Trump orders the government to stop enforcing rules he doesn't like

Washington Post

18-05-2025

At the Transportation Department, enforcement of pipeline safety rules has plunged to unprecedented lows since President Donald Trump's inauguration.
Trump recently ordered Energy Department staff to stop enforcing water conservation standards for showerheads and other household appliances. And at one Labor Department division, his appointees have instructed employees to halt most work related to antidiscrimination laws.
Across the government, the Trump administration is trying a new tactic for gutting federal rules and policies that the president dislikes: simply stop enforcing them.
'The conscious effort to slow down enforcement on such a broad scale is something we have never seen in previous administrations,' said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. 'It amounts to a dramatic assertion of presidential power and authority.'
This account of the Trump administration's efforts to scale back application of many laws is based on interviews with more than a dozen federal employees across seven agencies, as well as a review of internal documents and federal data. The employees spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Trump officials say these efforts will allow the president to swiftly scrap regulations that are burdening a variety of businesses and industries.
'When you have a new regulation, it's really, really hard on business,' Kevin Hassett, who directs Trump's National Economic Council, told CNBC on Monday.
'They've got to hire all these engineers and lawyers to figure out, 'What are we going to do with this new regulation?'' Hassett added. 'And so by pausing that, already, we're having a big, massive, positive effect.'
Critics say the administration is breaking the law and sidestepping the rulemaking process that presidents of both parties have routinely followed.
'They're making across-the-board decisions not to enforce whole categories of standards, and it is of very dubious legality,' said Richard Revesz, who led the White House regulatory affairs office under President Joe Biden and is now the faculty director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.
At the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a division of the Transportation Department that enforces pipeline safety regulations, officials have opened five cases against potential violators of those rules since Trump's inauguration, federal data shows. That marks a 95 percent drop from the 91 cases that PHMSA officials opened in the same period under Biden, as well as a 93 percent drop from the 68 cases in the same period in Trump's first term and a 90 percent drop from the 52 cases opened in that period under President Barack Obama.
It is unclear whether the Trump administration's mass firings have reduced enforcement staff at PHMSA and other safety agencies. But the decline in pipeline cases comes as the Transportation Department overhauls its approach to compliance, empowering challenges to enforcement actions and heightening scrutiny of those who carry them out.
On Thursday, the agency issued a proposal that would enable Transportation Department lawyers to recommend discipline against enforcement employees suspected of breaking agency rules. The blueprint also outlines a system for the targets of investigations to complain to the transportation secretary's office, and seek to have evidence thrown out or a do-over of the investigation.
The proposal says it is designed to ensure that the department's actions are 'fair and free of bias.' But three department employees said that the disciplinary provision and other measures in the blueprint would probably have a chilling effect on enforcement.
'If we lived in a world where there existed a bunch of malicious DOT employees whose mission it was to screw over innocent pipeline owners or car manufacturers, I'd understand the purpose of imposing these guidelines,' one of the employees said. 'But the people I know, and have worked with for years, are just trying to make sure everyone follows the rules.'
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) criticized the proposal in a letter Thursday to PHMSA, saying it creates an avenue for political appointees to retaliate against civil servants.
'Inspectors and investigators will fear that they could be fired just for doing their job — ensuring the safety of the American public,' wrote Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Transportation Department said in a statement that 'the last administration carried out enforcements without sufficient due process, consistency and fairness.'
'We see it differently,' the spokesperson said, adding that the department would focus trucking enforcement efforts on issues such as cargo theft, fraud by brokers and visa issues.
In some cases, Trump has personally ordered a halt to enforcement. The president on May 9 signed a memorandum directing the Energy Department 'not to enforce' what he called 'useless' water conservation standards for home appliances including bathtubs, faucets, showerheads and toilets.
Devin Watkins, an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that has long fought efficiency standards, praised Trump's move.
'Federal limits on water and energy use have made appliances slower and less effective, frustrating consumers and limiting their choices,' Watkins said in an email. 'President Trump's new executive order marks a return to consumer choice — allowing Americans to purchase appliances that are faster, more effective and better suited to their needs.'
Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a coalition of groups that advocate for energy conservation, said he had never seen such a directive to bypass the standard rulemaking process. He said Trump's actions may violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to solicit public comments on rules, as well as the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which prohibits the Energy Department from weakening existing efficiency standards.
'It's patently illegal, so hold your horses,' deLaski said.
At the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, a little-known branch of the Labor Department charged with rooting out discrimination among government contractors, enforcement of equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws has also sputtered.
On Jan. 24, the acting secretary of labor issued a memo instructing staff to 'cease and desist' work required by a 1965 executive order that Trump had repealed on Jan. 21, according to four employees and a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post. Since then, the employees said, work at the entire branch has ground to a halt, even though much of it is still mandated by EEO laws from 1973 and 1974 that have not been overturned.
Stalled activities include audits of contractors' hiring and pay practices to ensure that companies are not discriminating on the basis of race or gender. Complaints have also piled up from veterans and people with disabilities.
And at the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump officials have scaled back enforcement of rules intended to curb air and water pollution from power plants, oil refineries, hazardous waste sites and other industrial facilities.
The EPA's enforcement office has been initiating 19 fewer cases per month on average than the Biden administration during its last year in office, according to an analysis of federal data conducted by the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group. The Trump administration filed 92 cases per month on average during its first three full months in office — February, March and April — the analysis found. The Biden administration brought 111 cases per month on average in 2024. During the first three months of Trump's first term, the EPA opened an average of 116 enforcement cases per month.
'We are deeply concerned about EPA slowing down or walking away from enforcement, particularly for violations at fossil fuel and petrochemical operations,' said Jen Duggan, the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project.
Overall, EPA enforcement actions have fallen during the past decade because of budget cuts and staffing declines. Under Trump, however, a March 12 memo stated that the agency would no longer take enforcement actions that could 'shut down any stage of energy production' unless there's an 'imminent' threat to public health.
This directive could benefit the oil and gas sector and could 'violate a fundamental rule of enforcement, which is that there should be no favored or disfavored industries,' said David Uhlmann, who led the EPA's enforcement office under Biden. 'No one gets special treatment.'
Spokespeople for the Energy and Labor departments and the EPA did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts on presidential power said the wide-ranging enforcement slowdown in Trump's second term has no modern precedent.
Trump is 'saying across the board that 'if I don't like it, I'm not going to enforce it,'' said Peter Shane, an emeritus law professor at Ohio State University and a scholar in residence at NYU. 'To my knowledge, no other president has taken that kind of stance.'
Shane said presidents in both parties have taken smaller steps to stop enforcing laws they disliked. Richard M. Nixon refused to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because he opposed busing children to limit racial segregation in schools. Obama deprioritized the deportation of certain undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, leading to complaints from conservatives that the administration was not enforcing certain immigration laws.
With the downturn in enforcement and a possible recession looming, many big law firms have slowed recruitment and hiring for their practices that defend companies against enforcement actions, legal recruiters said.
'Do we see a slowdown coming in the enforcement landscape? The answer, by and large, is yes,' said Lauren Drake, the comanaging partner in the D.C. office of the legal recruiting firm Macrae.
The trend is especially pronounced, recruiters said, at law firms that specialize in defending clients against actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Trump administration has sought to shutter the CFPB, which was established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to combat unfair, deceptive and abusive financial practices. In March, the administration fired most of the agency's workforce, a move that a federal judge has temporarily blocked.
While the litigation plays out, political leaders have instructed CFPB employees not to work on most earlier-stage enforcement cases, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. Since Trump took power, the CFPB has also dropped at least 21 lawsuits against entities including Walmart and Bank of America, a review of news reports and other public records shows.
'CFPB enforcement work is dormant completely,' said Stephen Springer, a managing partner in the D.C. office of the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa.
'I don't think anybody expects those enforcement areas to be particularly busy for the next three years,' he said, 'unless there's a dramatic change.'
Julian Mark contributed to this report.