Today, we are pleased to launch the Center for Progressive Reform’s CRA By the Numbers 2025 tracker. With this tool, we will monitor every Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution and document the threats they pose to our public protections, as well as the benefits that would be lost if they pass. The data presented in the tracker will shine a light on the harm that abusive use of the CRA causes to the public, and why, ultimately, the CRA should be repealed.
But what is the CRA? It is an unusual law that allows Congress to use a special form of legislation to quickly "disapprove" certain agency rules — and to do so along narrow partisan lines. Historically, this means gutting important health, safety, environmental, and financial protections if sponsored resolutions pass by simple majorities and are signed by the president. Once a rule has been rescinded, the CRA further bars the agency from issuing a replacement that is too “similar.”
The CRA is attracting attention now because of its unique “look back” provision. This enables the current GOP-dominated Congress and President Donald Trump to reach back and repeal rules that were issued during the final months of the Biden administration. As the Center documented eight years ago, Trump worked with a similar GOP-dominated Congress to repeal 14 rules using the CRA’s lookback provision. The CRA makes this option available for only a limited period, but as previous experience demonstrates, this is still plenty of time to do a lot of damage.
In addition to regularly updating the tracker until the CRA’s lookback provision expires, we will also publish periodic blog posts that provide an overview of the latest updates, providing analysis on resolutions, legislators, agencies, and other important elements of the CRA process. Below is our first update.
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Between January 23 and February 25, legislators introduced 36 CRA resolutions, 26 in the House and 10 in the Senate. Although no voting has taken place yet, the House and Senate have already taken several resolutions up for consideration.
In the House, H.J.Res. 20 (targeting energy conservation standards for gas-fired water heaters) and H.J.Res. 35 (targeting waste emissions from oil and gas systems) have been placed in the calendar for February 25. In the Senate, S.J.Res. 4 (analogous to H.J.Res. 20), S.J.Res. 12 (analogous to H.J.Res. 35), S.J.Res. 11 (targeting the protection of marine archaeological resources), and S.J.Res. 3 (targeting proceeds reporting from digital assets sales), have also been placed in the calendar.
The speed with which resolutions move through the process depends on many factors, and we are currently in the midst of a push for expediting the voting process via the inclusion of the Midnight Rules Relief Act as part of the budget reconciliation process. If this were to happen, we would see CRA resolutions moving through Congress at a much greater speed.
In total, resolutions have targeted 22 federal agencies, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) being the most frequent. So far, there are 10 CRA resolutions targeting EPA regulations, and that number is likely to grow in the near future. At a distant second are the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) with two CRA resolutions targeting three published rules each.
The focus on EPA and DOE is consistent with a widespread push to dismantle climate and energy policy: the three resolutions with the most cosponsors are related to climate and energy policy (S.J.Res.12, S.J.Res.4, and H.J.Res.35). These resolutions also come from legislators whose jurisdictions have deep ties to the fossil fuel industry. One of these legislators is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has sponsored four resolutions so far. All of these have been cosponsored by at least 10 other senators.
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Federico Holm, James Goodwin | February 25, 2025
On February 25, we launched the Center for Progressive Reform’s CRA By the Numbers 2025 tracker. With this tool, we will monitor every Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution and document the threats they pose to our public protections, as well as the benefits that would be lost if they pass. The data presented in the tracker will shine a light on the harm that abusive use of the CRA causes to the public, and why, ultimately, the CRA should be repealed.
James Goodwin | February 20, 2025
I could tell you what Trump’s latest executive order on “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative” says. I could tell you that it purports to give the illegally constituted “DOGE Team Leads” assigned to every agency nearly unchecked authority to choose which of the agencies’ existing rules get to remain on the book and whether and what kind of the regulations the agency may issue in the future. I could also tell you that it is now official Trump administration policy that existing regulations that are too inconvenient for the business community – no matter what kind of benefits they deliver – will no longer be enforced, purportedly rendering them a dead letter. I could tell you all these things, but they wouldn’t convey what the import of what this order actually means.
James Goodwin | February 19, 2025
On February 18, President Donald Trump issued another seemingly technocratic executive order regarding the structure of our government. This one purportedly asserts presidential control over so-called independent regulatory agencies — or administrative offices that Congress has intentionally designed to be insulated against direct day-to-day control from the president.
Alice Kaswan | February 19, 2025
President Donald Trump seeks to halt Congress’ support for tax credits, grants, and loans that are supporting a transition to clean transportation, a transition necessary to achieving public health standards and reducing the transportation sector’s substantial contribution to increasingly catastrophic climate change. It will be up to Congress to stand up to the president’s pressure and preserve its support for critical environmental and economic investments.
Alice Kaswan | February 18, 2025
As described in Part I, President Trump’s attack on clean vehicles, introduced in his executive order on “Unleashing American Energy,” will undermine progress in achieving healthy air and reducing climate emissions. The executive order requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to consider regulatory changes to vehicle emission standards that would eliminate what he calls the “EV mandate.”
Alice Kaswan | February 17, 2025
President Donald Trump’s attack on electric vehicles threatens not only the nation’s progress in fighting climate change, but torpedoes our ability to achieve healthy air. The Inauguration Day executive order on “Unleashing American Energy” calls for eliminating the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” and “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government distortions that favor EVs ….” Slowing our transition to clean vehicles will have the worst consequences for vulnerable frontline communities living near highways, ports, and warehouses, communities that already experience a disproportionate share of environmental harms.
Bryan Dunning, Joseph Tomain | February 7, 2025
On January 20 — otherwise known as Day One of Trump 2.0 — the president signed a barrage of executive orders, including one declaring a national energy emergency. While it is unsurprising that his policy priorities will reflect his long-standing antipathy toward climate protections and renewables — not to mention the fossil fuel industry’s financial support during his campaign — his attempt to frame this policy by declaring a “national energy emergency” is beyond disingenuous. We have faced real threats to energy security in the past and have weathered them through democratic processes, not by executive fiat, and this isn’t one.
James Goodwin | February 7, 2025
On February 6, the U.S. Senate confirmed Russell Vought as the next director of the powerful White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has been at the epicenter of the Trump administration’s push to remake the federal government in an authoritarian image.
James Goodwin | February 5, 2025
Over the course of two posts, I have explored in detail my major takeaways from the new “10-out, 1-in” executive order. President Donald Trump sort of announced the order last Friday night with a Fact Sheet, but not the actual order itself. Remarkably, the order is still not on the White House website but can be viewed on a third-party website. In this post, I offer my final set of observations on what the order is likely to mean during the second Trump administration.