On January 31, the President issued an Executive Order to “unleash prosperity through deregulation.” His order would require the identification of 10 existing rules or guidance documents to be repealed for any single regulation promulgated by a federal agency. This is similar to an Executive Order from his first term, which requires two regulations to be eliminated for every new regulation promulgated. Regardless of the number, this policy (if enforced) will dramatically slow the pace of regulation by creating a significant hurdle to the promulgation of new regulations.
The White House justified this policy by saying that “overregulation stops American entrepreneurship, crushes small business, reduces consumer choice, discourages innovation, and infringes on the liberties of American citizens.”
This Executive Order may be welcome news to some in industry that have called for measures to reduce the regulatory burden, but it also places some pressure on agencies that need to regulate certain matters (often at Congress’ direction).
This also presents two realities for those across the policy ecosystem -- if organizations are seeking to add regulations, part of their strategy will now need to be helping agencies identify potentially existing regulations or guidance documents that can be repealed (no easy task). Additionally, it provides an opportunity for organizations looking to reverse an existing regulation by putting it on the radar of agencies for potential elimination.
This will be a policy to watch closely to see if (1) agencies are able to comply and (2) how agencies actually implement this policy and whether it is enforced.
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