Administrative state policies in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill (One Big Beautiful Bill Act)
This page provides an overview of provisions proposed in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill that are related to the administrative state and the authority and influence of administrative agencies.
Most recent budget reconciliation bill: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a major legislative package that was passed through budget reconciliation by Republicans during the first year of President Donald Trump's (R) second term. It was signed into law on July 4, 2025.[1]
What is the administrative state?
The administrative state refers to executive branch agencies at both the state and federal levels that are staffed by unelected officials and that create, interpret, and enforce regulations. Specifically, they:
- Create binding regulations by interpreting and implementing laws passed by legislatures.
- Adjudicate disputes through administrative hearings, where agency officials often serve as judges.
- Enforce compliance by conducting investigations, issuing fines, and taking other regulatory actions.
What is budget reconciliation?
- See also: Budget reconciliation in U.S. Congress, REINS Act, Reform proposals related to legislative control of the administrative state, Reform proposals related to agency control of the administrative state
| Five Pillars of the Administrative State |
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| Legislative control |
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• Court cases |
| More pillars |
| •Agency control • Executive control •Judicial control • Legislative control • Public control |
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What are the major administrative state-related provisions in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill?
The bill contains an appropriation of $100 million to the Office of Management and Budget, to be spent reviewing rules issued by several cabinet departments, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dive deeper:
This article contains the following sections:
- Detailed breakdown of administrative state provisions in the 2025 budget bill. This section details provisions that change the authority or influence of the administrative state that were included in the House budget reconciliation bill in 2025.
- Breakdown of administrative state provisions removed before final passage. This section provides a discussion of administrative state provisions which were amended out of the bill before it was passed.
- How does budget reconciliation work? This section explains the budget reconciliation process, what can and cannot be included in a budget bill, and the status of the 2025 budget reconciliation bill.
- Text of reconciliation bills and drafts. This section contains the full text of the relevant committee drafts and the full budget reconciliation bills.
- See also: Reform proposals related to legislative control of the administrative state, Reform proposals related to agency control of the administrative state
This section details provisions that change the authority or influence of the administrative state that were included in the final bill signed by President Trump on July 4, 2025.
Section 90103 of the bill appropriates $100 million to the Office of Management and Budget, "for purposes of finding budget and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch."
Provisions before final amendment
House of Representatives initial version
This section details provisions that change the authority or influence of the administrative state that were included in the House budget reconciliation bill passed on May 22, 2025.
Section 70200 of the bill appropriates $100 million to the Office of Management and Budget, to be used "to pay expenses associated with improving regulatory processes and analyzing and reviewing rules issued by a covered agency." The text of the bill defines "covered agencies" as:
- The Department of Education
- The Department of Energy
- The Department of Health and Human Services
- The Department of Homeland Security
- The Department of Justice
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- The Environmental Protection Agency
The text of the bill also specifies that the term "covered agency" does not include the Social Security Administration.
House Judiciary Committee version
The version of the bill drafted by the House Committee on the Judiciary included provisions which were not included in the final bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22, 2025. On May 22, 2022, the House of Representatives passed House Amendment 22, which amended the bill in total with substitute language developed by the Rules Committee. This action deleted the language of the Judiciary Committee bill (including the provisions below), and substituted new language (including that of Section 70200, discussed above). This amended version of the bill passed the House on May 22, 2025.
The text of the draft Judiciary Committee bill (before House Amendment 22 was passed) contained the following administrative state reform proposals:
- REINS Act-style provisions that would require agencies to submit new major rules (those with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more) to Congress for review. If Congress did not issue a joint resolution of approval for such rules within 60 days of submission, they would not take effect.
- A Midnight Rules Relief Act-like provision that would amend the Congressional Review Act to allow Congress to reject multiple agency rules using one resolution of disapproval if the rules were submitted during the final year of a president's term.
- Sunset review provisions that would require agencies to designate at least 20% of rules active when the bill was passed for review every year for the next five years. Rules submitted to Congress would need to receive a joint resolution of approval within 90 days to remain in effect. An agency rule active when the bill was passed would expire five years after the bill's passage unless Congress enacted a joint resolution of approval to keep the rule in effect.
- A requirement for the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study of how many rules and how many major rules are in effect, and their total economic cost, due to Congress one year after bill passage.
- Additional reporting requirements when submitting a rule for Congressional review under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). These requirements would include: estimates of budgetary effects and costs, analysis of jobs added or lost due to the rule, a determination of whether the rule is a "major" one under existing CRA language by the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget, a list of information on which the rule is based, a list of any other related regulatory actions that implement the same statutory provision or regulatory objective, an estimate of the effect on inflation of the rule, and "a statement of the constitutional authority authorizing the agency to make the rule."
On May 22, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Amendment 22, which amended the bill in total with language developed by the Rules Committee, removing these provisions. The Senate Parliamentarian advised against the inclusion of certain REINS-style provisions through the Byrd Bath process.[2]
Other legislative proposals attempting to achieve similar goals
The following tabs provide background on bills or policy proposals designed to achieve goals (relative to the administrative state) similar to those in the House Judiciary Committee 2025 reconciliation draft.
How does budget reconciliation work?
