<P> One previously under - appreciated provision of the CRA is its stipulation that rules do not go into effect until after they have been submitted to Congress . Since many rules over the last 20 years have never been submitted to Congress, some legal scholars have proposed that these rules are not actually in effect and may still be eligible to be overturned, even if they were passed many years ago . According to the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), this could be accomplished in one of three different ways: (1) a rule could be submitted to Congress now by the Trump administration and then repealed by a joint resolution under the CRA, (2) the Trump administration could publish notice that a rule not in effect is being withdrawn or abandoned, or (3) a rule could be thrown out by a court on the grounds that it was never in effect . </P> <P> Another possible avenue for expanding the power of the CRA concerns its prohibition against any regulation being passed if it is "substantially similar" to one already repealed under the CRA without explicit Congressional approval . Some Republicans have therefore suggested that the Trump administration could preemptively introduce liberal regulations with the intention of having them immediately repealed under the CRA and thereby preventing a future Democratic administration from issuing substantially similar regulations . </P> <P> Despite its passage in 1996, the Congressional Review Act was not used to send any resolutions of disapproval to the President's desk during the remainder of the presidency of Bill Clinton . President George W. Bush signed the only resolution of disapproval sent to him by Congress . Congress passed five resolutions of disapproval during the presidency of Barack Obama, but he vetoed all of them . In the first four months of his term, President Donald Trump signed fourteen resolutions of disapproval into law . At the White House, Andrew Bremberg, Marc Short, and Rick Dearborn coordinated with aides of Senator Mitch McConnell to use the CRA, creating an Excel spreadsheet of target regulations, eventually being able to eliminate over twice as many as they had anticipated . </P> <P> The following is a complete list of successful uses of the CRA, as of November 1, 2017 (ordered according to when they became law): </P>

• what is the congressional review act and how frequently is it enacted