Trump anti-reg push likely to end up in court

An executive order signed by President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump retweets personal attacks on Clinton, Pelosi, Abrams Biden swipes at Trump: ‘Presidency is about a lot more than tweeting from your golf cart’ GOP sues California over Newsom’s vote-by-mail order MORE directing agencies to slash regulations in order to boost the economy is likely to lead to a number of court challenges.

The Tuesday order directs agency heads to “identify regulatory standards that may inhibit economic recovery,” highlighting that regulations could be permanently or temporarily lifted in order to fight the economic fallout of the coronavirus.

But experts say speeding up the regulatory process or nixing public comment periods would likely be slammed in court unless the Trump administration can demonstrate their actions were necessary due to the pandemic.

“The problem there is those measures have to be directly related to addressing the pandemic. They can’t just be political priorities the Trump administration wants to speed up and get across the finish line in the first term,” said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate with Public Citizen, pointing to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. 

“They’re not going to be able to claim that their ideological rollbacks are needed urgently to address the coronavirus just because they’re going to create economic growth. It’s not an argument that’s going to carry water on the policy side but certainly on the legal side in court either,” Narang said.

The order may be as likely to spur eye rolls as it is to spur lawsuits, however, as some say the directive is more about messaging than affecting regulation.

Critics say even with the accelerated timeline the administration seems to be pushing, the White House has little time to accomplish much else this term.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to review the whole suite of statutes and regulations that you implement and that you’ve spent three-and-a-half years rolling back and then you’re going to try and get more blood from a stone? And then try to accomplish that feat by 2021? It’s not going to be possible,” said John Walke with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Trump administration told The Hill they believe the order will withstand legal challenge.

“Statutes frequently allow an expedited regulatory process during urgent circumstances. The heart of what this administration is working to accomplish is clear: get our economy back to historic levels and get millions of Americans back to work,” the White House said by email.

The Trump administration has prided itself on pushing deregulation since nearly day one, with the president signing orders to nix two regulations for every new rule they want to issue and another requiring agencies to offset the costs of any new rules by scrapping old ones.

But Walke and others argue the administration will face hurdles with its approach.

“Trump does not want to appear…