‘Executive orders will drive the overarching regulatory policy goals of the next administration,’ says Dan Goldbeck, director at the American Action Forum.
President-elect Donald Trump won the election on, among other things, pledges to roll back the regulations that were put in place under the Biden administration, particularly those intended to meet net-zero emissions goals in America’s energy industry.
In many cases, however, that will be easier said than done, and may not be something Trump can achieve on day one, according to analysts.
According to the American Action Forum, the Biden administration has finalized 1,114 new regulations to date, adding $1.8 trillion in costs to American businesses and consumers and an estimated 346 million hours of paperwork. And depending on how the regulations were put in place, the incoming Trump administration will likely face challenges in unwinding them.
“It will be on a regulation-by-regulation basis,” Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the American Energy Alliance, told The Epoch Times. “There’s actually three categories: executive orders, action from Congress, and those things that have to be done through regulation.
“In other words, there’s a process that’s been set up for changing regulations,” he said. “But all of those things are available to [Trump] depending on what happens with the final Congressional outcome.”
For regulatory mandates that have gone through the formal process of being enacted as “final rules” by agencies, the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) stipulates that cancellation of those rules must go through the same process. This includes a notice and public comment period, as well as a 30-day delayed effective date and a process for judicial review if people can claim they would be adversely affected.
“You do need to undergo rule-making to change rule-making, but a lot of the Biden administration mandates weren’t issued through rule-making,” Matt Bowman, senior counsel and director of regulatory practice for Alliance Defending Freedom, which has litigated against Biden administration mandates, told The Epoch Times.
“We’ve won several cases against mandates that they didn’t bother to put through the rule-making process,” Bowman said. “Those can be taken down pretty quickly.”
