Leash comes off Wall Street, gun sellers, miners and more
WASHINGTON — Telecommunications giants like Verizon and AT&T will not have to take “reasonable measures” to ensure that their customers’ Social Security numbers, web browsing history and other personal information are not stolen or accidentally released.
Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will not be punished for not collecting extra money from customers to cover potential losses from certain kinds of high-risk trades that helped unleash the 2008 financial crisis.
And Social Security Administration data will no longer be used to block individuals with disabling mental health issues from buying handguns, nor will hunters be banned from using lead-based bullets, which can accidentally poison wildlife, on 150 million acres of federal lands.
These are just a few of the more than 90 regulations that federal agencies and the Republican-controlled Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed in the month and a half since President Donald Trump took office, according to a tally by The New York Times.
The emerging effort — dozens of additional rules could be eliminated in the coming weeks — represents one of the most significant shifts in regulatory policy in decades. It is the leading edge of what Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, described late last month as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
In many cases, the changes came after appeals by corporate lobbyists and trade association executives, who see a historic opportunity to lower costs and drive up profits. Slashing regulations, they argue, will unleash economic growth.
On a near daily basis, regulated industries are sending in specific requests to the Trump administration for more rollbacks, including appeals from 17 automakers to rescind an agreement to increase mileage standards, and another from pharmaceutical industry figures to reverse a rule that tightens scrutiny over the marketing of prescription drugs for unapproved uses. As of Friday, word had leaked that the automakers’ request for a rollback was about to be granted, too.
“After a relentless, eight-year regulatory onslaught that loaded unprecedented burdens on businesses and the economy, relief is finally on the way,” Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote last week.
But dozens of public interest groups — environmentalists, labor unions, consumer watchdogs — have sounded the alarm about the threat to Americans’ well-being. “Americans did not vote to be exposed to more health, safety, environmental and financial dangers,” said one letter, signed by leaders of 137 nonprofit groups and sent to the White House.
In other cases, the Obama-era rules have drawn objections even from some liberal groups that called them examples of overreach, like the American Civil Liberties Union’s protest of a system to block mentally ill people from buying guns.
The regulatory retrenchment is unfolding on multiple fronts.
Congress, with Trump’s approval, has erased three Obama-era rules in the last month, lifting regulations related to coal mining and oil and gas exploration, as well as the sale of guns to the mentally ill. More than 25 additional rules could also be erased in the coming weeks, with the House having voted to eliminate nearly half of them.
Trump separately has signed executive orders directing agencies to pursue the reversal of other rules, including a requirement that financial advisers act in the interest of their clients, and a rule aimed at protecting drinking water from pollution.
Ajit Pai, a Republican whom Trump recently named FCC chairman, also has made clear that he intends to push to roll back or abandon several other major rules, including the landmark net neutrality regulation intended to ensure equal access to content on the internet, as well as efforts to keep prison phone rates down and a proposal to break open the cable box market.
The efforts have been praised by telecommunications giants, like Comcast, but condemned by consumer advocates.