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Featured: The Congressional Review Act

What it does

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) establishes procedures for Congress to overturn final rules issued by federal agencies. After an agency's rule is reported to Congress, members of Congress have 60 days to introduce a joint resolution disapproving of the rule. When signed into law, these resolutions of disapproval (RDs) overturn the rule in question and bar agencies from issuing a "substantially similar" rule. The CRA offers two unique mechanisms: the Senate "fast-track" procedures and the "lookback" period. For an in-depth discussion of these mechanics and more, see our Regulatory Insight A Lookback at the Law: How Congress Uses the CRA.

CRA Use Trending Upward for Both Major and Non-major Rules, 1996-2022

Line chart showing trends in the number of Congressional Review Act resolutions introduced by calendar year. The chart peaks in 2017, with 67 resolutions introduced in Congress at the beginning of the Trump administration.

CRA Window Exploratory Dashboard

This dashboard allows users to explore the set of final rules published in the Federal Register in 2024, and how various lookback dates could affect the set of rules available for congressional review at the beginning of the next session of Congress. View Dashboard.

Commentary:

The Continued Evolution of the Congressional Review Act. Susan Dudley & Steve Balla, April 22, 2026. Previously considered largely a tool for the incoming Congress and president to overturn a departing president's midnight regulations, Congress has recently begun using the CRA in unanticipated ways.

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Our Latest Publications

Cumulative Economically Significant Final Rules by Administration

Cumulative Econ Significant Rules Over Entire 02/2026

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Are Future Lives Worth More Than Our Own?

March 14, 2020

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked its Environmental Economics Advisory Committee (EEAC) for advice on how the Agency should adjust the value of statistical lives (VSL) in the future. Incomes in the future are expected to grow, and people with higher incomes tend to place a higher value on measures to reduce their own mortality risks. Does this mean that a benefit-cost analysis should place greater weight on lives saved in the future than it does on those saved today? In comments filed with the Committee and summarized here, Mannix argues that this is more than just a question of analytical technique.

When Pigs Fly? DOT Says Not for Free.

March 11, 2020

CEQ's Proposed Update to NEPA

March 11, 2020

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is proposing an update to its regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The purposes of NEPA include establishing a national policy toward the environment and promoting “efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man.”

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