By: Scott Patterson and Ken Thomas – wsj.com – January 18, 2025

DOGE and Republican allies in Congress want to help the incoming president cut 10 rules for every new one.

Trump’s fellow Republicans say lighter regulation will unleash the economy. Some businesses and consumer groups are planning to push back in court, however, echoing legal disputes over executive actions on immigration, healthcare and the environment during Trump’s first term.

“People are recognizing that government has been too antiquated,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.). “We need to be able to move at the speed of China.”

Trump set a goal during his first term to eliminate two regulations for every new one. This time, he has said, he wants to slash 10 regulations for each new one. Retrenchment so extensive likely would require support in Congress that Democrats aren’t likely to provide.

Trump’s rule-cutting plans are taking shape at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an outside advisory group led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk and Ramaswamy plan to work with Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to leadthe Office of Management and Budget. Vought wants to dismantle what he calls the “administrative state,” and challenge career civil servants.

“The president has promised the American people a federal government that works for all Americans, not the interests of bureaucrats,” Vought said last week during his Senate confirmation hearing.

As OMB director during the first Trump’ administration, Vought helped craft Schedule F, an executive order Trump issued in October 2020 to eliminate job protections for federal workers.  The Biden administration blocked the order, but Trump is expected to reintroduce it with stricter return-to-office policies that could lead some federal workers to quit.

Republican lawmakers are rallying behind the government-shrinking effort. “We must streamline and reduce the administrative state to bring federal agencies back within the confines of their legislative mandates,” Cramer wrote in a letter to Musk and Ramaswamy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

President Biden’s executive orders and most recent policy changes figure as some of its most vulnerable initiatives as Trump assumes power. Republicans have decried Biden’s last-minute push to complete loans to renewable-energy projects.

Trump is expected to use a legislative tool known as the Congressional Review Act that allows the president, with the help of Congress, to undo rules enacted in the final months of the previous administration. He was the first president to use it widely, in his first administration.

“We are scrubbing right now to determine what is eligible,” for reconsideration under the act, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said Tuesday at an American Petroleum Institute meeting in Washington.

Republicans are also looking to pass the Reins Act, short for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, which the House approved in 2023, to curb Biden-era rules.

“I’m a huge fan of the Reins Act,” Thune said.

Trump has prepared a series of executive orders aimed at boosting American fossil fuels and undoing policies that favor electric vehicles.

Congress is expected to help Trump target Biden-era waivers for California to enact stricter limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles than the federal government’s. California aims to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. Rescinding the waiver would curb California’s influence over the car industry and set back efforts to boost EV sales.

Trump’s transition team has considered eliminating bank watchdogs such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That would require an act of Congress, including unlikely support from Democrats in the Senate.

Tim Scott (R., S.C.) last month criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Congress created after the financial crisis, for advancing rules shortly before Trump takes office. Musk said in an X post in November that the CFPB should be eliminated.

“There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” he wrote.

Crypto executives expect an end to Biden’s efforts to regulate the industry through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick to lead the SEC, runs a consultancy, Patomak Global Partners, that advises crypto companies.

Trump has said he plans to declare a national energy emergency on his first day in office, giving him broad powers to advance fossil fuels. He is preparing executive orders aimed at boosting fossil-fuel production and winding back parts of Biden’s clean-energy agenda.

“The president-elect’s day-one plan is to do everything he can to prioritize the wants of energy producers over the needs of American energy consumers,” said Rep. Sean Casten (D., Ill.).

North Dakota’s former Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department and a new National Energy Council, will push to make good on Trump’s campaign vow to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas. The council would consolidate unprecedented control over energy policy in the White House.

Burgum said at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday that rising demand for power, including from artificial-intelligence data centers, is straining the grid. “We are in an energy crisis in our country,” he said.

Republicans in Congress are also considering changes to a 1946 law that dogged Trump’s deregulatory efforts in his first term. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, federal agencies must provide notice before regulations are adopted or rescinded.

Courts found the Trump administration violated the act when it tried to remove rules on methane emissions, natural-gas waste and pesticides. Similar setbacks befell efforts to weaken rules on affordable housing and student loans.

To see this article in its entirety and to subscribe to others like it, please choose to read more.

Source: Trump Set to Start Slashing Regulations Across Government in Bonfire of Red Tape – WSJ