An April 5 memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provides federal agencies additional guidance on the implementation of Executive Order (EO) 13771, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Cost.” Commonly referred to as the “2 for 1” EO due to its requirement to offset any new regulation with the elimination of 2 existing regulations, the EO has been met with a lot of uncertainty about how it will be implemented.
The memorandum outlines many general considerations for implementation of, including initial guidelines on the evaluation criteria that result in a rule or other agency action falling under the EO and how to evaluate costs and benefits. In particular, benefits of existing regulations or other agency actions will have to be considered in any cost accounting under the EO, potentially making it difficult to repeal actions showing a large health or other economic benefit. The memorandum also identifies a number of issues – such as statutory requirements, national security interests, how to deal with cross agency actions or other special cases – that will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, adding significant uncertainty to the potential fate of many regulations.
Overall, the OMB memorandum provides a broad outline for carrying out requirements of EO 13771, but more detailed answers to many of the more nuanced questions about implementation will only be answered as specific regulations move towards promulgation.