The New York Times
The government makes — and unwinds — rules slowly.
An agency proposes a regulation — say, establishing minimum staffing levels for nursing homes. Then economists analyze it, the public comments on it, lawyers revise it and, finally, the agency enacts the rule. It generally takes a few years, start to finish, and the same is true for the process to repeal a rule.
President Trump has no patience for that pace. During his first term, he wanted to erase hundreds of rules on the environment, financial oversight and more. But he grew frustrated when some of the rollbacks took almost the entirety of his term to complete. Then, to his chagrin, the Biden administration restored many of them.
So this time around, Trump plans to quickly and permanently kill rules across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how his plan works and which agencies it might affect.
Government, slashed
Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and an architect of the Project 2025 blueprint, is overseeing the White House’s deregulation effort. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is executing it.
In some cases, the administration believes it can simply revoke rules outright, without following the traditional yearslong process. In others, it plans to effectively nullify rules by directing agencies to stop enforcing them while the slow, legal unwinding process plays out.
Experts say parts of that plan are probably illegal. But it could quickly affect Americans’ lives regardless, as companies stop complying with rules concerning the environment, transportation, food, workplace safety and more without fear of government penalties.
The ‘kill list’
The White House’s first step is to identify regulations it can cut. Federal agencies must put together lists of rules that might run afoul of recent Supreme Court decisions — or that just don’t align with the administration’s priorities.
Vought will then compile the rules into one master deregulation list — a so-called kill list. The administration plans to immediately revoke or stop enforcing those rules.
Musk has also developed an artificial intelligence tool to comb through the 100,000-plus pages of the Code of Federal Regulations and identify rules that are either outdated or legally vulnerable.
Some of the likely candidates for the list:
Legal basis
Many industry groups are thrilled. “This is a real opportunity to rebalance the regulatory environment,” said Marty Durbin, senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
And while some expect that the plan to swiftly revoke regulations will be caught up in the courts, they are more optimistic about the other approach — to simply stop enforcing rules while they are legally unwound.
That method relies on an obscure 1985 Supreme Court decision, Heckler v. Chaney, which concluded that if a federal agency does not enforce a regulation, that regulation is generally beyond the review of the courts.
That case could serve as a basis for the administration’s deregulation efforts, even as Trump pushes it further than any previous administration has, said Lisa Heinzerling, who served in the E.P.A. during the Obama administration. The consequences of the cuts, she added, “will be huge.”