The SMART Act of 2025 requires federal agencies to incorporate retrospective review frameworks into the rulemaking process for major rules to ensure they remain effective and necessary over time.
James Lankford
Senator
OK
The SMART Act of 2025 requires federal agencies to build retrospective review frameworks into the rulemaking process for all new "major rules." Agencies must establish clear objectives and methodologies to periodically assess whether these rules are achieving their goals or need modification. This legislation aims to increase regulatory accountability by ensuring major rules are evaluated for effectiveness and necessity within a decade of implementation.
SMART Act of 2025 Mandates 10-Year Effectiveness Reviews for Major Federal Regulations
The federal government is finally being asked to show its work. The SMART Act of 2025 (or the 'Setting Manageable Analysis Requirements in Text Act') changes the Administrative Procedure Act to ensure that when the government drops a 'major rule'—one that hits the economy for $100 million or more—it doesn't just set it and forget it. Starting one year after this becomes law, agencies will have to include a 'how-to' guide for measuring success right in the proposal. They’ll have to track actual costs and benefits and, within 10 years, prove the rule is actually doing what they said it would do.
Checking the Receipts
Think of this like a performance review for bureaucracy. Under this bill, agencies can’t just guess that a new safety regulation or environmental standard is working; they have to use a specific methodology to analyze the real-world outcomes. For a small business owner who has spent thousands of dollars complying with a new industry standard, this means the agency eventually has to look back and see if those costs actually resulted in the promised safety improvements. If the rule is redundant, conflicting with state laws, or just plain unnecessary, the agency is tasked with figuring out if it should be streamlined or scrapped entirely (Section 2).
The 'Major Rule' Threshold
Not every minor paperwork change gets this treatment. The bill specifically targets 'major rules'—those the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) decides will have a massive economic footprint or a significant impact on things like employment, innovation, and international competition. While this is great for ensuring big-ticket items are efficient, it gives a lot of power to the OIRA Administrator to decide what counts as 'major.' If you're working in a specialized trade, whether a rule affecting your gear or your job site gets this extra layer of scrutiny depends entirely on how the Administrator defines 'significant adverse effects' on your industry.
Loopholes and Legal Limits
While the goal is accountability, there are some 'get out of jail free' cards built in. Agencies can skip the review framework for emergencies or if the rule is considered 'routine.' More importantly, if you think an agency did a lazy job on their assessment, you can't really sue them over the quality of their data. The bill limits judicial review to a simple 'did they publish it?' check. If they posted the report on their website, the court can't toss the rule just because the math is fuzzy. This keeps the process moving, but it means the public has to be the one to call out agencies if the 'success' they’re reporting doesn’t match the reality on the ground.