President Trump?s latest executive order fulfills a campaign promise to ?slash? federal regulations. The President?s order would eliminate two regulations for every new one implemented and sets a budget of zero dollars for new rules for the coming year.
Trump says his order will implement ?the largest ever cut, by far, in terms of regulation.? Agencies will decide which rules they want to roll back, with White House guidance.
To get ready to cut regulations, The President ordered a 60-day rules freeze last week.
Dave Warner from the National Pork Producers Council favors Trump’s actions, saying: “We get so many regulations that they pile up and create extra problems for our growers.”
On the second regulation cutting front, Myron Ebell, a leader involved in the Trump Transition team, says to expect budget and employment cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaders have suggested cutting the EPA workforce by 2/3 over the next four years. That would be a reduction of 15,000 to 5,000. EPA?s $8.1 billion budget would also be sliced in half under these recommendations, according to the Washington Post. Ebell, along with Trump, favors the cuts as a way to curb regulatory overreach by the EPA.
The logic is that overreach would be much harder if ?the agency is a lot smaller.?
While he says cutting 10,000 staffers may not be realistic, he called it an ?aspirational goal,? saying ?you?re not going to get Congress to make significant cuts unless you ask for significant cuts.
Warner, from NPPC, says rules no longer needed, or superseded by new ones, could be ditched. Pork Producers and other livestock groups, meantime, are trying to kill rules ordered by the Obama administration, including the controversial GIPSA meat marketing reforms and an organic livestock rule. Warner says last week?s separate executive order freezes both, for 60-days past their effective dates.
