PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Referred to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial And Antitrust Law.
Congressional Research Service
Version 00 · Introduced in House · Jan 14, 2014
Sound Regulation Act of 2014 - Establishes additional requirements for rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), including:
identification by a federal agency, in the context of a coherent conceptual framework and supported with objective data, of the nature and significance of the market failure, regulatory failure, or other problem that necessitates regulatory action and why other alternatives, such as market forces or state or local regulations, could not address the problem better than federal regulation;
establishment by an agency of an achievable objective for its regulatory action;
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development of at least three regulatory options, in addition to not regulating, that the agency estimates will provide the greatest benefits for the least cost in meeting the regulatory objective;
an estimate by each agency of the costs and benefits of each regulatory option developed, at least to the extent the agency is able to exclude options whose costs exceed their benefits, and rank such options by cost from lowest to highest;
publication for public comment of all analyses, documentation, and data relating to the requirements of this Act for a public comment period of at least 30 days;
establishment, by rule, of the specific cost-benefit analysis methodology appropriate to the functions and responsibilities of the agency and establishment of an appropriate period for review of new rules to assess their cost-effectiveness; and
justification of why the agency does not select the least-cost regulatory option as its proposed rule.
Requires the Comptroller General (GAO), for purposes of congressional review, to examine and report on: (1) each agency cost-benefit analysis for compliance with the requirements of this Act, including the agency methodology for such analysis; (2) risk analysis pertaining to the cost-benefit analysis; and (3) agency quadrennial regulatory reviews for consistency with the requirements of this Act.
People & committees
Rep. Brady, Kevin [R-TX-8] · R–TX
Legislative record
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Referred to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial And Antitrust Law.
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Primary sources
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Source last updated: Aug 12, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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