Rigging the Rules in 2025
The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress Shred Critical Public Protections to Reward Billionaires and Corporate Donors
February 19, 2026 | Download PDF
In 2025, both President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress repeatedly attacked our system of public protections, striking down rules and sabotaging the rulemaking process. This memo details the vectors of the most significant anti-regulatory attacks and deregulatory actions from the White House and Congress.
The White House
The Trump administration is rigging the system for billionaires and corporate donors by attacking regulations that keep people safe and secure – through a mix of executive orders and memoranda, firings of top regulators and agency staff, and policy changes. All of these unilateral actions disregard the painful and harmful consequences to the public for no other reason than to provide giveaways to the president’s wealthiest friends and supporters. Importantly, all of these actions undermine the democratic legitimacy, effectiveness, and responsiveness of the federal rulemaking process.
Shrinking the Federal Workforce and Agency Budgets
On Day One of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began operation. DOGE arbitrarily ended critical government contracts, unlawfully impounded agency budgets, closed buildings, and mandated government-wide layoffs. As a result of DOGE and other disastrous personnel policies, the administration has crippled vital agencies that save lives and protect our pocketbooks.
For example, DOGE decimated a significant federal consumer protection agency, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through eliminating funding, firing staff, and curtailing authorized work including rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement. DOGE also eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development along with all of its crucial foreign aid and humanitarian assistance.
Even after DOGE allegedly disbanded, calls to dramatically reduce agency staff continue across the government. Among the worst examples, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has stripped employment protections from career senior officials across the government and reclassified them as at-will employees.
Executive Order Overreach
President Donald Trump’s “one-in-ten-out” executive order issued in January 2025 – an extreme and irrational gutting of critical safeguards – is a huge gift to corporate America. Life-saving protections for consumers, workers, our environment, and public health and safety will be blocked and gutted by this dangerous effort. The EO requires agencies to get rid of ten existing regulations in order to put one new regulation in place, regardless of harm caused to the public by gutting the existing rules or delaying a new one. It also requires agencies to ensure that eliminating these protections results in more cost savings to corporations than costs from the proposed new rule.
In practice, this means there will be virtually no new regulations that save lives, protect consumers, workers, and public health, or prevent economic disasters if those rules impede wealthy and well-connected corporations. The end result will be a system more rigged against the public, more pollution in our air, more toxic chemicals in our water, more unsafe workplaces, more dangerous products, higher prices for consumers, more contaminated food outbreaks, and greater risk of economic disasters, all to pad corporate bottom lines. According to the White House’s own estimates, it had already eliminated nearly 650 rules as of December 2025, with little concern for the harms imposed on American families.
The Trump administration also issued Executive Order 14219 in February 2025, as well as corresponding memos on April 9 and October 21, directing agency heads to rescind rules they determine are “unlawful” or “undermine the national interest.” Priority was given to repealing rules the administration believes should be eliminated in the wake of ten Supreme Court decisions. The EO and memos also direct agencies to bypass the legally required notice-and-comment process that gives the public an opportunity to weigh in on regulatory changes before they are finalized by an agency. It also calls for shorter timelines for White House review of deregulatory actions. Both steps are contrary to decades of law and precedent.
Finally in December 2025, the Trump administration issued an Executive Order to “Ensure a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” (AI). The EO seeks to dismantle guardrails and establish a “minimally burdensome” federal policy framework addressing AI and purports to preempt state laws addressing AI, but does not legally have that authority.
In many of the aforementioned memos, the administration inappropriately urged agencies to repeal rules without notice-and-comment by invoking the “good cause exemption,” which has historically been interpreted by courts as being appropriate only for use in emergencies. In the first six months of President Trump’s second term, nearly one-third of the 600 final rules issued by six federal science agencies invoked the good cause exemption, bypassing notice-and-comment altogether.
Attacks on Independent Agencies
For more than a century, Congress has established independent agencies with multi-member commissions to fulfill various missions to protect the public. This design reflects the technical nature of their work, signals their unique significance to advancing the public interest, and was meant to shield these agencies from direct political interference by the president.
Early in his administration, Trump began indiscriminately firing top regulators at independent agencies, rendering some of them unable to perform core functions because their leadership lacks the quorum needed to conduct business. As of January 2026, at least eight independent agencies – including the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission – lack a quorum and are unable to issue new rules.
