More pushback to President Trump's use of executive orders and a lawsuit to go with it. Trump is being sued over his directive that federal agencies repealed two regulations for every new rule they put on the books. Do you remember last Monday when Trump signed the order in front of small business representatives. If you have a regulation you want number one, We're not going to approve it because
it's already been approved, probably in seventeen different forms. But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulations. To advocacy groups and a union claim that Trump's order exceeds his constitutional authority, requires arbitrary actions by agencies and will be harmful to the American public. Our guests are Gregory Warro, professor at Columbia University, and Brian Mannox,
professor at George Washington University. Gregory Trump has vowed to repeal sent of all federal regulations, which is a heavy lift consider there are more than a hundred and seventy eight thousand rules on the books. But is this the legal way to do that? Well, there are different components to the executive order, and UH I'm not sure that all of them will survive judicial judicial scrutiny. I think the especially the two for one part of it just
seems to be odd and unenforceable. UM. But I think you know, there there's there's certainly a legal basis for what he has done, and there's precedent for an attempt like this to reduce the introduction of new regulations UM. Ronald Reagan famously introduced regulatory review UM within a few months and starting his presidency. And you know, that's widely attributed to the slowdown in regulations that we saw during the Reagan administration. It wasn't a Reagan was was, you know,
campaign heavily on the idea of regular Tory reform. I wouldn't say that, you know, he really cut back regulations. He certainly reduced the rate of new regulations being added to the books. UM. So it's I think it's highly unlikely that Trump will be successful either with this regulatory review that he's instituting or other kinds of reform to to reduce regulations to the extent that he's claiming he will. Brian, what do you think about that? Do you think that this, uh,
either this Executive Order. Are the things that Donald Trump is doing is going to be effective at reducing regulations. Uh, it's certainly a big challenge. Uh. And Uh, it's true. Is something that strikes me is unrealistic. Um. But it's not just Ronald Reagan who has tried this before. Jimmy Carter in Executive Word twelve or four four asked the agencies to review old regulations and recent ones that were obsolete.
Other presidents have done it. Barack Obama did it. He claimed to be institutionalizing rich respective review of regulations in Executive Order. Let me see, I think it was one three five six three. Um. But the problem is in the past, the agencies uh tend to ignore this. Um. They did a little bit under Ronald Reagan to slow down the pace. Under Obama, they they made some motions to look at old regulations for maybe a year, and then the effort peter out. They went back to, you know,
full throttle on on issuing new regulations. UM. So it's hard for any president to to change that dynamic. UM. I think what's different about this executive order is that the president's directing the agencies to work on deregulation as much as a new regulation or maybe more um. And he intends to measure them and hold them accountable for that. So that's how I think of the two for one rule. Uh, that he wants his appointees to be working on de
regulation and he will know if they're not gregory. I want to go back to the two for one because that seems to be what's most unusual about this. And he's requiring agencies new rules to have a net cost of zero dollars a year. So the plaintiffs, particularly the president of the Communication Workers of America, said that workers shouldn't be required to trade off one set of job health or safety protections in order to get protection from
perhaps another equally dangerous condition. Can he enforce the two for one rule. I think that would be very hard to do. Uh. You know, my sense is that it makes a better sound bite than it does for sound policy. UM. And you know, just the idea that that uh you know, if I if I'm a bureaucrat and I have the kind of expertise that bureaucrats have, I can find rules
that are relatively minor. If I want to create a new one, I can find two relative of the minor ones to to repeal that will you know that will will will put me in compliance with this UH, with this executive order. UH. You know the zero costs provision in the executive order. UM, that strikes me as kind of like the UH you know, the idea behind the balanced budget amendment that basically, you know, if you're going to increase spending, you've got to you've got to either
increase revenue or cut or cut spending somewhere else. UM. And and you know the idea that that UH, that that these regulations somehow I have to have zero costs. I think it's I think it's probably not enforceable. What I do think the order might be effective at doing is is basically giving UH agencies pause when they try to issue new regulations. So you know, my senses that what past presidents have done is they've just made it
harder to issue new regulations. UM, not necessarily preventing or agencies from issuing new regulations or forcing them to scale back regulations. And it just kind of raises the bar. It it adds some new hoops that that agencies have to jump through. UM. Whether this will withstand judicial scrutiny, I mean that that's an entirely different, entirely different question, Brian.
It strikes me that maybe this lawsuit is premature and that maybe it would have a better chance after an agency resends a regulation and explains it by saying, oh, we had to resend this regulation plus another one because we wanted to enact this new regulation in another area. Do you agree with my analysis there? That is absolutely true. I think this this particular lawsuit will fail on ripeness
and standing grounds. Um. It doesn't actually do anything to anybody. Uh. In contrast to travel band executive order, whether are people suffering immediate and concrete injuries? You know, maybe that the President has a strong, stronger legal case there on the merits, but there were you know, an injured individuals who had justiciable claims to bring to a court. Um. So it's not surprising that executive order went there. But I don't think the court will take this case. And even if
they passed those hurdles. Uh. You know, the executive order includes all the usual caveats unless prohibited by law, to the extent permitted by law. All that language is in there, and so there's nothing facially in the order that the court could use to set it aside, especially with you know, a newly elected president just taking charge of the government.
It would be extraordinary for a court to come in and say no, no, you can't touch the regular street agencies and give them guidance on the stuff you just ran for and got elected president. So I don't think this will go anywhere, but I think it is a roadmap to future challenges, and in many ways, I think it may be designed to encourage future challenges, just like the resist banner that Green Peace Unfur old over Washington
after rought after the inauguration. I think this is an indication to agencies if you don't want Donald Trump interfering with your regulatory program, make sure to put the right arguments into the rule making records so we can bring these arguments into court. I just had a quick question for you, freg because um, it's a it's we're running
out of time, about thirty seconds. But a draft report to Congress from the White House o MB estimated the annual benefits from all major regulations over the past ten years were between two hundred sixty nine and eight hundred seventy two billion, while the costs were between seventy four billion and one billion. So is there a real danger in having these kinds of regulations or do they help sometimes?
I think there's no doubt that regulations help sometimes. But you know, uh, you know, it's very easy to paint this as as a black and white issue. The regulations are bad and we should deregulate. But you know, those regulations are there for the reason, and there's a process by which those regulations get adopted. It's not there that they're just made out out of thin air, uh, And so agencies have to justify the issue of new regulations.
And so it's it's just not the case that that agencies do this frivolously or or in an in an ad hoc manner, despite what some politicians might portray agency behavior as we will have to leave it at their Thank you. Gregory Wiro, Professor Columbia University and Brian Mannix, Professor at George Washington University. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, Anthem's forty eight billion dollar deal to buy Signa blocked by a federal judge. This is Bloomberg