Major rules are subject to a review by the GAO and a 60-day delay while Congress considers whether to block them. Image: Dennis Diatel/Shutterstock.com
OMB has set new policies on reviews by its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to determine whether proposed agency rules are subject to the Congressional Review Act.
That law—which congressional Republicans have been increasingly invoking in recent years—states that “major” rules are subject to a review by the GAO and a 60-day delay in their effective date while Congress considers whether to block them. Under the law, a rule is major if OIRA determines it is likely to result in an economic impact of $100 million or more; a major increase in costs for consumers, businesses or government; or a significant adverse effects on the ability of companies to compete with those of foreign countries.
OMB memo M-24-09 says that an analysis of the latter two possible factors “may sometimes be difficult to perform quantitatively; however, agencies should provide quantitative analysis when reasonably possible and otherwise should provide qualitative analysis.”
That is to include naming “all substantially affected entities and use of a time horizon that encompasses all important effects of the rule; extension beyond the direct effects of the rule to any important additional effects; and consideration of the probability of the occurrence of benefits, costs, or transfers, even if the precise consequences are uncertain.”
It adds that OIRA considers certain categories of rules as presumptively not major under the CRA “in order to prioritize evaluation of rules more likely to be major. OIRA will work with senior agency officials to identify categories of rules that are presumptively not major because they are unlikely to result in the effects described for a major rule.”
Rules in those categories would not be subject to the determination process, it says, adding that OIRA “reserves the right to revoke this categorical “not major” determination for any category or for any particular rule.”
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