Trump Administration Pushes Deregulation

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2025 – President Donald Trump is directing the federal government to review regulations that could pose anti-competitive restraints on businesses.

President Trump signed an Executive Order on Wednesday that directed agency heads such as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to review all regulations within their authority and identify those that stifle competition.

The order specifically noted that regulations that facilitate monopolies, create or enforce unnecessary barriers to entry, or needlessly burden agency procurement should be included in the review.

Additionally, the order stipulated that agency heads must provide FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Attorney General Pam Bondi with a list of anti-competitive regulations, along with proposals to amend or rescind them, within 70 days. 

Ferguson is required to seek public comment about anti-competitive regulations.

In a separate April 9 Memorandum, Trump ordered agencies to act on another Executive Order, Order 14219, which was signed on February 19. 

This order instructed federal agencies to identify unlawful and potentially unlawful regulations and begin planning to reverse them within 60 days. 

President Trump emphasized in his Memorandum that agency heads should finalize rules without notice and comment upon the discovery of unlawful regulations if the circumstances are consistent with the good cause exception within the Administrative Procedure Act.

This exception allows agencies to “dispense with notice-and-comment rulemaking when that process would be ‘impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.’”

Trump’s Executive Order and Memorandum echoed Carr’s deregulation initiative, a docket titled “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete.”

The FCC’s deregulation initiative is designed to seek comment on all of the agency’s regulations, with the goal of finding those that represent unnecessary regulatory burdens.

Comments on the docket were due today, with more than 600 already submitted.