As ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary on April 11, 2013
Under current law, the Congress can prevent a rule from taking effect by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval. In contrast, H.R. 367 would require enactment of a joint resolution of approval prior to any major rule taking effect. Therefore, H.R. 367 would make the implementation of new major regulations dependent on future legislation. Because CBO does not assume enactment of subsequent legislation in estimating a bill’s effect on direct spending and revenues, this estimate addresses the costs and savings that would be realized if anticipated major rules do not take effect.
About 85 major rules have been issued per year, on average, over the past five years. Major rules vary greatly in their nature and scope. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) cannot determine the budgetary effects of preventing all future major rules from going into effect, but we expect that enacting H.R. 367 would have significant effects on both direct spending and revenues. Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending and revenues.
CBO expects that implementing H.R. 367 also could have a significant impact on spending subject to appropriation, although we cannot determine the magnitude of that effect.
CBO expects that H.R. 367 would impose no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
