Regulate Yes, Cripple No.
President Trump signed an executive action Monday that will result in a reduction of federal regulations on small businesses. He said the executive action would “knock out two regulations for every new regulation” adopted by federal agencies.
The executive order, titled, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” leaves many of the details of the two-for-one mechanism up to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and allows Congress to make exceptions. But the order will likely result in a continuation of the regulatory “freeze” the Trump White House instituted on his first day in office.
The order applies to all executive agencies, including those responsible for overseeing banking, pensions, the environment, health, transportation and workplace safety.
“We’ll be reducing them big league and their damaging effects on our small businesses, our economy, our entrepreneurial spirit,” Trump said before signing the order. “So the American Dream is back, and we are going to create an environment in small business like we haven’t had in many, many decades.”
According to a White House senior official, there will be a process for the White House to set an annual cap on the cost of new regulations. For the rest of fiscal 2017, the cap will require that the cost of any additional regulations be completely offset by undoing existing rules, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.
“This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen. There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be normalized control,” Trump said.
