Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump used the Congressional Review Act in 2025 to wipe out 22 Biden-era regulations, rolling back rules across energy, vehicles, coal leasing, and financial limits in the largest CRA effort since 1996.
In a sustained effort through spring and into winter 2025, GOP lawmakers pressed the CRA to undo a broad set of federal rules they viewed as costly and overreaching. That package touched everything from appliance efficiency mandates to restrictions on fossil fuel production and state-level vehicle rules.
Small business owners were a central talking point as Republicans moved to reverse energy-efficiency standards that applied to commercial appliances like walk-in coolers and freezers. Lawmakers argued those standards threatened to saddle independent operators with steep, unavoidable costs that would eat into already tight margins.
Another targeted rule from the Department of Energy that would have effectively banned certain gas water heaters by 2029 was rescinded, a change proponents said preserved consumer choice and kept upfront costs down for everyday households. Critics of the original rule warned the mandate would have limited options and raised bills for working families.
In May 2025, Congress also struck down a Biden waiver that had opened the door for California and other states to phase out gas-powered car sales by 2035, a policy many GOP lawmakers said would ripple through factory towns across the country. They argued the federal move kept national employment and supply chains from being dictated by one state’s policy choices.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., put it plainly on the Senate floor before the vote: “These job losses will not be confined to California, but they will be spread all across the nation.” Her comment was used to stress the national consequences Republicans say come from single-state policy experiments.
Why should workers in manufacturing hubs or long-haul truckers be forced to bear the cost of a progressive experiment in a handful of states? That question framed the GOP defense of rolling back the waiver and emphasized protecting jobs in places like Michigan and Texas from policy shocks.
Also in May, President Trump signed resolutions undoing two California vehicle emissions rules that would have required zero-emission heavy-duty trucks, effectively stopping what critics described as a backdoor ban on diesel engines. Republicans highlighted freight and logistics concerns, arguing these rules threatened reliability and cost for industries that depend on heavy trucks.
When the focus shifted to domestic energy production, Republicans moved decisively to restore access and development. In October 2025, lawmakers repealed a Biden-era restriction on coal leasing that had targeted millions of acres in the Powder River Basin across Montana and Wyoming, a region that supplies more than 40 percent of U.S. coal output.
A follow-up action in November overturned another restrictive coal leasing plan affecting Wyoming public lands, a change supporters claimed would protect regional economies tied to mining and energy jobs. Those rollbacks were framed as strengthening energy security and preserving livelihoods in rural communities.
December 2025 brought further action on Arctic production when the president signed resolutions undoing Biden rules that limited oil and gas leasing on some 13 million acres in Alaska’s Central Yukon and curbed activity in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The moves were presented as restoring responsible development in strategic areas.
“When we unlock Alaska, we are strengthening America’s national security and economic posture in this generation and for generations to come,” declared Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, in a statement to the DCNF in December 2025. That sentiment underscored Alaska’s delegation and tribal leaders, who have long said restrictive federal rules devastate local budgets and services.
Alaska’s leaders argue those limits hit schools, healthcare, and basic infrastructure funding in communities that rely on energy activity for steady revenue. Republicans used that reality to justify reversing rules they saw as imposing external costs on local populations and state economies.
From overdraft fee caps to energy mandates, the 2025 rollbacks amount to a broader Republican pushback against what they describe as federal overreach by the prior administration. Opponents of those old rules warn policymakers must now balance deregulation with keeping necessary protections in place for consumers and the environment.
