Regulatory Activity Down During First Six Months of Trump Administration

The pace of regulatory activity was down in the first six months of the Trump administration, bringing welcome relief to businesses that contend they have been burdened by rules from the prior administration. In total, 67 regulatory actions were processed in the first six months of this administration, according the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) – which reviews all significant federal regulations. Those actions include notices, proposals and final rules, and compare to the 216 actions recorded by the same point in the Obama administration, according to government data. Still doubts that the slowdown will persist linger. "I'm not sure that this [initial slowdown] portends a permanent future where we can't effectively process necessary regulations," Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Bloomberg BNA.The business community is pleased with how the Trump administration used its powers, including stopping regulations that had not been finalized and extending those with a pending deadline for subsequent review, Bradley said. Businesses also were happy that Congress was able to overturn regulations using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which made the "first phase" of this administration's regulatory regime successful, Bradley noted. "Now we're in the second phase," where the agencies have to do their work, he added. First up is the deregulatory agenda from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that lists 860 proposed regulatory actions that were withdrawn or removed from active status since the fall 2016 unified agenda. But to deregulate, rules must go through the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) process, which takes time. The "single biggest roadblock at the moment" is the lack of political appointees at the agencies, Bradley argued. Roughly, 1,200 senior officials must be confirmed by the Senate before they can manage and set policy in various federal agencies and independent commissions. For their part, small businesses have been impressed with Trump's two-for-one executive order, which requires agencies to eliminate two regulations for every new one they issue, said Dan Bosch, senior manager of regulatory policy at the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).Small businesses also have seen willingness from executive agencies to review some problematic rules from the prior administration, such as the Labor Department's overtime rule and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Waters of the U.S. rule (WOTUS) and Clean Power Plan (CPP), Bosch noted. "They're going back and looking at those rules to see how they can improve them and make them better for small business to comply with, or getting rid of them entirely," Bosch said. "So our members are feeling like there's some relief on the horizon," he added.