By Morgan Phillips, Blake Burman | Fox News
President Trump announced an executive order Tuesday that aims to make hundreds of deregulations in the age of coronavirus permanent, something that would amount to a massive overhaul of regulatory policy.
“We’ve done far more regulation cutting than any president in history,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting ahead of signing the order.
Fox News is told the executive order tells regulatory agencies to look at more than 600 regulatory actions — mostly deregulations, but also regulations and guidance — taken during the coronavirus pandemic and tell the White House which ones should be made permanent.
“We had cases where it would take 20 years to build a highway, you had to go through various agencies to get the same permit,” the president said.
TRUMP THREATENS TO KEEP WHO FUNDING FREEZE IN PLACE AFTER WH INVESTIGATION
“If a bureaucratic rule needs to be suspended during a time of crisis to help the American people, we should ask ourselves if it makes sense to keep at all,” Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought told Fox Business.
The order will use emergency authority to figure out the best way to identify which other regulations still in place can be suspended to help jumpstart the economy. It will ask agencies which authorities they have to take action that would lead to putting people back to work, and that list should be sent to the OMB.
“Typically when our country has faced a crisis, Washington responds by grabbing more power. President Trump understands that to get the economy moving, the power needs to be given back to the people and entrepreneur,” Vought said.
The order also relaxes compliance measures overall. Agencies will be told not to over-enforce regulations on small businesses and nonprofits that are doing the best they can.
The Trump administration has used the pandemic to spur a deregulation campaign, notably removing regulations to telemedicine and removing barriers to accelerate coronavirus vaccine or cure development.
At the same time, Trump has also ruled back clean air and water restrictions and vehicle emissions standards enacted by the Obama administration.
