Responding To OMB’s RFI, AmFree Heralds Trump Administration’s Deregulatory Agenda, Calls It Critical To Achieving The President’s “Golden Age”
Washington D.C. – Today, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree Chamber) responded to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’) “Request for Information: Deregulation” with nine specific suggestions of regulations to be withdrawn, repealed, or replaced.
Read the entire RFI here:
“Achieving President Trump’s Golden Age of America requires an aggressive regulatory rollback that gets the long arms of the federal government away from the engines of free enterprise,” said Gentry Collins, CEO of the AmFree Chamber. “President Trump vowed to implement the most aggressive regulatory reduction in history, and we believe these eight areas are sensible places to start after four long years of the regulatory overreach of the Biden Administration.”
The nine initial regulations identified by AmFree Chamber for rollback include:
- Guidelines and Limitations for Settlement Agreements Involving Payments to Non Governmental Third Parties: This rule from the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) enables the federal government to negotiate third-party payment settlement agreements, including Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs”), which lead to the priorities of special interest groups being advanced over those of the United States and the public.
- Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles: This Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) regulation attempts to force electrification of the American automobile and truck fleets by imposing fleet-average emissions standards so stringent that they can only be met by a rapid nationwide shift to electric vehicles.
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles-Phase 3: This EPA regulation sets the first-ever solo greenhouse-gas emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles. Those standards are “more stringent than” prior standards and are projected to rapidly increase the production of electric heavy-duty vehicles to 45% of new vehicles by model year 2032.
- Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for Model Years 2027 and Beyond and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Pickup Trucks and Vans for Model Years 2030 and Beyond: This NHTSA regulation sets unrealistic Corporate Average Fuel Economy (“CAFE”) standards that can only be met by a rapid nationwide transition to electric vehicles. For passenger cars, the regulation increases the stringency of fuel-economy standards by 2% per year in model years 2027 through 2031. For light trucks, the standards increase by 2% per year in model years 2029 through 2031. For heavy-duty pickups and vans, the rule increases fuel-economy standards by 10% per year in model years 2030 through 2032 and by 8% per year in model years 2033 through 2035.
- Petroleum-Equivalent Fuel Economy Calculation: This Department of Energy (“DOE”) regulation sets the petroleum-equivalency factor, which determines how the efficiency of automobiles is measured in EPCA’s CAFÉ program. The regulation purposely inflates the supposed efficiency of electric vehicles to incentivize manufacturers to produce more of them.
- Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter: This EPA regulation sets an overly stringent National Ambient Air Quality Standard (“NAAQS”), which regulates stationary sources of air pollution by setting the maximum allowable concentration of ambient levels of ozone, fine particulate matter, nitrogen-oxides, and other pollutants that can harm local air quality (so-called “criteria pollutants”).
- Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities: This regulation, administered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”), is in part responsible for preventing construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States.
- Medicare & Medicaid Programs: … Medicaid & CHIP Continuous Eligibility: In this portion of a regulation that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) promulgated jointly with the Department of Health and Human Services, CMS requires States to provide Children’s Health Insurance Program (“CHIP”) benefits to participants during their 12-month continuous eligibility period even if those participants fail to pay the premiums required to turn eligibility into enrollment.
- Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings: This proposed rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) would impose unduly prescriptive and burdensome regulations on employers to protect workers from the heat. OSHA’s proposal provides a list of core industries covered by the regulation, including agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas, telecommunications, transportation, utilities, and warehousing.
The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) contains over 48,000 sections, stretching over 175,000 pages. Since 1994, final rules have grown from fewer than 10,000 to more than 120,000 today. According to the Congressional Research Service, there are between 3,000 and 4,500 new final rules published every year.
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About AmFree Chamber
The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree Chamber) is a trade organization representing American businesses of all sizes. It is dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise, free markets, limited government, and American leadership globally. AmFree Chamber is chaired by the Honorable Terry E. Branstad, who previously served as Ambassador to China and was the longest serving Governor in American history.
AmFree Chamber has members representing dozens of industries and from across the United States. Since its founding in 2022, AmFree Chamber has aggressively represented its members’ interests through legislative outreach, regulatory comments, and judicial briefing.