President Donald Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, with traditional anti-regulatory rhetoric, have essentially declared a desire to rescind the vast bulk of EPA regulations. The political premise that the president and EPA administrator express is that federal environmental regulations adopted and enforced by the EPA are overreaching and bad for business. Leave it to the states to regulate their environments and businesses, they say, and all will be better. And, so they say, cutting EPA staff and rescinding EPA regulations will be good for business. But how would the regulated community be affected if they were to succeed? Would they be leaping for joy, or would they come to regret the consequences?
Law and Regulation
Before bashing EPA and the regulations it promulgates, remember that it was Congress who expressly passed the baton to the EPA to pass regulations to flesh out the details that Congress either couldn’t grasp or couldn’t gain the votes to enact. Congressional acts in the world of environmental protection are typically in the nature of broad objectives, directives and programmatic structures.