- See also: Budget reconciliation in U.S. Congress
Most recent budget reconciliation bill: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a major legislative package that was passed through budget reconciliation by Republicans during the first year of President Donald Trump's (R) second term. It was signed into law on July 4, 2025.[1]
This section explains the budget reconciliation process, what can and cannot be included in a budget bill, and the status of the 2025 budget reconciliation bill.
What is the budget reconciliation process?
What can and cannot be included in a budget reconciliation bill?
Budget reconciliation can provide for changes in federal spending, federal revenue, the federal debt limit, or some combination of the three. Changes to social security through the reconciliation process are prohibited.
The restrictions on reconciliation are enforced through the Byrd Rule, through which senators claim provisions are extraneous and should be removed or excluded from the omnibus reconciliation bill. The Byrd Rule states that any provision that meets one of the following criteria can be excluded as extraneous through a point of order made by a senator and sustained by the presiding officer of the Senate (the Vice President):[11]
- it does not make any changes to spending or revenue or to the terms and conditions under which spending or revenues are accomplished;
- it does make changes to spending or revenue but not in compliance with the reconciliation instructions given to the committee in the budget resolution;
- it is not in the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the provision;
- the changes in spending or revenue are merely incidental to the nonbudgetary policy changes of the provision;
- it increases the deficit for a fiscal year after the fiscal years (a 10-year window) covered by the specific budget resolution and reconciliation instructions; or
- it makes changes to Social Security.
The three most common reasons that points of order have been sustained and provisions removed as extraneous according to the Byrd Rule are:
- no change in outlays or revenues,
- budgetary changes merely incidental to non-budgetary components, and
- outside committee’s jurisdiction.
What are policy initiatives that have been passed through past budget bills?
Democrats used reconciliation to pass the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 -- including the final version of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) -- and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 -- including funding for environmental and climate-related policies and projects, increased corporate taxes, and the extension of Medicaid expansion.
Republicans used reconciliation in 2018 to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including decreased individual income and corporate taxes and allowances for oil and gas drilling on certain federal land.
Democrats tried to enact gun control measures and increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour through reconciliation bills in 2015 and 2021, respectively, but Republican senators filed points of order against the amendments according to the Byrd Rule, and the provisions were removed.
Republicans proposed cutting certain Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits as part of a reconciliation bill in 2017, but Democrats filed points of order against the amendments according to the Byrd Rule, and the provisions were removed.
What is the status of the 2025 budget bill?
- July 4, 2025
President Donald Trump (R) signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, completing the budget reconciliation process.
- July 3, 2025
The US House of Representatives voted 218 - 214 to pass the Senate-amended version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- July 1, 2025
After the Senate's vote-a-rama on June 30, the chamber voted 51-50 to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- June 19 - 29, 2025
- June 11, 2025
The US House of Representatives passed edits to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act through a rule resolution (H.Res.492). The edits passed 213-207.
- May 22, 2025
The US House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with a vote of 215-214.
- May 18, 2025
The House Budget Committee voted 17-16 to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act budget reconciliation bill. This bill consisted of all the House committee bills that were required by the reconciliation instructions in H.Con.Res.14.
- April 10, 2025
The House voted 216-214 to adopt the Senate-amended version of budget resolution HCon.Res.14, completing the budget resolution process.
- April 5, 2025
The Senate voted 51-48 to pass the amended version of the House budget resolution (H.Con.Res.14) after a vote-a-rama.
- February 25, 2025
The House voted 217 to 215 to adopt their budget resolution.
- February 13, 2025
The House released the text of a proposed budget resolution.
Text of reconciliation bills and drafts
The section below provides the final bill text.
The section below provides the text of the bill as of May 20, 2025.
The section below provides the text of the bill as of May 18, 2025.
See also
More administrative state content
- REINS Act
- Budget reconciliation in U.S. Congress
- Reform proposals related to legislative control of the administrative state
- Reform proposals related to agency control of the administrative state
- Ballotpedia's Administrative State Legislation Tracker
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 AP News, "Trump signs his tax and spending cut bill at the White House July 4 picnic," July 4, 2025
- ↑ New York Times, "A Running List of Policies Rejected From the Republican Megabill," accessed June 24, 2025
- ↑ Congressional Research Service, "Disapproval of Regulations by Congress:Procedure Under the Congressional Review Act," October 10, 2001
- ↑ GovTrack, "H.R. 26: Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017—Overview," accessed July 14, 2017
- ↑ Ballotpedia Administrative State Legislation Tracker, "Bill search: REINS-style state laws and amendments to REINS-style state laws," accessed on May 21, 2025
- ↑ Ballotpedia Administrative State Legislation Tracker, "Bill search: Sunset review," accessed on January 28, 2025
- ↑ Congress.gov, "H.R.77 - Midnight Rules Relief Act," accessed February 11, 2025
- ↑ Congress.gov, "H.R. 87 - Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2019," accessed March 11, 2019
- ↑ Congress.gov, "H.R.115 - Midnight Rules Relief Act," accessed January 16, 2025
- ↑ Congressional Review Service, "The Congressional Review Act (CRA): Frequently Asked Questions," October 22, 2024
- ↑ Congressional Research Service, "The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate’s 'Byrd Rule.'" December 12, 2024
