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The Trump administration has launched a sweeping rollback of federal regulations, targeting rules enacted during the Biden and Obama administrations and shrinking the bureaucratic infrastructure that enforces them.
According to early analysis from regulatory expert Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the administration is not only pausing the issuance of new rules but also making significant progress on its goal to cut existing ones. Crews described the shift as a fundamental change in regulatory policy.
“What we’re witnessing is the rise of the ‘Unrule,’ a revolt against the machinery of the administrative state,” Crews said, according to the Washington Examiner.
Crews noted that many of the entries in the Federal Register this year are not new mandates, but are instead reversals, withdrawals or delays of prior regulations. He said the effort reflects a government-wide recognition that many regulations are not just unnecessary, but potentially harmful.
Among the most notable moves so far is the reversal of a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency rule aimed at mandating a shift to cleaner vehicles. The auto industry had warned that the requirement was unrealistic.
“Agencies are being defunded, downsized, and in some cases shuttered,” he said. “Guidance documents and sub-regulatory decrees — once used to bypass notice-and-comment rulemaking — are now in the crosshairs as well.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration aimed to eliminate two rules for every new one implemented. Crews noted that the administration ultimately exceeded that target with a nearly four-to-one ratio.
Now, with a second term underway, the administration appears committed to deepening its deregulatory agenda. Crews said the effort includes not only cutting rules but limiting the ability of unelected federal officials to impose new ones.
President Trump issued an executive order in January requiring all federal agencies to, for every new rule, regulation or guidance enacted, identify at least 10 existing ones to repeal. The Office of Management and Budget is to ensure that, over fiscal 2025, the total incremental cost of new regulations is significantly less than zero.
The initiative aims to reverse prior regulatory growth, reduce economic burdens attributed to Biden-era policy and promote entrepreneurship, innovation and consumer choice by lowering compliance costs and streamlining government oversight.
