Regulatory Transactions

From: The National Law Review

Article By Anna Claire Skinner, Carolyn M. Brown | Dinsmore & Shohl LLP

From: Notice & Comment | A Blog from the Yale Journal on Regulation and the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice

by Andrew M. Grossman

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In the main, the Trump Administration has acted through executive orders to build upon the regulatory reform efforts of previous administrations, including cost-benefit analysis and centralized review through the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA. What is remarkable about Trump’s Executive Order 13,777, unwieldily entitled “Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” is the great degree of continuity it represents with the practices of previous administrations, including with the Clinton Administration’s Executive Order 12,866 regarding regulatory planning and review and the Obama Administration’s Executive Order 13,563 regarding retrospective review. In general, it maintains the regulatory review process and central cost-benefit criterion of previous administrations.

From: JD Supra

Lindsay DiSalvo |Conn Maciel Carey LLP

This week the Department of Labor (“DOL”) submitted a proposed rulemaking that would rescind the regulation commonly termed the “Persuader Rule” to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Transparency (“OIRA”) for review.  The DOL, through its Office of Labor-Management Standards (“OLMS”), promulgated the Persuader Rule during the last year of the Obama Administration and received vehement opposition from the employer community due to its impact on access to legal advice and counsel.  If OIRA approves the proposed rulemaking, the next step is for the DOL to publish it in the Federal Register for public review and comment.  The DOL will then consider and evaluate the comments it receives and decide how to proceed with the rulemaking.  Although the outcome is not guaranteed due to the pending comment process, this is an essential step toward eliminating the Persuader Rule.

From: Pensions & Investments

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Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chairman of the Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, in a statement called the safe harbors “a misguided regulatory loophole that would discourage small businesses from providing retirement benefits and put the hard-earned savings of workers at risk.”

Mr. Walberg chaired a subcommittee hearing Thursday on regulatory barriers to retirement saving, including what he called the “flawed fiduciary rule” from the Department of Labor that becomes effective June 9. . . .

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In a meeting sponsored by the Federalist Society on May 17, 2017 Professor David Vladek of Georgetown University law school made two observations:

(1)  That there is no need for the REINS Act given the Congressional Review Act, and

(2)  That the Reagan Executive Order 12291, which instituted government-wide centralized regulatory review is, along with the APA, one of the two most influential documents of the regulatory state. (N. B. Centralized Regulatory Review began in the Nixon Administration, was given statutory support by Carter[Paperwork Reduction Act] and went government-wide[Reagan])

From: RT&S

Sec. Chao: Infrastructure plan coming soon

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor

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Sec. Chao also reiterated the administration’s belief that regulation rather than a lack of funding is the reason behind stalled infrastructure progress. The U.S. Department of Transportation has initiated an internal regulatory review process, which will be tasked with identifying steps to reduce the regulatory burden to speed processes along.

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From: NACS | The Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing

The controversial rule could impact convenience stores near or touching protected water if it’s not repealed.

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sent its proposal for overturning the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule to the Trump administration, Politico reports. The White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs will review the proposal that would repeal the Obama administration’s controversial water mandate.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works held a hearing on WOTUS, which would subject convenience stores near or touching protected water to special permitting and Clean Water Act requirements.

From: The National Law Review

Article By Stephania C. Sanon, Stephanie E. Lewis | Jackson Lewis P.C.

Editor’s Note: The Executive Order Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy may be found here in the Trump Regulation Library.

From: The National Law Review

Article By Michael D. Farber,R. Scott Nuzum, Jonathan D. Simon,Van Ness Feldman LLP

On April 28, 2017, President Donald J. Trump—flanked by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Representative Donald Young, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, and others—signed an Executive Order (EO) intended to fundamentally revise federal offshore oil and gas policies. The EO, entitled “An America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” constitutes a significant first step by the Trump Administration to follow through on the President’s campaign promise to “[o]pen . . . offshore leasing on federal lands,” which, in turn, was part of the President’s broader commitment that the United States “[b]ecome, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] or any nations hostile to our interests.”