Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Administration

2:1 Regulatory Executive Order Outlined

Posted on

Last week, President Trump signed issued an Executive Order requiring agencies to repeal at least two regs for every new reg and also capping the total compliance costs of any regulation issued in a given year.

The Administration has also issued interim guidance on the issue. The guidance clarifies that the two-for-one rule applies only to “significant” regulations, which in existing law is defined as any that that imposes an annual economic cost of $100 million or more. According to the guidance, agencies that plan to issue a “significant regulatory action” on or before Sep. 30, 2017 must first identify two existing regulatory actions the agency plans to eliminate or propose for elimination before the new regulation is issued. The agency must also “fully offset total incremental cost” of the new regulation “as of September 30, 2017.”

How will this become a reality? It is not yet clear, but the Office of Federal Relations will continue to monitor the progress.

For an overview, the Federal Register has an overview of the federal regulatory process here.

More Cabinet Posts, FY 2018 Budget Update

Posted on

It will continue to be a busy week for the House and Senate. Today, the Senate will continue to work on confirmations as four Cabinet positions – Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education, Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, Rep. Tom Price for Secretary of HHS, and Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of Treasury  – are up for full Senate consideration this week. Rep. Mike Mulvany (R-SC), Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is still working his way through the Senate, which could cause some budget complications for FY 2018 (see below). 

Senators are expected to move on a House-passed Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying a regulation curbing methane emissions from oil and gas wells on federal lands. Once passed, it will mark the third energy-related rule nullified by the Republican Congress. 

Today, the House continues efforts to stop regulations finalized by former President Barack Obama now focusing on the Department of Education. So far, lawmakers have introduced Congressional Review Act resolutions targeting the Obama Administration’s regulations governing teacher preparation programs as well as its accountability rule under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

It is the first Monday in February, which is technically Presidential Budget day. On the first Monday in February, the Administration is statutorily required to submit their budget request for the upcoming fiscal year (in this case FY 2018) to Congress. All recent Presidents (including Obama…multiple times) have missed the statutory deadline for budget submissions in their first year in office. There is no penalty for missing the date and a full budget proposal may not emerge from the White House until April or May.

While a delay in the budget submission is expected for a new Administration, virtually guarantees a delay in the entire FY 2018 appropriations process. Regardless of who controls Congress, lawmakers typically fail to get regular spending bills passed before the start of the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1. This year enjoys the particular complication of not having closed out FY 2017 with the current CR running until April 28th. Congress will have to address FY 2017 and immediately (or concurrently) FY 2018. 

 

DeVos Nomination Heads to Full Senate Vote

Posted on

Late Thursday/early Friday, the Senate cleared procedural hurdles that would bring the nomination of Betsy DeVos to the floor for a vote by the full Senate next week. A number of groups have argued against her nomination to become the Secretary of Education and two Republicans have recently stated that they will oppose her. With the current make-up of the Senate 52 to 48 in the Republicans’ favor, and with no Democrats expected to vote for DeVos, Vice President Mike Pence may be forced to cast the tie-breaking vote.

More Nominations Move Forward

Posted on

The Senate continues to make progress on more Trump Cabinet nominees. Both the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Budget committees voted to move forward the nomination of Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) to head the Office of Management and Budget on party-line votes.

In the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the majority used the same procedures employed by the Finance Committee Republicans to address a Democratic boycott of a vote on a nominee: the committee rules, which require at least two members from the minority party for a vote, were suspended and the nomination of Scott Pruitt as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency was approved by the majority. Thursday was the second day of a Democratic boycott of the committee.

Both nominations now head to the floor for consideration by the full Senate.

Pentagon to Revise FY2017 Budget Request

Posted on

The Department of Defense is preparing changes to its budget request for this current fiscal year (FY2017). In a memo, Secretary Mattis states that the department will seek changes to its original request, to address shortfalls in warfighting readiness and the accelerated campaign against ISIS. The new request will lead to a higher overall request for the agency for FY2017 and will likely lead to decreases or smaller increases in “lower priority” programs. It is unclear whether research programs will be impacted by the revised budget. The new request will be submitted by March 1.

The same memo states that the FY2018 budget request will be delivered by May 1 and will focus on “balancing the program, addressing pressing programmatic shortfalls, while continuing to build readiness.” Finally, a five-year plan (FY2019-2023) for the Pentagon will seek to push reforms, including horizontal integration across the agency.