Federal agencies moved quickly to finalize regulations before Trump took office

January 26th, 2017 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

The changeover from the Barack Obama administration to that of Donald Trump was made official on Jan. 20. That date marked the end of a hurried period of activity for several federal agencies, including some that believed the new administration would be less sympathetic toward their current courses of action. A large number of new rules and regulations were submitted for publishing in The Federal Register before Inauguration Day, with The Hill noting a total of almost 1,500 pages of rules were sent to the official record on Jan. 19.

A scramble before the freeze
A spokesperson for The Federal Register told The Hill the total page count on the day before the inauguration was one of the largest ever for the publication in its history. The average page count for a volume of the guide to federal rulemaking, notices and documents are about 300 pages. This increase was in some ways the continuation of a trend that emerged following the 2016 presidential election: From Nov. 9 through Jan. 19, there were 13 instances of the Register containing a page count at least double its average size in 2015.

After such vigorous rulemaking, one of the first actions of the Trump administration was a complete freeze on the progress of pending regulations until they can be reviewed. There are also actions Trump can take to roll back existing rules, either with the help of Congress or through a direct order of the executive branch. While the second tactic isn't effective against rules based on legislation passed by Congress, the political alignment of the two branches means there could be plenty of cooperation to roll back rules that are contrary to the aims of Congress and the president.

For EHS professionals, the push means there may be plenty of new rules to contend with from the likes of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation and plenty of other agencies. The question now becomes which new rules related to health and safety, environmental concerns and many other topics will survive and which will be removed through various mechanisms of action.

For those struggling to keep up with these changes, Dakota Software offers a unique solution for establishing and maintaining regulatory compliance. Our team of analysts continually review The Federal Register, highlight relevant changes, and translates these changes into a plain-text library. This regulatory database helps Dakota users stay aware of changes while clarifying complexsubject matter for EHS auditing and proactive compliance planning. Click here to learn more.