Feb 25, 2017
President Trump signed 3 Executive Orders affecting the food industry.
January 20, 2017: “The Regulatory Freeze” Federal agencies cannot issue new non-emergency regulations without approval from a Trump administration appointee.
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January 23, 2017: “The Hiring Freeze” Departing employees can be replaced; no other hiring permitted. No vacant positions filled. No new positions created.
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January 30, 2017: “Reducing Regulations and Regulatory Cost” Each Federal agency must repeal 2 regulations before issuing 1 new one. More important is the sub-part that “… the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including [the two] repealed regulations … shall be no greater than zero.” This means federal agencies cannot sacrifice two unused regulations to enact a new one. They must identify 2 active regulations whose repeal neutralizes any increased cost to industry from complying with the 1 new regulation.
The Food Lawyers® Analysis: These three Presidential actions, intended to protect business from increased government compliance costs, have frozen regulatory law. No FDA or USDA regulation can issue until 2 other regulations are repealed that offset the cost to industry of the 1 new regulation, and none of the 3 regulations can be acted upon until approved by someone deputized by HHS Secretary Price, who took office February 9th. This creates whole new areas of responsibility in FDA and USDA to be carried out with existing staff because the Hiring Freeze prohibits creating new agency job positions. This obviously brings halts all new FDA/USDA regulation. The Food Lawyers® believes the renewed regulatory activity gating item will be Secretary Price announcing his choice of HHS priorities between (a) dismantling Obamacare, and (b) everything else HHS does. The Food Lawyers® full time Washington DC Lobbyist has been tasked to identify when that prioritization might be known inside the agencies. We will publish a follow-up IN THREE PARAGRAPHS™ article when that intelligence is acquired.
