Trump Ready to Slash Regulations

BY SCOTT PATTERSON AND KEN THOMAS

President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to embark on one of the most sweeping deregulatory drives in U.S. history, slashing at rules emanating from every channel of executive authority.

Trump’s fellow Republicans say lighter regulation will unleash the economy. Some businesses and consumer groups are planning to push back in court, however, echoing legal disputes over executive actions on immigration, healthcare and the environment during Trump’s first term.

“People are recognizing that government has been too antiquated,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.). “We need to be able to move at the speed of China.”

Trump set a goal during his first term to eliminate two regulations for every new one. This time, he has said, he wants to slash 10 regulations for each new one. Retrenchment so extensive likely would require support in Congress that Democrats aren’t likely to provide.

Trump’s rule-cutting plans are taking shape at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an outside advisory group led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk and Ramaswamy plan to work with Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought wants to dismantle what he calls the “administrative state,” and challenge career civil servants.

As OMB director during the first Trump administration, Vought helped craft Schedule F, an executive order Trump issued in October 2020 to eliminate job protections for federal workers. The Biden administration blocked the order, but Trump is expected to reintroduce it with stricter return-tooffice policies that could lead some federal workers to quit.

President Biden’s executive orders and most recent policy changes figure as some of its most vulnerable initiatives as Trump assumes power. Republicans have decried Biden’s lastminute push to complete loans to renewable-energy projects.

Trump is expected to use a legislative tool known as the Congressional Review Act that allows the president, with the help of Congress, to undo rules enacted in the final months of the previous administration. He was the first president to use it widely, in his first administration.

“We are scrubbing right now to determine what is eligible,” for reconsideration under the act, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said Tuesday at an American Petroleum Institute meeting in Washington.

Republicans are also looking to pass the Reins Act, short for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, which the House approved in 2023, to curb Biden-era rules.

Trump has prepared a series of executive orders aimed at boosting American fossil fuels and undoing policies that favor electric vehicles.

Congress is expected to help Trump target Biden-era waivers for California to enact stricter limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles than the federal government’s. California aims to ban sales of new gasoline- powered cars by 2035. Rescinding the waiver would curb California’s influence over the car industry and set back efforts to boost EV sales.