Business lobbyists and Republican lawmakers who failed to stop the Dodd-Frank Act from becoming law have managed to put the brakes on many of its provisions a second way: cost-benefit analysis.

A series of legal challenges from business groups against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ended in a federal court ruling last year that the agency didn't adequately analyze the cost of a new rule. In the months since, the agency's rule-making has ground to a near-halt, with just 24 SEC economists working full-time to provide cost-benefit analyses for dozens of proposed policies, including 28 unfinished Dodd-Frank rules.

Now lawmakers are trying to write the cost-benefit strategy into law. The goal, said Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, is to save taxpayers money while also weakening the ability of regulators to implement Dodd-Frank.