Independent agencies have been crucial to upholding the rights of workers, protecting consumers from unsafe products, policing financial markets and investor protection, preventing discrimination, ensuring our elections are free and fair, and much more. Without fully functioning agencies, those essential protections will disappear and go unenforced.
Attacks on independent agencies are a blatant power grab and a continuation of the administration’s handouts to corporate interests at the expense of the public interest. In addition, these moves are patently unlawful, a direct affront to congressional authority, and a fundamental violation of the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution.
Public Participation Under Attack
Public participation is the cornerstone of a fair, open, and inclusive regulatory process. This is why Congress made public participation a central feature of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the bedrock law governing the process that federal agencies must follow when issuing new regulations. Under the APA, federal agencies typically must allow an opportunity for the public to submit comments prior to issuing regulatory actions. Further, federal agencies also must consider and respond to those comments when finalizing a regulatory action.
In August 2025, the General Services Administration (GSA) dismantled the POST Application Programming Interface (API) feature on Regulations.gov. The POST API feature ensures that consumers, workers, and individuals from all walks of life are able to submit comments on proposed rules and have their voices heard. Specifically, it allows the submission of public comments through a third party website or email and directs those comments to the relevant agency, without the individual commenter needing to understand and follow the arcane requirements and technical processes on Regulations.gov, which can be a major barrier to participation. Without this crucial public input, the federal rulemaking process is dominated by and most responsive to corporate lobbyists, well-connected CEOs, and special interest lawyers.
By preventing the public from submitting comments through the POST API tool, the GSA is fundamentally undermining congressional intent to provide the public a right to comment on regulations before they take effect. By removing the POST API tool and simultaneously sidestepping notice-and-comment, federal agencies are being deprived of basic and critical information from the public on how regulatory actions will benefit or harm individuals, their families, their livelihoods, and their communities.
Ultimately, the democratic legitimacy of the regulatory process depends on robust participation from the public, particularly individuals, and not just regulated entities. Importantly, cutting off meaningful public participation will likely lead to lower quality regulatory decision-making.
Repealed Rules and Foundational Findings
The Trump administration has weakened or repealed numerous rules in ways that undermine safety, fairness, and the public protection missions of federal agencies in favor of big business. These include, among many others, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Endangerment Finding, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Airline Fee Compensation rule, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Traceability rule.
Since 2009, the EPA’s Endangerment Finding has served as the scientific and legal foundation for the most important regulations the agency has issued to make our air cleaner and to stop polluters from making climate change worse. Trump’s EPA finalized its August 2025 proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding – contradicting overwhelming scientific evidence that greenhouse gas emissions contribute directly and significantly to climate change. The Endangerment Finding repeal is a key building block in the Trump administration’s broader strategy to gut regulations that limit major sources of greenhouse gases including motor vehicles, coal-fired and gas-fired power power plants, and methane leaks from oil and gas drilling.
The Trump administration has begun the process of rolling back a DOT rule that would have protected consumers from hidden and surprising airline fees. When completed, the rollback of the Airline Fee Transparency rule will allow airlines to continue taking advantage of consumers through such fees, which cost consumers more than half a billion dollars every year. This rule would have required airlines to be transparent about fees when consumers book flights, including fees for carry-ons, checked baggage, as well as flight change or cancellation fees. Its repeal harms consumers and benefits the airline industry, which adamantly opposed the rule and has profited considerably from undisclosed fees. A Senate report found that from 2018 to 2023, airlines made $12.4 billion in profits solely from hidden seating fees.
The Trump administration is also delaying or likely aiming to rescind the FDA’s Food Traceability rule, which is designed to trace a food contamination outbreak back to its source. The rule requires all entities involved in the food supply chain to track high-risk foods at every stage, from harvesting to transformation at food processing facilities to the point of sale at retail food establishments and restaurants. This rule took 11 years to develop. Meanwhile, contaminated food outbreaks continue to occur, with grave consequences for public health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foodborne disease outbreaks linked to leafy greens alone were associated with a total of 2,028 illnesses, 477 hospitalizations, and 18 deaths from 2014 through 2021. Food manufacturers aggressively lobbied for a compliance delay of this rule and will profit considerably from its repeal. Ultimately, consumers will pay the price for this giant step backward in food safety.
