Washington Post: Trump Undertakes Most Ambitious Regulatory Rollback Since Reagan

By Juliet Eilperin:

After just a few weeks in office, the new administration is targeting dozens of Obama-era policies, using both legislative and executive tactics. The fallout is already rippling across the federal ­bureaucracy and throughout the U.S. economy, affecting how dentists dispose of mercury fillings, how schools meet the needs of poor and disabled students, and whether companies reject mineral purchases that fuel one of the world’s bloodiest conflicts.

The campaign has alarmed ­labor unions, public safety advocates and environmental activists, who fear losing regulations that have been in place for years, along with relatively new federal mandates. Business groups, however, are thrilled, saying Trump is­ responding to long-standing complaints that a profusion of federal regulations unnecessarily increases costs and hampers their ability to create jobs.

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Incoming agency officials are also signaling significant shifts in the way some industries are regulated. In November, the EPA sent out a lengthy request to nearly 20,000 oil and gas companies, asking them to gauge their emissions of methane within 60 or 180 days, depending on their facilities. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas linked to climate change.

Matthew Hite, who represents gas processors as vice president for government affairs at the GPA Midstream Association, called the request “unnecessary and duplicative” and estimated that complying would cost each processor nearly $3 million.

Since Trump took office, EPA officials have been granting companies that ask for it a 90-day extension. Several oil and gas officials said they expect the methane survey to be scaled back significantly or abandoned altogether.

Meanwhile, Michael S. Piwo­war, the acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he has instructed staff to determine whether it is “still appropriate” to require manufacturers to certify that they do not use minerals from conflict-ridden areas such as Congo, where armed groups accused of massive human rights violations profit from their trade.

Some major U.S. firms, including Intel and Tiffany & Co., have embraced the policy, but others have said complying with the disclosure rule is costly and complicated.

The Full Story (February 12, 2017)