and gives agency heads significant discretion to fast-track certain changes without the full review process.

The Accountability Catch

While the bill sets up this strict expiration process, Section 5 includes a critical provision: it explicitly states that the Act does not create any new legal rights that citizens can sue over. So, if the Department of Energy intentionally or accidentally lets a rule protecting consumer safety lapse, you can’t sue the agency claiming they failed to follow the procedures outlined in this new law. This removes a key check and balance, meaning the public loses the ability to hold the agencies accountable in court for failing to properly manage the sunsetting process. Essentially, the rules are set to expire, but there's no legal teeth for citizens to ensure the agencies follow the renewal procedures laid out in the bill. This makes the one-year expiration deadline an even bigger risk for existing public and environmental safeguards.