President Trump issued three executive orders (EO) that will impact agencies responsible for energy and environmental regulations.
They will:
• Require agencies to incorporate a sunset provision into regulations governing energy production, thus requiring those agencies to reexamine the regulations periodically.
• Require agencies to identify and repeal any regulations that are unlawful, prioritizing regulations that are contrary to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
• Require agencies to identify for modification or repeal any regulation that is anticompetitive.
Periodic Review of Energy Regulation
The Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy EO directs ten agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Department of Interior (DOI), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to issue a sunset rule that inserts a conditional sunset date into virtually all energy-related regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations not later than September 30, 2026.
All new energy-related regulations must have a five-year conditional sunset date.
Prior to the conditional sunset date for each regulation, the agencies can seek public comment on the regulation’s costs and benefits and then extend the conditional sunset date for up to five more years, if warranted.
Actions taken under this EO do not count towards the ten-for-one regulatory requirement in President Trump’s earlier deregulatory executive order.
Repealing Unlawful Regulations
The Memorandum Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations builds on Executive Order 14219 (the “DOGE” executive order) that gave agencies 60 days to identify unlawful regulations and regulations that undermine the national interest. This memorandum directs agencies to prioritize the repeal of regulations that were promulgated in reliance on now-superseded U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The memorandum identifies 10 recent Supreme Court decisions that modified the scope of agency authority, including Loper Bright (overturning the Chevron doctrine), West Virginia v. EPA (establishing the major questions doctrine), Sackett (revising the scope of “waters of the United States”), and Students for Fair Admission (striking down affirmative action admission programs).
The memorandum directs agencies to immediately repeal regulations determined to be unlawful under the 10 Supreme Court decisions, without notice and comment. It interprets the Administrative Procedure Act’s “good cause” exception to allow agencies to dispense with the usual notice-and-comment rulemaking process for repealing regulations.
Rescinding Anticompetitive Regulations
The Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers EO directs agencies, in consultation with the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General, to identify regulations that facilitate the creation of monopolies, create barriers to entry, limit competition, or create licensure or accreditation requirements that unduly limit competition.
Agencies must submit a list of such regulations with recommendations on whether to rescind or modify the regulation.
There will be an opportunity for public comment on the identification of anticompetitive regulations and proposed actions.
