The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump rolls back many Obama-era regulations
Rules on topics from internet privacy to student loans removed.
resident Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been defined more by what he’s undone than what he’s done.
Gone, with the stroke of Trump’s pen or publication of a memo, are a host of Obama-era rules.
A policy that limited student loan fees is out. So is a rule against internet providers selling consumer data without the user’s permission and one that prohibited states from withholding federal funds from Planned Parenthood. And so on.
Trump may have been thwarted so far in his bid to repeal Obamacare, restrict travel from majority-Muslim nations or build a wall on the southern border. But he’s been a rousing success in his little-noticed but aggressive drive to undo rules and regulations imposed during the presidency of his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama.
“We’ve lifted one terrible regulation after another at a record clip, from the energy sector to the auto sector, and we have many more to go,” Trump said last week.
Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has delayed or outright repealed a multitude of Obama-era regulations that affect everything from workers’ exposure to cancer-causing substances to hunters’ rights to kill bear or wolf cubs in national wildlife refuges. Among the changes: ■ Employers can no longer be held accountable for keeping accurate workplace injury records for at least five years.
■ Student loan companies can levy hefty fees on borrowers trying to get out of default.
■ Internet service providers can collect and sell information about customers’ browsing habits without their permission.
■ About 75,000 mentally ill people determined by the Social Security Administration to be incapable of handling their own finances won’t be barred from purchasing guns.
■ Coal companies don’t have to obey new restrictions on pollution, nor do they have to monitor water quality in nearby streams.
■ Federal contractors won’t have to disclose safety, health and labor violations prior to being awarded government contracts, a requirement companies have criticized as a “blacklisting rule.”
■ Publicly traded oil, gas and mining companies won’t have to disclose payments to foreign governments.
■ Financial advisers get a reprieve from stricter standards designed to prevent conflicts of interest when they make investment recommendations to people saving for retirement.
To make the biggest impact as quickly as possible, Trump’s administration has relied on a combination of administrative actions, in the form of memos or policy pronouncements, and what had been a rarely used federal law, the Congressional Review Act. The law allows members of Congress to override an outgoing administration’s recently issued federal regulations with a simple majority vote and the president’s signature.
Before Trump took office, the 1996 law had been used only once, by President George W. Bush to revoke ergonomics standards put into place under President Bill Clinton.
In his first 100 days, Trump, working with Republicans in Congress, has used the law to kill more than a dozen Obama regulations, many of which had taken years to put into place.
The consequences are far-reaching because the Congressional Review Act prohibits any “substantially similar” regulations from being issued ever again without Congress’ authorization.
The law doesn’t apply to rules that weren’t recently issued, however. In those cases, the Trump administration kept the rules from going into effect, at least temporarily.
That’s what happened to two regulations issued by Obama that dramatically lowered legal limits on workers’ exposure to silica and beryllium, both cancer-causing toxins. In both cases, the Trump administration pushed back the deadlines for companies to comply with the new safety measures.
“These were not midnight rules that came out of nowhere. These are rules that came out of a decades-long process that finally were issued to put stronger protections in place,” said Peg Semanario, director of safety and health at the AFL-CIO. “We’re very, very deeply concerned.”
Semanario said unions also worried that the Trump administration would decline to defend the exposure limits in legal battles with industry, as it already had done with other Obama-issued rules.
The White House says Trump’s actions follow through on his campaign White House spokeswoman pledge to do away with costly and job-killing regulations in order to boost economic growth. That means not just revoking or freezing existing rules, but also discouraging the creation of new ones.
To that end, Trump signed an executive order that requires agencies to find two rules to eliminate for every new one created.
“President Trump is setting the tone for a new era of government regulation through his historic deregulatory agenda, from his ‘1 in, 2 out’ executive order to the unprecedented number of legislation signed under the Congressional Review Act,” Natalie Strom, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. “The Trump administration will continue to take a hard look at regulations until our system better serves its dual roles of protecting the environment while maintaining a thriving economy.”
A chemical attack that killed scores of Syrian civilians, including children, apparently helped Trump realize the weight he bears as leader of the most powerful country.
Following the April 4 attack, Trump initially blamed Obama for not acting against Syrian President Bashar Assad after Obama said the use of chemical weapons was a red line Assad should not cross. But at a news conference, Trump was asked whether he now had the responsibility to respond.
“I now have responsibility. And I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly, I will tell you that,” he said.
Trump said images of “innocent children, innocent babies” who had been gassed “crossed a lot of lines for me” and was causing him to rethink his approach to Syria’s civil war, which he had largely ignored until then.
Days later, Trump ordered a barrage of Tomahawk missiles into the Syrian airfield from which the U.S. believes the deadly attack was launched.
GORSUCH ON THE SUPREME COURT
Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was perhaps the biggest accomplishment in Trump’s first 100 days.
It amounted to wins in the legislative and judicial branches, energized Trump’s base and could be the achievement with the longest-lasting impact.
Gorsuch is 49, and his lifetime appointment means he could influence rulings on America’s highest court for decades. The former judge on the Denver-based U.S. appeals court became the fifth conservative-leaning judge on the nine-member court.
Elevating Gorsuch came with a price. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had to change Senate rules to allow Gorsuch and future Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed with just a simple majority vote in the 100-member Senate instead of 60. Gorsuch was confirmed 54-45.
“I have always heard that the selection and the affirmation of a Supreme Court judge is the biggest thing a president can do,” Trump said.