Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 298.
The bill requires the Attorney General and specified federal agency heads to inventory federal criminal statutory and criminal regulatory offenses. Reports must list elements, mens rea, penalties, and 15 years of prosecution or referral data; public, searchable indexes must be posted within two years.
Liberals worry about deregulatory uses; conservatives see deregulatory opportunity
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill specifies clear deliverables, responsible entities, and deadlines for a comprehensive reporting and indexing exercise and provides useful definitional and content specificity.
The bill requires the Attorney General and specified federal agency heads to inventory federal criminal statutory and criminal regulatory offenses.
Reports must list elements, mens rea, penalties, and 15 years of prosecution or referral data; public, searchable indexes must be posted within two years.
The bill specifies no appropriations are authorized to fulfill these requirements.
Transparency/oversight bills with low fiscal impact historically clear Congress, but cross-agency data burdens and Senate procedure create meaningful uncertainty.
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill specifies clear deliverables, responsible entities, and deadlines for a comprehensive reporting and indexing exercise and provides useful definitional and content specificity. However, it omits funding or resourcing guidance, standardization and data-format requirements, procedures for complex or sensitive edge cases, and enforcement or quality-assurance mechanisms—gaps that reduce certainty about consistent, timely execution across agencies.
Liberals worry about deregulatory uses; conservatives see deregulatory opportunity
These are examples from the analysis, not a ranked list of the most-affected groups.
Liberals worry about deregulatory uses; conservatives see deregulatory opportunity
Likely to view the bill as a transparency measure that could support criminal justice reform and accountability.
Support is cautious: useful if paired with protections for civil rights and adequate resources.
Concerned about whether the exercise leads to deregulatory rollbacks or unequal enforcement.
Generally favorable toward the bill as a practical transparency and oversight measure.
Views it as a sensible inventory that can inform lawmakers and reduce unintended criminalization.
Worries about implementation cost and the lack of authorized appropriations.
Likely to view the bill positively as a tool to identify unnecessary federal criminalization and regulatory overreach.
Sees potential to reduce duplicative or low-value criminal penalties.
May press for using the report to pare back federal criminal provisions.
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Still ahead
Still ahead
Still ahead
Transparency/oversight bills with low fiscal impact historically clear Congress, but cross-agency data burdens and Senate procedure create meaningful uncertainty.
The bill has not accumulated any surfaced votes yet.
Liberals worry about deregulatory uses; conservatives see deregulatory opportunity
Transparency/oversight bills with low fiscal impact historically clear Congress, but cross-agency data burdens and Senate procedure create…
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill specifies clear deliverables, responsible entities, and deadlines for a comprehensive reporting and indexing exercise and provides useful definitional and content spe…
Go beyond the headline summary with full stakeholder mapping, legislative design analysis, passage barriers, and lens-by-lens tradeoff breakdowns.