Deregulation Efforts in 2025 Present Engagement Opportunities

Overview

As a recent White House memorandum has outlined, “promoting economic growth and American innovation are top priorities of this Administration.  Unlawful, unnecessary, and onerous regulations impede these objectives and impose massive costs on American consumers and American businesses.”  The Trump Administration’s deregulatory efforts currently include:

·       EO 14192 (Jan. 2025): a 10-to-1 approach directing agencies to rescind or withdraw, at a minimum, 10 regulations for every new one issued. The Executive Order expands “regulation” to include administrative orders, memos, and guidance documents.

·       EO 14219 (Feb. 2025): This requires agencies to review current regulations for “consistency with law and Administration policy.” Agencies must identify priority regulations for elimination, and factors for elimination include: constitutionality, oversteps of statutory authority, whether rules “implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance,” whether rules impede innovation, R&D and other advancements, and the burden a rule places on industries. Agencies must also provide justifications for regulations they do not intend to rescind.

·       OMB-2025-0003-0001 (Apr. 2025): The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (the White House agency with the most impact on administrative regulations) has issued a request for information (RFI) focused on deregulation ideas. For the eventual publication of a deregulatory agenda, OMB invites comments about any and all regulations currently in effect. OMB recommend comments address a rule's background and reasons for rescission, with a particular emphasis on: the rule's inconsistency with statute or Constitution, the rule's costs exceed the rule's benefits, the rule is outdated or unnecessary, or the rule burdens industry in unforeseen ways. Comments to OMB's RFI are due May 12, 2025.

·       EO 14267 and FTC-2025-0028-0001 (Apr. 2025): This Executive Order requires agencies to conduct a separate review to identify rules for rescission “in light of its anti-competitive effects,” explaining that “[a]ppropriately tailored economic regulations can play an important role in ensuring that markets function efficiently.”  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued a related request for information (RFI) that calls for proposals to rescind regulations that exclude new market entrants, protect dominant incumbents, and predetermine economic winners and losers. Comments to FTC's RFI are due May 27, 2025.

·  HHS RFI - AHRQ-2025-0001 (May 2025): The Department of Health and Human Services has called for proposals to rescind regulations and identify whole topic areas that may be "confusing or unnecessarily complicated" or "require an excessive number of reports or unreasonable recordkeeping, or information that is not needed or used effectively." There is also an interest in technology, asking for areas where "reporting requirements . . . are rooted in outdated technology" or if new technological platforms could "allow for rescinding or updating these policies." Comments to HHS's RFI are due July 14, 2025.

Timeline

·       April 19, 2025: EO 14219 review due.

·       May 12, 2025: Comments on OMB RFI due.

·       May 19, 2025: Justifications for regulations not targeted for rescission due.

·       May 27, 2025: Comments on FTC RFI due.

·       June 18, 2025: Anti-competitive review of regulations are due.

·       July 14, 2025: Comments to HHS RFI due.

·       Sept. 16, 2025: FTC to transmit list of anti-competitive regulations to OMB.