Agencies Directed to Rank Regulations for Culling

A February 18 executive order lays out classification criteria for regulations with an aim towards picking those to amend or eliminate. It directs agency heads to prioritize significant regulations. The criteria (bit.ly/4hMpn44) include both constitutional/legal and economic/policy questions.

The constitutional/legal criteria, listed first, involve:

• General constitutionality and "serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution."
• "Unlawful delegations of legislative power."
• Reading of the statutory authority or prohibition.
• "Regulations that implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority."

A view that might get applied on CPSC matters is the idea that it can exercise (and thus usurp) legislative power when setting rules, especially those not explicitly and narrowly required by statute. There also is the now frequent assertion that the agency itself – and thereby its activity – is unconstitutional under its current structure involving commissioners that cannot be fired at will.

The economic/policy criteria involve:

• Cost/benefit considerations.
• Impediments to various issues like technological innovation, inflation reductions, infrastructure development, foreign-policy, and numerous others.
• Effects on small businesses.

Another executive order issued the day before (see related story) asserted power to dictate legal and policy decisions at independent agencies, so CPSC's submission presumably would be subject to possible amendment.

Significant regulations are defined as in the past, involving economic effects, interference with other agencies, budget effects, legal questions, and presidential priorities. One that is frequently cited is annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more. Criteria are defined in a 1993 executive order (bit.ly/4gNICJm) and a follow-up 2011 order (bit.ly/4baDI7L).