CSS Unveils ‘Pandemic Rollbacks’ to Track Trump’s Dangerous Deregulation During the Coronavirus

This Is No Time to Roll Back Public Protections

For Immediate Release:
May 18, 2020

Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org, (202) 588-7742
Richard Eckman, reckman@consumerfed.org, (202) 939-1013

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) today unveiled Pandemic Rollbacks, a new tool to track the Trump administration’s repeal of consumer, worker, health, financial and environmental safeguards amid a public health and economic crisis.

“President Donald Trump and his corporate backers appear more than eager to take advantage of a distracted public to ram through unpopular, corrupt and dangerous deregulatory policies,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen and CSS co-chair. “Yet despite calls from lawmakers, advocacy organizations and even some businesses to suspend nonroutine rulemaking unrelated to the coronavirus that harms workers’ and consumers’ health and economic security as well as our environment, Trump has directed agencies to press forward with deregulation as if it’s business as usual.”

“The Trump administration is using the coronavirus crisis as cover to quietly roll back public protections, making the pandemic more lethal and setting the stage for deregulatory disasters long after the crisis has ended,” said Jack Gillis, executive director of Consumer Federation of America and CSS co-chair. “Deregulation is not the answer to the pandemic.”

Pandemic Rollbacks lists nonroutine rules unrelated to the coronavirus that have been finalized since March 13, 2020 – the date a national emergency was declared in response to the pandemic. The rules are sorted into two tables: (1) final rules that have cleared White House review and (2) proposed rules that have been initially approved to move forward through the regulatory process.

Final rules include the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rollback, the repeal of the clean cars standards and the weakening of sexual harassment rules on college campuses. The tracker will be updated as new rollbacks are finalized.

The page also provides links to letters from federal and state lawmakers, advocacy groups and businesses that have called for moratoria on rulemaking and extensions to public comment periods – either at specific agencies or throughout the administration.

The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards is a national alliance of more than 160 organizations, representing millions of Americans, committed to strengthening public protections, encouraging sound enforcement and repelling the ongoing attacks against commonsense regulatory safeguards. Learn about us at SensibleSafeguards.org.

###