The order requires covered agencies such as the FTC and SEC to submit all proposed and final regulatory actions to prior review by OMB. Image: Andriy Blokhin/Shutterstock.com
President Trump has issued an executive order asserting greater White House control over the budgets, policies and regulatory actions of independent agencies—those not under a Cabinet department and often headed by a board rather than an individual.
“These regulatory agencies currently exercise substantial executive authority without sufficient accountability to the President, and through him, to the American people. Moreover, these regulatory agencies have been permitted to promulgate significant regulations without review by the President,” it says.
Neither the memo nor an accompanying fact sheet provide a list of covered agencies, although the latter specifies that the FCC, FTC and SEC as included and the monetary functions of the Federal Reserve Board as excluded.
It requires covered agencies to submit all proposed and final regulatory actions to prior review by OMB, which further would review their spending “for consistency with the President’s policies and priorities.” OMB could “prohibit independent regulatory agencies from expending appropriations on particular activities, functions, projects, or objects, so long as such restrictions are consistent with law.”
Those agencies will now also have to submit their strategic plans for prior OMB review, establish a position of White House liaison and “regularly consult with and coordinate policies and priorities” with the White House.
Those agencies further may not “advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General,” it says.
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