Congressional Republicans had a tough weekend. The Senate parliamentarian, an official who advises members on following the chamber’s rules, determined that many provisions in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not qualify for budget reconciliation. Reconciliation is the process on which Republicans are relying to advance their megabill through the Senate. It would enable them to bypass the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold and instead advance the legislation with a bare majority.
This process comes with strict rules for what can be included in the bill, however. Reconciliation is supposed to affect only mandatory spending and revenue levels. Provisions considered “extraneous” to fiscal matters under the Byrd rule — adopted in the 1980s to govern reconciliation — must be removed, lest the legislation require 60 votes to pass the Senate. Given the obvious politics of the Republicans’ bill, winning bipartisan support to meet that threshold is not an option. Therefore, the reconciliation package must undergo a “Byrd bath” to eliminate all provisions that the parliamentarian thinks are more about making policy changes than adjusting the federal budget.
Unfortunately, the removal of such policies will make the Big Beautiful Bill worse. The bill was already a mixed bag for fiscal conservatives. Now, over $250 billion worth of savings will have to go, as well as some immigration enforcement tools and limits on regulatory overreach. Below is a list of key provisions that can no longer be included in the legislation:
- $6.4 billion in savings from essentially eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an independent regulatory agency dreamt up by Elizabeth Warren and created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Designed to avoid democratic accountability, the agency is funded not by Congress each year, but through the Federal Reserve, so its budget is immune to reconciliation.
- Repeal of Biden-era regulations to effectively mandate the increasing sale of electric vehicles through tailpipe emission and fuel efficiency standards. By keeping more gas-powered vehicles on the road in accordance with consumers’ preferences, ending these rules was expected to save $105 billion in lost gas tax revenue and averted electric vehicle subsidies.
- A requirement that states provide matching funds to help cover the cost of their food stamp programs that would rise in line with payment error rates. This proposal was expected to save $128 billion in federal spending without directly cutting benefits to households to counteract a $67 billion boost in farm subsidies.
- An end to food stamp eligibility for immigrants who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents, such as refugees, asylees, and those granted humanitarian parole, which was projected to save $4 billion.
- Provisions restricting federal funds given to sanctuary cities, creating a new authority for state and local officials to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, and allowing states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement operations.
- Reform to give new civil service employees a choice between being “at-will” employees who can be fired for any reason or accepting higher retirement contributions, which would bring in $4.7 billion in additional revenue.
- A revised iteration of the REINS Act, a longtime priority of conservative lawmakers, that would prohibit regulatory agencies from creating rules that would affect the federal budget unless explicitly required by statute.
One silver lining of this Byrd bath is a provision on artificial intelligence that the parliamentarian surprisingly allowed to stay. This would predicate federal funding to states on the condition they not regulate AI for ten years. Beyond that, there is not much to cheer for other than upholding the rules that sustain the Senate filibuster. Republicans will especially have a hard time filling the holes in their planned budget savings that the Byrd rule has carved out.