At the Department of Health and Human Services, Trump administration officials want to reverse a regulation that has required nursing homes to have more medical staff on duty.
At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, powerful lobbying groups have asked the administration to eliminate a rule to protect miners from inhaling the dust of crystalline silica, a mineral that is used in concrete, smartphones and cat litter but that can be lethal in the lungs.
And at the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and television broadcasting and satellite communications, President Trump’s appointees published a seemingly exuberant notice asking for suggestions on which rules to get rid of, titled “DELETE, DELETE, DELETE.”
Across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry, Mr. Trump’s appointees are working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative headed by Elon Musk and also called DOGE, to launch a sweeping new phase in their quest to dismantle much of the federal government: deregulation on a mass scale.
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Usually, the legal process of repealing federal regulations takes years — and rules erased by one administration can be restored by another. But after chafing at that system during his first term and watching President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enact scores of new rules pushed by the left, Mr. Trump has marshaled a strategy for a dramatic do-over designed to kill regulations swiftly and permanently.
At Mr. Trump’s direction, agency officials are compiling the regulations they have tagged for the ash heap, racing to meet a deadline next week after which the White House will build its master list to guide what the president called the “deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”
The approach, overseen by Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, rests on a set of novel legal strategies in which the administration intends to simply repeal or just stop enforcing regulations that have historically taken years to undo, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House theory relies on Supreme Court decisions — some recent and at least one from the 1980s — that they believe give them the basis for sweeping change.
The broad scope of the effort has created a major opportunity for businesses and their allies, who have long lobbied Washington to soften regulations and now have willing and even eager partners spread across the administration — including many agency appointees with close ties to industries — to help rewrite the rules they live by.
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A sign of Mr. Trump’s aggressiveness came last week, when the White House directed agencies to bypass a lengthy legal requirement that proposed changes to rules be posted for public comment. Instead, the memo said, regulators should in many cases just move to immediately cancel the rules.
Image
Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is the mastermind of the deregulation effort.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Donald Kenkel, a professor of economics at Cornell University who served as the chief economist to the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the first Trump administration.
“It’s going on much more quietly than some of the other fireworks we’re seeing, but it will have great impact,” Mr. Kenkel said.
Once Mr. Trump’s orders to repeal or stop enforcement of rules are in effect, Mr. Kenkel said, “the effects of deregulation will be more or less immediate.”
Administration officials say they have a greater understanding now than they did during the first term of their powers to transform the regulatory system.
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“We had four years in which to prepare, and a first term of trial and error, and now we know exactly how the operation works,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “We have a lot of latitude here and we have the ability to roll back some of these devastating regulations.”
This account inside the Trump administration’s sprawling campaign to undo generations of regulations is based on interviews with 14 current and former Trump administration officials, federal regulators and people involved in the DOGE mission.
Mr. Trump and his allies see the new steps as the coup de grâce in a systematic overhaul of the federal government that began with mass layoffs and efforts to shut down some agencies. They believe that the rapid repeal of some rules — and the stop-work order on enforcing others — will quickly and permanently uproot a vast network of regulations that many see as a safety net, but that they view as a drag on industry and a tool for what Mr. Vought has called a “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy.
www.nytimes.com
At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, powerful lobbying groups have asked the administration to eliminate a rule to protect miners from inhaling the dust of crystalline silica, a mineral that is used in concrete, smartphones and cat litter but that can be lethal in the lungs.
And at the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and television broadcasting and satellite communications, President Trump’s appointees published a seemingly exuberant notice asking for suggestions on which rules to get rid of, titled “DELETE, DELETE, DELETE.”
Across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry, Mr. Trump’s appointees are working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative headed by Elon Musk and also called DOGE, to launch a sweeping new phase in their quest to dismantle much of the federal government: deregulation on a mass scale.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Usually, the legal process of repealing federal regulations takes years — and rules erased by one administration can be restored by another. But after chafing at that system during his first term and watching President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enact scores of new rules pushed by the left, Mr. Trump has marshaled a strategy for a dramatic do-over designed to kill regulations swiftly and permanently.
At Mr. Trump’s direction, agency officials are compiling the regulations they have tagged for the ash heap, racing to meet a deadline next week after which the White House will build its master list to guide what the president called the “deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”
The approach, overseen by Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, rests on a set of novel legal strategies in which the administration intends to simply repeal or just stop enforcing regulations that have historically taken years to undo, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House theory relies on Supreme Court decisions — some recent and at least one from the 1980s — that they believe give them the basis for sweeping change.
The broad scope of the effort has created a major opportunity for businesses and their allies, who have long lobbied Washington to soften regulations and now have willing and even eager partners spread across the administration — including many agency appointees with close ties to industries — to help rewrite the rules they live by.
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A sign of Mr. Trump’s aggressiveness came last week, when the White House directed agencies to bypass a lengthy legal requirement that proposed changes to rules be posted for public comment. Instead, the memo said, regulators should in many cases just move to immediately cancel the rules.
Image
Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is the mastermind of the deregulation effort.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Donald Kenkel, a professor of economics at Cornell University who served as the chief economist to the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the first Trump administration.
“It’s going on much more quietly than some of the other fireworks we’re seeing, but it will have great impact,” Mr. Kenkel said.
Once Mr. Trump’s orders to repeal or stop enforcement of rules are in effect, Mr. Kenkel said, “the effects of deregulation will be more or less immediate.”
Administration officials say they have a greater understanding now than they did during the first term of their powers to transform the regulatory system.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
“We had four years in which to prepare, and a first term of trial and error, and now we know exactly how the operation works,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “We have a lot of latitude here and we have the ability to roll back some of these devastating regulations.”
This account inside the Trump administration’s sprawling campaign to undo generations of regulations is based on interviews with 14 current and former Trump administration officials, federal regulators and people involved in the DOGE mission.
Mr. Trump and his allies see the new steps as the coup de grâce in a systematic overhaul of the federal government that began with mass layoffs and efforts to shut down some agencies. They believe that the rapid repeal of some rules — and the stop-work order on enforcing others — will quickly and permanently uproot a vast network of regulations that many see as a safety net, but that they view as a drag on industry and a tool for what Mr. Vought has called a “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy.
Trump and DOGE Are Planning Deregulation at a Massive Scale
The White House will soon move to rapidly repeal or freeze rules that affect health, food, workplace safety, transportation and more.
