While the Chamber applauds the President’s attempt to “jawbone” independent agencies into examining their regulations for burdensome or outdated rules, it seems as though his demands come as a plea rather than an order.

If the administration was serious about making independent agencies identify and eliminate unnecessary rules, they would subject them to the “look back” provisions under Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980.  Requiring independent agencies to comply with these provisions would  target roughly 90% of the rules causing concern for employers.

Rather than issuing an order agencies can dismiss and ignore, to truly identify and eliminate burdensome, costly, and unnecessary regulations, the administration only needs to require independent agencies to comply with existing law.  Unfortunately, this route the administration chose to pursue is an order in name only.