What’s the story
The Louisiana Senate passed SB 59, a bill that increases legislative oversight on rules through requirements similar to a REINS-style law, on June 3 by a vote of 37-0. The bill was sent to Gov. Jeff Landry (R) for signature on June 8.
Gov. Jeff Landry (R) expressed support for SB 59. He said, “I don’t get to vote on it, but I’m going to sign it because I think it’s important because many of you out there belong to small businesses … when you start to look at the amount of money that regulations pile on to the cost of the products and services that you provide, it is exorbitant and that money and cost is then passed on to the consumer.”
The Louisiana House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 98-0 on June 2.
If signed by the governor, SB 59 would amend Louisiana’s Administrative Procedure Act to require the Legislative Fiscal Office to review and identify proposed agency actions using two thresholds: $200,000 per year or $600,000 over three years. If a rule meets either threshold, any action by a state agency may not take effect unless it is approved by the appropriate legislative oversight subcommittees, except that if the committees do not review a rule for more than 30 days, the governor can approve the rule. The requirement does not apply to any rule with estimated costs at or below the cost of implementation estimated by the fiscal note of the legislation requiring the rule. Agency actions with estimated costs below both thresholds would not be subject to this requirement.
Where’s the fight
The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS Act) and similar state laws are part of a broader debate surrounding the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches concerning administrative rulemaking.
Supporters of SB 59, such as Americans for Prosperity Louisiana, said, “We are thankful for State Senator Mike Reese and Governor Landry’s leadership, bringing forth transformative change to Louisiana by ensuring unelected agency bureaucrats cannot enforce costly regulations on our business owners—a decision that gained wide bipartisan support.”
Critics of the federal REINS Act, such as the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University (NYU) School of Law have written that the policy would make it harder for agencies to protect the public and follow the law and claimed that Congress cannot make the highly technical decisions necessary for good regulation.
When SB 59 was introduced, its text contained features more similar to the federal-level REINS Act, requiring legislative action on major rules without exception. The final text of SB 59 passed on June 3 incorporated amendments that granted exceptions to the bill’s legislative oversight language and allowed the governor to approve rules if the legislative committees take longer than 30 days to review the rules.
What’s the background
The federal REINS Act is designed to amend the Congressional Review Act (CRA) of 1996. Under the CRA, Congress has the authority to issue resolutions of disapproval to nullify certain agency regulations that it considers to be harmful. The REINS Act aims to expand the CRA to require congressional approval of certain major agency regulations before those regulations are implemented. Rather than issuing resolutions of disapproval after a rule takes effect, the REINS Act seeks to give Congress the preemptive authority to halt the initial enactment of certain regulations and to require Congress to act on such major rules before they can go into effect.
The federal REINS Act defines major agency regulations as those that have financial impacts on the U.S. economy of $100 million or more annually, increase consumer prices, or have significant harmful effects on the economy.
SB 59 is similar to the federal REINS Act, as well as REINS-style state laws. Louisiana’s SB 59 does not have the strict legislative preapproval requirements that the Federal REINS proposal and other REINS-style state laws contain because of the exceptions outlined above.
Ballotpedia classifies state bills as REINS-style if they require cost-based analysis of proposed rules and have a specific economic threshold used to classify rules, and if they require legislative action before a rule with estimated costs above the specified threshold can go into effect.
REINS-style state law activity in the states
In 2025, Ballotpedia has tracked 22 bills in 17 states (including Louisiana) that contain REINS-like requirements. Three states (Kentucky, Utah, and Oklahoma) have enacted REINS-like legislation, while Wyoming has enacted a law which was introduced as a REINS-style bill but which, after legislative amendments, has features that Ballotpedia has identified as being more similar to the legislative review provisions of the Congressional Review Act.
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