“A bill to provide for the establishment of a process for the review of rules and sets of rules, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section designates the short title of the Act as the “Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act of 2025” or the “SCRUB Act of 2025” and includes the table of contents.
This section establishes definitions for terms used in the Act, including (1) Administrator, as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); (2) agency, as defined in 5 U.S.C. §551 (i.e., each authority of the U.S. government, excluding Congress, courts, territorial governments, D.C. government, and certain other entities); (3) Director, as the Director of OMB; (4) DOGE, as the United States DOGE Service under the Executive Office of the President; (5) major rule, as any rule the Administrator determines likely to impose an annual cost on the economy of $100 million or more (adjusted annually for inflation), a major increase in costs or prices for consumers or governments, significant adverse effects on competition or employment, or significant impacts on multiple economic sectors; (6) rule, as defined in 5 U.S.C. §551 (i.e., an agency statement of general applicability and future effect implementing or prescribing law or policy); and (7) set of rules, as a set of rules collectively implementing an agency's regulatory authority.
This section establishes cut-go procedures requiring federal agencies, when promulgating a new rule (except as provided in §102 or subsection (b)), to repeal other agency rules meeting criteria in §201(d) such that the annual regulatory cost reductions—calculated by the DOGE using only monetized factors—equal or exceed the new rule's annual cost to the U.S. economy. Agencies may repeal rules in advance and apply those inflation-adjusted cost reductions to offset new rules finalized within two years. Agencies also may offset a new rule by repealing rules under the same statutory authority, provided the agency's overall rules (including the new rule) achieve a net annual cost reduction equal to or greater than the new rule's cost, including by repealing additional qualifying rules if necessary.
This section exempts an agency from the requirements of sections 201 and 203 once all agency rules meeting the criteria in section 201(d) have been repealed, thereby achieving all required regulatory cost reductions.
This section requires the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to review and certify the accuracy of agency determinations of the costs of new rules under section 201. The certification must be included in the promulgating agency's administrative record for the rulemaking and transmitted to Congress.
This section directs the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to review the Code of Federal Regulations, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and relevant agency heads, to identify and repeal rules or sets of rules implementing regulatory programs to lower the cost of regulation to the economy. It prioritizes (1) major rules or sets including major rules; (2) rules in effect more than 15 years; (3) rules with substantially reducible paperwork burdens without significantly diminishing effectiveness; (4) rules imposing disproportionately high costs on small entities; or (5) rules that could be strengthened while reducing costs. The review applies 13 specified criteria (e.g., whether the rule's purpose was achieved, costs are justified by benefits, the rule is obsolete or ineffective, it overlaps other rules, or it inhibits economic growth or competition) with a goal of reducing cumulative costs of federal regulation by at least 33% with minimal reduction in overall effectiveness by July 4, 2026. Repealed rules may not be reissued in substantially similar form, nor may substantially similar new rules be issued, without specific authorization in a law enacted after the repeal.
This section requires each federal agency to include in the final issuance of any rule a plan for reviewing the rule by not later than 10 years after issuance, using interpretations and definitions from section 201(d) substantially similar to those used by the DOGE. Agencies must include a proposed review plan in the notice of proposed rulemaking and solicit public comment whenever feasible. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in coordination with relevant agency heads, must repeal any rule that fails to meet the criteria in section 201(d).
This section establishes judicial review under chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code (i.e., Administrative Procedure Act standards), for agency non-compliance with (1) title I Cut-Go procedures and (2) section 202 plans for future review.