Nonenforcement of Rules
In cases where the administration has not yet repealed critical safeguards, many agencies are choosing to no longer enforce them. For example, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has announced that it will no longer cite employers under the General Duty Clause for hazards deemed inherent to work in certain professions. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declined to defend its own standard that lowered fine particulate matter pollutants from vehicles, factories, and power plants, asking a court to vacate the rule. Meanwhile, the EPA has paused enforcement of the Biden-era standard out of concern for cost to companies, ignoring that it would prevent thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of lost workdays.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has canceled or halted a total of 159 enforcement actions against 166 corporations that were in progress at the end of the Biden administration. As a result of this retreat, at least 18 corporations accused of lawbreaking avoided paying a total of $3.1 billion in penalties for misconduct. Corporations with close ties to Trump and the administration are benefiting from this canceled and frozen enforcement. More than 30 made donations to fund Trump’s inauguration or White House ballroom. Seventeen have revolving door or insider connections with the administration. Twelve hired lobbyists who are closely allied with the administration. Ten have business relationships with Trump’s private companies. And nine made political contributions backing Trump’s presidential campaign. In effect, Trump is canceling accountability for corporate predators that cheat consumers, exploit workers, and illegally abuse their power at home and abroad.
Congress
Congressional Review Act Attacks
In 2025, Republicans in Congress used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal more than 20 rules and target dozens more. The CRA allows Congress by simple majority vote in both chambers – with limited debate, no possibility of a filibuster, and the president’s signature – to overturn recently issued regulations. The agency that issued the rule is then prohibited from issuing a new one that is “substantially the same,” although the exact scope of this prohibition remains unclear.
Making matters worse, over the past year, Republicans in Congress used the CRA in ways that were both unprecedented and brazenly lawless. Senate Republicans overruled the judgment of both the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office after both ruled that Clean Air Act emissions waivers issued to the state of California could not lawfully be repealed using the CRA. In the aftermath of their vote to overrule the parliamentarian, there is no precedent or process stopping a majority of either party from lawlessly abusing the CRA over and over. Congressional Republicans also have expanded their CRA attacks to various land use management plans, which had long been deemed beyond the CRA’s scope. These attacks portend future unprecedented CRA abuses.
Poison Pill Policy Riders in the Annual Spending Bills
As they have done nearly every year, House Republicans added hundreds of anti-regulatory poison pill policy riders to their draft spending bills. These measures attack rules protecting women’s health, our environment, communities of color, immigrants, consumer safeguards, food safety, gun safety, and much more. None of these measures could become law on their own merits, they have nothing to do with funding our government, and they do not belong in appropriations bills. Fortunately, nearly all of the poison pills were removed prior to final passage of the FY 26 spending bills, but more than 60 legacy riders – poison pills that became law in past budget cycles – remain part of these bills year after year.
Anti-Regulatory Onslaught
Republicans in Congress have proposed and tried to advance nearly a dozen anti-regulatory bills aimed at sabotaging, corrupting, and undermining the federal rulemaking process. If even one of these anti-regulatory bills were to become law, our food, air, water, homes, workplaces and pocketbooks – not to mention our economy – would be in serious jeopardy.
The REINS Act would require all new economically significant regulations that provide the most health, safety, environmental and economic benefits to be approved by both chambers of Congress before taking effect. This would give both the House and Senate their own veto over federal regulation – grinding it to a halt – and politicize rulemaking.
The Midnight Rules Relief Act would amend the Congressional Review Act to allow Congress to simultaneously throw out all public protections finalized near the end of presidential terms, instead of overturning them one at a time, as permitted under current law. These mass-disapproval resolutions would permanently block agencies from addressing threats to public health and safety.
And the SANDBOX Act would allow an administration to grant artificial intelligence (AI) companies waivers that exempt them from federal regulations that may affect AI products for up to a decade, with approval granted in two-year increments. The bill is written so broadly that it could apply to any law or regulation impacting an AI company – including consumer protections, labor laws, environmental standards, civil rights, among others.
The multi-vectored attacks against our system of regulatory protections on behalf of wealthy donors and corporate interests are likely to escalate in the year ahead. The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards and its members will continue to resist and oppose these actions and fight for a robust, responsive, and inclusive federal regulatory system that benefits and protects us all.
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