Administration’s Fall Regulatory Agenda Calls for $18 Billion in Regulatory Cuts

The White House recently released its Fall Regulatory Agenda, providing a look at the direction it wants to go in with its regulatory policies. The agenda is released every year in the fall and the spring with a list of all the policies every federal agency is working on, as well as what has dropped in importance. The Fall 2018 agenda proposes regulatory cuts of roughly $18 billion. A strong focus was placed on the regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). President Trump recently asserted that the strength of the current economy can be at least in part attributed to businesses not being constricted by “ridiculous regulations,” which pertain particularly to EPA rules.

Among the list of regulatory cuts is the “Secret Science” Rule at the EPA. The EPA previously announced its intentions to limit the type and scope of science used to draft regulations, and ensure that the regulatory science underlying its actions is publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. The new agenda notes that implementation of this rule has been pushed back to January 2020.

Another EPA regulation noted in the agenda is the toxic air pollution limits for power plants. The EPA is presently examining the current limits that were imposed under the Obama administration following a Supreme Court edict to take a second look at how the previous administration determined the costs and benefits of air pollution limits and set the regulation currently in place.

The Department of Energy notes that it has changed the status of setting efficiency standards for home appliances from long-term agenda to pre-rule stages. However there are currently still a slew of other regulations pertaining to appliance standards that remain in flux.

To view the full Fall 2018 Regulatory Agenda, click here: https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain