Operation Citizen · Companion evidence record
Twenty federal regulations were switched off by the 119th Congress without any vote on the rule itself. Most relieved a private party of a duty it had owed the public; where the enacted text names no one who loses a protection, this page records that rather than filling it in. This is the list, with who stopped having to comply and who was left carrying it.
Both instruments can stop a federal rule from operating, but they do so differently. A CRA disapproval receives its own recorded vote and statutory consequence. An appropriations restriction may block implementation for the covered funding period without a separate vote on the rule itself.
Follow the asset, not the invoice
A firm being paid does not make a law industry-serving — every appropriation ends up as somebody’s revenue. The question this instrument asks instead is narrower and harder to argue with:
When the provision takes effect, who holds the asset, and who bears the risk?
A duty lifted from a private party with no money changing hands is the purest case. Nothing appears in any budget. Nobody is appropriated anything. A cost that used to sit on a balance sheet moves onto the public.
Operation Citizen coding standard — Case 3
All twenty provisions below are that case. None of them spends money. Each removes an obligation somebody owed.
Twenty distinct rules, carried on appropriations bills of the 119th Congress
| Provision | The duty lifted | Who bore the cost |
|---|---|---|
| 119-75 §632 | SEC rules requiring disclosure of corporate political and trade-association spending | Investors |
| 119-75 §735 | Any requirement that federal contract offerors disclose political contributions | The public, which loses disclosure of contractor political spending |
| 119-75 §619 | FTC completion of the interagency nutrition principles for food marketed to children | Children targeted by food marketing |
| 119-37 §775 | FDA long-term population-wide sodium reduction targets for food manufacturers | Consumers the targets were written to protect |
| 119-37 §735 | FDA produce safety rule of 27 Nov 2015 and the agricultural water standards, as applied to named crops | Consumers of wine grapes, hops, pulse crops and almonds |
| 119-37 §752 | New FDA rules on Listeria monocytogenes for low-risk ready-to-eat manufacturers | Consumers of low-risk ready-to-eat foods |
| 119-37 §726 | Stocking-variety requirements of the USDA rule Enhancing Retailer Standards | SNAP participants, who lose access to a broader stock of staple foods |
| 119-37 §736 | USDA school breakfast rules limiting substitution of a vegetable subgroup for required fruit | Children receiving school breakfasts |
| 119-74 §433 | Clean Air Act Title V permits for greenhouse gases from livestock operations | People living near those emissions |
| 119-74 §434 | Mandatory greenhouse-gas reporting for manure-management systems | Not stated |
| 119-74 §435 | Regulation of lead content in ammunition and fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act | People and wildlife exposed to lead |
| 119-74 §430 | EPA emission standards for small remote incinerators, 40 CFR pt. 60 subpts. CCCC and DDDD | Alaska residents exposed to those emissions |
| 119-37 §728 | USDA regulations creating new user fees under 31 U.S.C. 9701 | Taxpayers, who fund what the fees would have recovered from regulated parties |
| 119-75 div. B §510 | The unique health identifier standard under §1173(b) of the Social Security Act | Not stated |
| 119-75 §413 | Surface Transportation Board filing fees for rate and practice complaints | Not stated |
| 119-74 §534 | ITAR export licensing for Category I firearms components shipped to Canada | Not stated |
| 119-74 §537 | Implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty | Not stated |
| 119-74 §530 | DOJ and DEA enforcement against authorised industrial hemp research | Not stated |
| 119-37 §737 | Federal enforcement against transport, processing and sale of lawfully grown hemp | Not stated |
| 119-75 §7046 | §907 of the FREEDOM Support Act restriction on assistance and financing | Not stated |
Twelve of the twenty name a party who loses a protection on the face of the enacted text. Eight do not, and are recorded that way rather than argued into the column.
The first three concern who paid for the campaign. Congress used its spending power to stop the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring companies to disclose political spending to their own investors, and to stop the federal procurement system from requiring it of contractors bidding for public money. Neither rule costs the Treasury anything. Both were switched off inside a bill about funding the government.
Two instruments, one effect
A Congressional Review Act disapproval is a public law with a number. It requires a recorded vote on the rule itself, and under 5 U.S.C. §801(b)(2) the agency may never reissue the rule in substantially the same form. Twenty-two were enacted. They are easy to find and easy to count.
An appropriations restriction uses a different mechanism. It appears inside the enacted funding law rather than as its own disapproval law. Members may vote on the debate terms and the combined vehicle without receiving a separate vote on the restricted rule. The restriction ordinarily blocks the covered funds for the stated period; it does not by itself erase the underlying regulation. A later funding law may renew it.
Counting only the disapprovals shows only slightly more than half of the deregulation the 119th Congress actually carried out. That is the reason this page exists: not because the riders are hidden in any conspiratorial sense — they are printed in the enacted text, and every citation above will take you straight to one — but because nothing in the ordinary record adds them up.
What 103 public laws contain
| The 119th Congress | Count |
|---|---|
| Public laws enacted — what Congress publishes | 103 |
| Discrete policy actions those laws contain | 395 |
| Actions carried inside six appropriations vehicles | 298 |
| Actions visible as their own public law | 97 |
| Removals — a protection, payment or duty taken away | 87 |
| Removals carried inside a vehicle rather than passed alone | 60 |
If the count of actions looks higher than it should, that is the finding rather than an error. One hundred and three is what Congress publishes. Three hundred and ninety-five is what it did.
Two things this page does not claim
It does not claim these were slipped in. The House Appropriations Committee reported all twelve fiscal-year 2026 bills between June and September 2025, each with a published committee report, and the riders tested here were in the reported text. H. Rept. 119-215 carried the lead, livestock and incinerator provisions; H. Rept. 119-272 carried the Arms Trade Treaty and drug-enforcement provisions. They were examined by Appropriations — though not by the committees that own the underlying statutes. The Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act belong to Energy & Commerce, which saw neither.
It does not claim a rule was broken. Legislating on a spending bill is barred by House Rule XXI clause 2, and the special rule for each of these bills waived all points of order against provisions in the bill. That is how the provisions travel — but such waivers are ordinary. The Congressional Research Service records Rule XXI clause 2 among the most frequently waived House rules, and in one Congress 146 of 187 special rules waived all rules of the House outright. The waiver is the mechanism, not a violation, and this page treats it as procedure rather than as scandal.
What is left after both concessions is the finding: nineteen federal rules were switched off, no member voted on any of them, and the ordinary record does not add them up.
Method
Every number is a count of enacted text, not of a summary of it. The full text of each act was retrieved from govinfo, its divisions and sections extracted, and each substantive provision classified by who holds the asset once it takes effect. Provisions printed twice under different headings are counted once. Housekeeping riders are counted separately and excluded from the totals.
The procedural record — referral dates, committee reports, markups, hearings, and the text of each special rule — comes from the Congressional Bill Status bulk data for the 119th Congress, all 16,090 measures, and from the enacted text of the rules themselves.
To verify a single line: take the citation in the left-hand column, open that public law on govinfo, and read the section. That is the entire method, and it is the reason every figure here carries one.