The Deep State’s Worst Nightmare

While President Donald Trump has made reining in the unelected federal bureaucracy a top priority of his second term, the Republican Congress has thus far largely failed to get in on the action. But that could be set to change with a new bill that strikes at the heart of the Deep State and runaway executive power.

The Regulations From the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced in the Senate earlier this year (Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) also introduced a companion version in the House) requires that all federal regulations with an economic impact greater than $100 million be passed through Congress. As Politico put it, the REINS Act “would turn Congress into a gatekeeper for certain major rules and allow lawmakers to roll back countless regulations for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.” The outlet further described the legislation as a “rule-busting bill” and “rule-shredding proposal.”

While Democrats like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois have criticized the bill as a “war on regulations” (a criticism that will no doubt read as high praise to conservatives), Republicans argue the REINS Act is a long-overdue check on the power of the unelected bureaucracy to impose regulations that have an enormous impact on the economy. “For those who say it would make a radical change, a radical departure from the status quo of rulemaking, I’d say, ‘Thank heaven above for that,’” Lee said.

As Lee pointed out on X, in 2024 “the Biden Administration introduced $1.5 TRILLION in a backdoor tax on the American people in the form of 100,000 pages of new regulations. The REINS Act will fix this.”

While the REINS Act garnered relatively little attention when it was re-introduced in February, Lee is pushing for Republicans to include it as part of their budget reconciliation bill, which is expected to pass later this year – the legislation Trump has dubbed his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

The budget reconciliation process requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate instead of the usual 60 votes. Since Republicans control 53 seats in the Senate and a majority in the U.S. House, it is an attractive option. However, the REINS Act would need to directly affect spending or taxation in order to meet the criteria of the “Byrd rule.”

Because the bill would take power away from liberal bureaucrats who are entrenched in the machinery of government, it has unsurprisingly drawn opposition from the Washington liberal establishment.

Left-wing group Public Citizen, for instance, states the bill “would require congressional approval of all major regulations issued by federal agencies before those regulations could go into effect.” While that likely sounds great to most Americans, Public Citizen says this is “one of the most radical threats in generations to our government’s ability to protect the public from harm.”

The bill, according to Public Citizen, would “delay or shut down the implementation of critical new public health and safety safeguards, financial reforms, and worker protections, thereby making industry even less accountable to the public.”

Public Citizen also says the bill would “dramatically alter the separation of powers by allowing Congress to veto executive actions.” (One wonders, as a side note, how Public Citizen feels about unelected district court judges issuing nationwide injunctions to “veto” President Trump’s executive actions.)

Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin has made similarly hysterical claims, suggesting the law would “handcuff the agencies that work to make sure that our food and drugs are safe and our air and water are clean.”

Of course, nothing in the bill outlaws any specific regulations protecting the public. It simply requires that the people’s elected representatives in Congress have a say on major regulatory questions impacting the economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The REINS Act is, in other words, based on the common-sense principle that unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats with a demonstrated history of liberal bias should not have carte blanche to target or favor certain industries without input from Congress.

As Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, pointed out in an opinion piece for The New York Post, the REINS Act is a critical opportunity to enshrine some of President Trump’s most important executive branch reforms into law.

“Congressional Republicans must step up and root out corruption with the same urgency as the Trump administration,” Roberts wrote. “By passing legislation like the REINS Act, Congress can reassert its Article I authority to control the regulatory process, move to streamline regulations, and create a system in which regulations sunset regularly, thus lifting the burden on America’s families and small businesses.”

With the 2026 midterms now on the horizon, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill may be Republicans’ last opportunity to cement some of the president’s executive branch reforms. While Trump’s changes have given conservatives plenty of reason to celebrate, without legislation they could be quickly reversed by a future Democrat president.

The urgency of addressing regulatory burdens is further highlighted in a 2024 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The conservative think tank found that regulations under the Biden-Harris administration imposed $15,000 in annual costs on the average American household. That’s a serious number, particularly when the median household income is only $80,000 per year.

Congress has an opportunity to lower costs for American consumers and fuel an economic boom by passing the REINS Act – it should seize the chance now.

AMAC Newsline contributor Matt Lamb is an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.