The Congressional Review Act, enacted in 1996, establishes special congressional procedures for disapproving a broad range of regulatory rules issued by federal agencies. Before any rule covered by the Act can take effect, the federal agency that promulgates the rule must submit it to Congress. If Congress passes a joint resolution disapproving the rule, and the resolution becomes law, the rule cannot take effect or continue in effect. Also, the agency may not reissue either that rule or any substantially similar one, except under authority of a subsequently enacted law. The Congressional Review Act establishes special "expedited procedures" (also known, more informally, as "fast track" procedures) for congressional action on these joint resolutions of disapproval. The expedited procedures established by the Act include several special features, not found in many other statutes providing for expedited procedures, that raise issues about how Congress may apply the procedures in practice. To begin with, most (though not all) of the expedited procedures established by the Act regulate action only in the Senate. The Act also provides for an unusually complex set of action periods and deadlines. Finally, other provisions of the Act impose restrictions that shape and limit the opportunities for action afforded by the expedited procedures. An expedited procedure, or "fast track" procedure, is a set of statutory provisions that govern congressional consideration of a specified kind of measure. Most expedited procedures regulate consideration of joint resolutions either to (1) disapprove some action that the statute authorizes the President, or an agency of the executive branch, to take only if Congress does not disapprove, or (2) approve some action that a statute authorizes to be taken only if Congress approves a specific request to do so. The purpose of the expedited procedure is to enable timely action on the resolution of disapproval or approval by ensuring that Congress will be able to take it up, and complete action on it, within a limited period of time. Expedited procedures that are provided for in a statute function as rules of each house of Congress. These rules, however, are applicable only to the measures specified by the statute. The Constitution confers the power to make procedural rules on each house of Congress separately, but as with any other statute, enactment of a statute that establishes an expedited procedure requires action by both houses and the President. For this reason, expedited procedure statutes usually include language declaring that those procedures are enacted under the constitutional rulemaking authority of each house, and reserving to each house the authority to change those applicable to itself. The Congressional Review Act follows this practice. The Congressional Review Act establishes three principal time periods for congressional action on a joint resolution disapproving a rule, or regulation, proposed by the executive branch. Two of these, here called the initiation period and the action period , regulate congressional action on joint resolutions of disapproval under the Act. The third, which this report refers to as the waiting period , affects the possible effective date of certain rules that the Act defines as "major." Each of the three time periods nominally runs for 60 days, and all run roughly concurrently. However, the starting point of the initiation period may differ slightly from the others, and the days of the three periods are counted in different ways. These differences (elaborated in the following pages, but summarized below in Table 1 ) play a key role in determining how the Act may operate. The Act also includes procedures governing final action to reconcile House and Senate action on a disapproval resolution submitted and considered in accordance with the Act. These procedures need not occur within the constraints of the time periods specified, and are not associated with any provisions restricting the time at which they must occur. Pursuant to other provisions of the Congressional Review Act, however, various actions by Congress or the President can elaborate or alter the effect and application of these three basic time periods. Specifically: the sine die adjournment of a session can result in renewal of the initiation period and action period; congressional action to defeat a disapproval resolution can result in termination of the waiting period; and presidential veto of a disapproval resolution can bring about an additional waiting period, whose extent may depend on subsequent congressional action in relation to the veto. The following sections address the operation of these subsidiary time restrictions as well as the three basic ones. Even in the absence of the Congressional Review Act, the general legislative powers of Congress would presumably always allow passage of a bill or joint resolution overriding or abolishing a rule or regulation promulgated pursuant to law by an executive branch agency. The effect of the Congressional Review Act is simply to establish expedited procedures for congressional consideration of a joint resolution accomplishing this end. The Act makes these expedited procedures available to Congress if two conditions are met. First, a disapproval resolution may be considered under the expedited procedure only if it is submitted during a specified initiation period. Second, the Senate may consider the resolution under the expedited procedure only during a specified action period. (As discussed later, the resolution must also conform to certain content requirements.) To be eligible for consideration under the terms of the Act, a disapproval resolution must be submitted in either house within 60 days after Congress receives the rule. In contrast to both the waiting period and the action period, recess days are excluded in calculating this initiation period. Any day that either house is in adjournment during a recess of more than 3 days does not count toward this time limit. Normally, in other words, weekend days will count toward the initiation period, but district work periods will not. The action period applies only to initial consideration in the Senate, because the Act establishes no expedited procedures for initial House consideration. The Senate may use the expedited procedures to complete initial consideration of a disapproval resolution only during the 60 days of session following congressional receipt of the rule (and, if required, its publication in the Federal Register ). Any day on which the Senate does not meet does not count toward the time limit for this action period. The Congressional Review Act makes special provision for the action period and initiation period if, within 60 days of session after a rule is submitted, Congress adjourns its session sine die. Under these conditions, both periods start over again in the new session of Congress, beginning in each house on the 15 th day of session after Congress reconvenes. This provision helps ensure that Congress will effectively have the full periods established by law to act on a disapproval resolution under the expedited procedure. Absent this special provision, the initiation period and action period might end up being split between two sessions of Congress, so that in each session Congress would have less than 60 days to act. If a President submitted a proposed rule shortly before a sine die adjournment, Congress might not find it feasible to complete action on a disapproval resolution either in the time remaining before the end of the session, or in the portion of the 60 days remaining at the start of the new session. Completing action could be especially difficult when the new session was the first session of a new Congress, for in that case the disapproval resolution would have to be submitted anew, and proceed through all the stages of the legislative process from its start, in perhaps many fewer than 60 days. Renewal of the full action period and initiation period in the new session is intended to prevent this situation. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, a proposed rule may go into effect 30 days after its promulgation in the Federal Register , unless the rule itself provides for a later date. The Congressional Review Act alters this stipulation only for what it defines as "major rules." In general, a rule is "major" if the Office of Information and Regulatory Policy, in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), determines that it will have economic effects of a certain level of significance. The Act provides no means for Congress to alter or override an executive determination that a rule is or is not "major." The Congressional Review Act provides that a "major rule" may not take effect until 60 calendar days after the rule has been both published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress (unless the rule is one for which such publication is not required, in which case the 60 days begins when the rule is simply submitted to Congress). The President may waive this additional waiting period for a "major rule" if he determines that, for any of several stated reasons, more expeditious implementation is necessary, and so notifies Congress. If he does so, the "major rule" may go into effect subject only to the stipulations of the Administrative Procedure Act. In sum, the 60-day waiting period established by the Congressional Review Act applies only to "major rules" for which the President has not waived its application. Rules that are not "major," as well as "major rules" for which the President waives the additional waiting period, may take effect, as provided by the Administrative Procedure Act, after 30 days, unless the rule itself provides for a later date. The waiting period for "major rules" is defined in calendar days. The action period and initiation period are defined in ways dependent on the congressional schedule. As a result, the waiting period will normally expire first, because its "clock" runs continuously without interruption. The action period for the Senate normally will expire later, because its "clock" pauses on each day the Senate does not meet. The initiation period normally will expire between the other two, because when Congress does not meet, its "clock" sometimes runs (during breaks of three days or less) and sometimes pauses (during more extended recesses). For example, suppose that after a "major rule" is submitted and published, each house meets for 5 days a week, except for one recess of two weeks. The waiting period expires after 60 calendar days. The recess extends the initiation period to 76 calendar days. The action period elapses only at the rate of 5 days per week when the Senate is in session, and not at all during the recess. It expires after 14 weeks, or 96 calendar days.