HR 115: Midnight Rules Relief Act

HR 115 in plain English: This bill would allow Congress to reject multiple federal regulations in a single vote, rather than requiring a separate vote for each rule. It applies to regulations submitted during a portion of the final year of a president's term, sometimes called 'midnight rules.'

Stated purpose

This bill allows Congress to bundle multiple late-term regulations from the final year of a president's term into a single joint resolution to disapprove them all at once, rather than requiring a separate vote for each regulation. It amends the Congressional Review Act to permit this 'en bloc' approach for so-called 'midnight rules.'

Key points

• Lets Congress bundle multiple regulations into one joint resolution of disapproval instead of voting on each separately.
• Applies specifically to regulations submitted during the final portion of a president's term.
• Expands on the existing Congressional Review Act, which currently limits each disapproval resolution to one regulation.

Arguments supporters make

• Outgoing administrations often rush through large numbers of regulations at the last minute, and Congress should have an efficient way to review and reject them without being bogged down in dozens of separate votes.
• Requiring one vote per rule gives midnight regulations a procedural shield that lets them survive simply because Congress lacks time to address each one — this fix restores meaningful legislative oversight.
• The Congressional Review Act already allows disapproval of these late-term rules; this bill just makes that existing power practical to actually use.

Arguments opponents make

• Bundling many regulations into one all-or-nothing vote pressures lawmakers to accept or reject rules they might evaluate differently on their own merits, reducing careful deliberation.
• Critics argue this could be used as a political tool by a new majority to wipe out large numbers of rules at once without the public or affected parties having a fair chance to weigh in on each one separately.
• Each regulation typically went through its own public comment and review process — repealing many simultaneously in a single vote bypasses the same deliberate process that created them.

Tradeoffs

Giving Congress a faster, more efficient way to block last-minute regulations makes oversight easier for the incoming majority but reduces the individual scrutiny each rule receives and limits the procedural protection those rules would otherwise have.

Current status in Congress: Passed House.

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