Congressional Review Act: Covered Rules, Disapproval, and Use

The Congressional Review Act is a 1996 federal law, codified at 5 U.S.C. §§ 801–808, that lets Congress overturn a federal agency regulation by passing a joint resolution of disapproval and sending it to the President for signature. Its distinguishing feature is a Senate procedure that bypasses the filibuster, so a simple majority can kill a rule outright. In practice, the law is used most heavily in the first months of a new administration, when the incoming president’s party can strike down late-term regulations issued by the outgoing one.

What the Law Does

Before a new agency rule can take effect, the agency must send a report to both chambers of Congress and to the Comptroller General, who heads the Government Accountability Office. The report contains the rule itself, a summary, and the proposed effective date.¹ Delivery of that report starts the review clock.

Congress passed the CRA as part of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996.² Congress could always override a regulation by passing a new law, but that meant clearing the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold. The CRA created a different path: a resolution that only needs a simple Senate majority, provided it moves within the statutory window.

Which Rules Are Covered

The CRA uses the Administrative Procedure Act’s broad definition of “rule.” That reaches formal regulations, and it can also reach guidance documents, policy memoranda, and other agency pronouncements with binding legal effect.³ Proposed rules don’t count; only final agency actions trigger the review process.

Three categories are excluded:

Rules of particular applicability, meaning those aimed at a specific party or situation rather than setting general policy.
Agency management or personnel rules, which are internal and don’t affect the public.
Procedural rules about how an agency organizes itself, as long as they don’t meaningfully change outside parties’ rights or obligations.

Major and Non-Major Rules

The CRA sorts covered rules into “major” and “non-major.” The Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs designates a rule as major if it is likely to produce an annual economic impact of $100 million or more, cause a significant increase in costs or prices, or seriously affect competition, employment, or investment.³ OIRA applies the threshold by asking whether any undiscounted cost, benefit, or transfer estimate hits $100 million in at least one year.⁴

The classification controls timing. A major rule can’t take effect until at least 60 days after the later of two dates: when Congress receives the agency report or when the rule is published in the Federal Register.¹ Non-major rules face no such waiting period and can take effect as soon as the agency submits its report.⁵

How a Disapproval Resolution Moves

To kill a rule, Congress must pass a joint resolution of disapproval in a prescribed format. The resolution names the agency, identifies the rule, and states that Congress disapproves it and that the rule “shall have no force or effect.”⁶ Each resolution targets one rule and voids it in full. There is no way to strike part of a rule while leaving the rest.

The resolution must be introduced within 60 days after Congress receives the rule report, excluding days when either chamber is adjourned for more than three days. Like any bill, it must pass both chambers and be signed by the President, or the veto overridden by a two-thirds vote in each chamber. No CRA veto has ever been overridden, so in practice the law works only when the same party controls Congress and the White House.

The Senate Fast Track

The Senate procedures are what make the CRA effective. If the committee handling a disapproval resolution hasn’t acted within 20 calendar days, 30 senators can sign a petition to discharge the resolution to the floor. Once on the floor, it cannot be filibustered, amended, or recommitted. Debate is capped at 10 hours, split evenly, and a final vote follows.⁷ Passage requires a simple majority.

That is a sharp departure from the ordinary Senate. Most legislation needs 60 votes to break a filibuster. A CRA disapproval needs 51. A president’s party with a bare Senate majority can therefore overturn any covered rule inside the review window without any votes from the other side.

The House

The CRA does not give the House comparable fast-track procedures. Disapproval resolutions there move through the usual process: committee referral, potential markup, and floor consideration under whatever rules the majority sets. This is rarely a bottleneck, because a House majority controls its own floor schedule. The Senate’s expedited procedures are the distinctive feature.

The Lookback Period

The most consequential timing rule is the “lookback period.” When a rule is submitted too close to the end of a congressional session, the review clock resets at the start of the next session.¹ Rules submitted in the final months of an outgoing administration therefore get a fresh review window in the new Congress. For the 119th Congress, the lookback period was estimated to begin around August 2025, meaning regulations submitted after that date by the prior administration became eligible for disapproval by the new one.⁸

This is why the CRA sees its heaviest use in the opening months of a new administration whose party also runs Congress. The incoming majority identifies late-term rules that fall inside the lookback and moves resolutions through the Senate’s fast track before the window closes.

What Happens When a Rule Is Disapproved

Once a disapproval resolution is signed into law, the rule is treated as if it had never taken effect. If it had already been in force, the disapproval voids it retroactively. And the agency is barred from issuing a new rule that is “substantially the same” as the disapproved one, unless Congress later enacts a statute authorizing it.¹

The statute never defines “substantially the same,” and the outer boundary of that restriction has not been tested in court. The CRA’s sponsors suggested the answer depends partly on how much discretion the agency’s underlying statute allows and whether the original rule was mandatory or discretionary. Agencies that have replaced disapproved rules have generally identified the core issue behind the disapproval and changed that element, rather than making cosmetic edits.

No Court Challenges

Section 805 bars judicial review of any determination, finding, action, or omission under the CRA.⁹ You cannot sue over how a rule was submitted, how Congress counted the review window, or how GAO classified a rule as major or non-major. Courts also cannot draw any inference from the fact that Congress declined to disapprove a rule. Silence by Congress carries no legal weight in later litigation over the rule’s validity.

How Often the CRA Has Actually Been Used

For two decades after enactment, the CRA was almost entirely symbolic. Between 1996 and 2017, Congress successfully used it exactly once, overturning a Department of Labor ergonomics rule in 2001. Then the pace changed. Through the 117th Congress, a total of 20 rules had been overturned: one in 2001, sixteen during 2017, and three early in the Biden administration.¹⁰ The 119th Congress has moved faster still. As of mid-2026, 22 disapproval resolutions have been signed into law during this Congress, targeting Biden-era regulations in areas including environmental policy, financial regulation, and education.¹¹

The pattern reflects what the law is built to do. Outside a change of administration, a president has little reason to sign a resolution killing a rule that his own agencies wrote. Inside one, a unified government has a narrow but powerful window to erase the outgoing administration’s final regulatory actions with only a simple Senate majority.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 801 – Congressional Review
2
Congress.gov. S.942 – Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996
3
U.S. Government Accountability Office. FAQs on the Congressional Review Act
4
Office of Management and Budget. Guidance on Compliance with the Congressional Review Act
5
US EPA. Summary of the Congressional Review Act
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 U.S. Code 802 – Congressional Disapproval Procedure
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 802 – Congressional Disapproval Procedure
8
EveryCRSReport.com. August 19, 2025, Is Estimated to Be the Beginning of the Congressional Review Act Lookback Period
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 805 – Judicial Review
10
Congressional Research Service. The Congressional Review Act (CRA): A Brief Overview
11
American Action Forum. Congressional Review Act Tracker for the 119th Congress