Critics Question Trump's Deregulatory EO, But Backers Tout 'Fairness'

摘要

Posted May 28, 2020 Critics of President Donald Trump's latest deregulatory executive order (EO) are questioning whether it will drive significant new EPA rollbacks without encountering major legal problems, though supporters are highlighting another aspect that imposes a series of principles designed to ensure "fairness" in enforcement actions.Trump's EO 13924, signed May 19, which urges EPA and other agency heads to scale back existing rules, make permanent temporary waivers and take other steps to boost the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. It also directs agencies to revise their enforcement procedures to align with nine new "principles of fairness in administrative enforcement," with one conservative legal group arguing this step will help prevent''alleged abuses by EPA and other agencies. Yet, environmentalists and others that oppose the administration's deregulatory policies charge the order will have little on-the-ground effect and might be aimed more at election-year messaging. "What are you going to do? Are you going to review the whole suite of statutes and regulations that you implement and that you've spent three-and-a-half years rolling back, and then you're going to try and get more blood from a stone? And then try to accomplish that feat by 2021? It's not going to be possible," said John Walke with the Natural Resources Defense Council, according to a report in The Hill.