Sorry, Rules Dont Dissolve by Decree.
Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2017, 01:49 AM - Edit history (1)
'Among the first of President Trump’s flurry of executive orders were a pair targeting the federal government for an overhaul. Hours after his inauguration, his administration issued an order freezing federal rule-making pending an administration review, quickly followed by an order freezing federal employee hiring in most nonmilitary agencies.
Speaking with corporate chief executives last week, Mr. Trump said he aims to cut the number of federal regulations by 75 percent. He has said this before, his promise soaring as high as 80 percent.
Most incoming administrations promise to streamline government, and most also freeze last-minute rules that their predecessors have been unable to finalize. Mr. Trump’s blanket federal hiring freeze is a proven loser tried by presidents of both parties, and his talk of slashing most regulations is pure fantasy.
Unfinished Obama rules swept up in the freeze include regulations aimed at making certain appliances more energy efficient, save consumers money and reduce greenhouse gases.
Unfinished rules, however, are the easy prey. Cutting three-quarters of the 90,000 federal regulations already on the books is sheer folly. To roll back even one rule requires a whole new rule-making procedure — writing a draft rule, taking public comment, writing a final rule, more comment, and so on — that takes many months. The process, while imperfect, is designed to prevent a president or Congress from capriciously slashing regulations which, after all, were created to protect Americans, their workplaces and environment. . .
Can Mr. Trump do better? The prospects are poor. He appears to have little understanding of how the federal government is organized and functions, and his skeletal staff is still trying to learn. He hasn’t yet appointed people to lead most of the agencies affected by these changes, and his “beachhead teams,” 600 people who began meeting with federal agencies last week, have so little government experience that they can’t provide much guidance.
Mr. Trump relishes his boldface proclamations. “President Trump Takes Action,” his news releases say. He’s been signing his executive orders on TV, holding them up and explaining them aloud, like story hour in the Oval Office. Maybe these pledges will actually streamline government in a positive way, instead of undermining it, as the ideologues around the president seem to want. But so far, they are mainly show.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/opinion/sorry-rules-dont-dissolve-by-decree.html?
