Arizona State Senator Warren Petersen (R), who also is the President of the Arizona Senate, promoted his State’s agency sunset law as a model for the Federal government. To make his promotion concrete, he offered this language, based on that Arizona statute, for the incoming Congress and President:
Notwithstanding any other law, beginning on an eight-year rotating basis on September 30, 2025, the statutory authorization for each agency, as defined in 5 USC § 551, shall expire, and such agency shall have no authority to engage in rulemaking, adjudication, licensing, other agency action, or enforcement of any law or rule from that date forward until Congress passes a separate joint resolution of reauthorization for the agency for an additional eight-year period.
That’s short and sweet, as appropriate for all statutes Congress seeks to enact (but fails to do across the board, a separate problem), but I’d take it a bit further, without too much more verbiage.
I’d add substitute in some words that make this law applicable to all agencies created after this law’s enactment, particularly including agencies created by Executive Order (vis., the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which has ruined itself through politicization, aided and abetted by the Biden administration) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a combination of Congressional statute and Executive Branch fiat.
Rather than simply having the statutory authorization expire, I’d make explicit that that includes zeroing out its budget, including payroll; returning the employees to the private sector rather than merely reassigning them elsewhere in the Federal government Leviathan; and that the agency no longer exists.
I’d require, too, the reauthorization actions to be via stand-alone bills, with nothing included that is apart from this single subject.
Finally, to ensure the reauthorization isn’t simply a mindless rubber stamp by the Congress, I’d require the reauthorization to be by separate House of Representatives and Senate vote, with each house’s vote required to be by a supermajority of 60% of elected Congressmen (not 60% of those present or those voting Abstain or Present).
Thus:
Notwithstanding any other law, beginning on an eight-year rotating basis on September 30, 2025, the statutory authorization for each agency, as defined in 5 USC § 551 or created after September 30, 2025 by statute or by Executive action, shall expire, and such agency shall cease to exist, no agency personnel reassignable elsewhere within the Federal government, until each house of Congress separately passes by a 60% majority vote of sitting Representatives and by a 60% majority vote of Senators a separate, standalone reauthorization for the agency for an additional eight-year period.
