🎧 Listen to the summary:
The administration’s deregulatory campaign is a clear, unapologetic bid to clear away the accumulated regulatory thicket that has slowed investment and stifled growth. Its flagship requirement — that agencies remove at least ten existing federal regulations for every new rule they issue — is not symbolism but a hard discipline: a tangible, enforceable reset that forces tradeoffs and produces measurable relief for businesses trying to move forward. Framed as a cost‑cutting, pro‑investment agenda, the policy is deliberately simple, decisive, and designed to make permitting swifter, expand energy supply, and cut the paperwork that keeps capital on the sidelines.
That decisiveness is embedded in an architecture of executive orders and internal deadlines that rewire how Washington writes rules. A January directive established the “10‑for‑1” mandate with the explicit aim of keeping net regulatory costs negative within the current fiscal year. OMB reinforced that imperative with guidance that dramatically compresses central review: deregulatory actions get 28 days of review, and items labeled “facially unlawful” can move under deadlines as short as 14 days. Even details like per‑column Federal Register publishing fees have been enlisted to speed repeals. This is governance that trades caution for momentum — intentionally raising speed and stakes to deliver growth.
Energy policy is where the administration’s willingness to accept hard choices is most visible. An April order put a one‑year expiration on many existing energy regulations, creating a presumptive sunset at the end of fiscal 2026 unless an agency actively renews a rule. That approach forces agencies to justify costs and modernize standards instead of accreting new layers onto old frameworks. The consequence is a cleansed regulatory landscape that can unlock investment and buildout — and it comes with real risks: the accelerated timetable increases the chance of drafting errors, legal gaps, and judicial scrutiny. Those risks are not ignored; they are treated as necessary friction in a program determined to break ossified practices.
The machinery of deregulation reaches into both process and personnel. Inside the Department of Government Efficiency, an AI‑enabled scanner combs the Code of Federal Regulations and agency handbooks to flag items for removal. Officials map out roughly 200,000 regulatory entries and have set an ambitious target to strike about half — with pilot deletions already underway at HUD and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The tool speeds identification, but it misreads statutory language at times, producing miscues that must be corrected by human teams. Those manual edits cost precious hours under compressed deadlines. Far from undermining the program, these burdens are demonstrations of scale: eliminating hundreds of thousands of rules is a heavy lift that inevitably generates clean‑up work, and the administration has accepted that cost as part of executing at speed.
Personnel decisions have been equally purposeful. Reporting has documented rapid staffing shifts and cuts at financial and labor regulators in early 2025; at the CFPB, a plan to shrink a roughly 1,700‑person workforce to a few hundred was significant enough to draw a federal court pause and an order for document production ahead of hearings. Reorganized enforcement units and lighter supervisory staffing translate directly into lower near‑term compliance burdens for firms — a deliberate effect. The trade‑off is obvious: fewer career examiners and counsel mean a thinner bench to craft the legal records that sustain sweeping rollbacks in court. The administration accepts this as a strategic sacrifice — short‑run relief to catalyze private‑sector activity, while acknowledging the increase in litigation risk and institutional strain.
Artificial intelligence policy exemplifies the campaign’s broader posture: nimble, assertive, and internationally minded. The AI Action Plan pares back several prior safeguards, seeks to preempt a patchwork of state laws, and prioritizes rapid data‑center and power infrastructure buildout by carving out environmental exemptions and fast‑tracking permits. It insists federal models be “ideologically neutral” and couples domestic deregulation with an export strategy that bundles chips, software, and standards. Supporters argue — plausibly — that lighter regulation is a competitive advantage that helps U.S. firms sell more, sooner. The costs are apparent: preemption centralizes decision‑making in the executive branch and raises the possibility of clashes with foreign regimes that prefer more restrictive rules. Again, this is framed as deliberate: to win in global markets, the country must accept short‑term frictions and intensified diplomatic negotiation.
Implementation shortcuts are explicit and unapologetic. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, rule rescission traditionally involves notice, public comment, and reasoned responses. The new guidance narrows and accelerates those steps: agencies are encouraged to invoke “good cause” to limit comment periods, and compressed OIRA timelines telescope interagency consultation. The benefit is immediate — reduced waiting times for businesses seeking relief — and the downside is equally clear: a heightened litigation risk should a court determine that records were underdeveloped or labels overbroad. Several deregulatory moves have already been blocked or stayed in court. That pushback is not an argument for paralysis; it is, in the administration’s framing, the normal counterweight to bold action.
The most visible consequences appear in sectoral balances. Energy developers gain from sunsets and faster publication; environmental and public‑health advocates warn compressed windows can curtail public input and increase downstream costs if rollbacks are later vacated. Financial firms see lighter oversight as enforcement teams are reorganized, which may mean fewer policed fee and disclosure rules in the interim. Technology companies get the clarity of national preemption and an export‑friendly posture, even as they must reconcile divergent rules abroad. These shifts lower near‑term compliance costs and stimulate investment, while creating longer‑term uncertainty — a deliberate tension the administration claims is preferable to long‑term stagnation.
Practical contradictions are acknowledged rather than smoothed over. The ten‑for‑one accounting creates internal counting exercises that themselves add review layers even as public comment windows shorten. Projected public savings rely on tighter analysis from fewer staff, and the AI deletion tool generates its own audit trail that lawyers must defend. All of these are concrete sacrifices of administrative bandwidth. They are not accidental but the price of ambition: a concentrated workload in fewer hands on a faster clock, chosen to produce measurable deregulation and economic momentum.
Calendars and memos make the path forward explicit. OMB has set 14‑ and 28‑day review windows for deregulatory actions, energy rules carry a presumptive September 30, 2026, sunset, and agencies are expected to update priorities in the Unified Agenda. Courts, Congress, and watchdogs will shape the tempo; legal challenges will test how far accelerated procedures can go. That scrutiny is welcome: it is the necessary crucible for a policy that refuses to preserve the status quo. The administration is betting — confidently — that the short‑term costs, trade‑offs, and legal fights are the proof that it means business: decisive, orderly, and willing to pay the price to pry open growth.
—
Tom Blake writes on markets, trade policy, and the government’s role in private enterprise. He studied economics at George Mason University and spent six years as a policy advisor for a business coalition before turning to financial journalism. His work examines the real-world impact of regulations, subsidies, and federal economic planning.
