EXPERTS Act of 2025

Key Points

• Anyone submitting scientific, economic, or technical studies to a federal agency during rulemaking must disclose who funded the research, who reviewed or revised it, and any financial ties between the researcher and parties affected by the rule. This applies to both directly and indirectly funded studies.
• Public companies that knowingly submit false or misleading information during rulemaking face civil penalties of at least $250,000 for a first offense and $1,000,000 for each repeat offense. Their fraudulent submissions can also be permanently excluded from the record.
• The bill creates a new Office of the Public Advocate within the Office of Management and Budget, led by a Senate-confirmed official. This office would help ordinary people participate in rulemaking and conduct research on how rules affect social equity across different communities.
• The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) would have just 60 days to review significant regulatory actions, with only one possible 30-day extension. If OIRA misses the deadline, agencies can publish their rules without waiting for approval.
• Federal agencies must respond in writing within 60 days to any petition that gathers more than 100,000 signatures, explaining whether they plan to act on the request and why. Agencies must also set up public online dockets for all petitions.
• The bill would restore judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, essentially pushing back against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Chevron deference. Courts would be required to defer to an agency's reasonable reading of the laws it administers.