No new rules – “in any manner” – may be proposed or adopted by federal regulators, including those overseeing financial institutions until those rules are reviewed and approved by an agency head appointed or designated by the new president, the White House said Tuesday.
The ban on new rules was issued by newly inaugurated President Donald Trump (R) in an executive order.
For two of the five federal financial institution regulators, that ban is moot: both the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Boards have a chairman and an acting chairman designated by Trump (respectively, Kyle Hauptman as NCUA chairman, and Travis Hill as FDIC acting chairman).
But for three other agencies – the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – the ban is in place: all three agencies are led by non-Trump appointees.
Regulatory work for those agencies may not come to a complete standstill, however. According to Trump’s order, the department or agency head may delegate the power of review and approval to any other person so appointed or designated by the president (the order doesn’t indicate if that must be someone actually inside of the agency).
Additionally, the order states, the director or acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may exempt any rule that person deems necessary to address emergency situations or other urgent circumstances. That includes rules subject to statutory or judicial deadlines that require prompt action.
Trump issued a similar order at the start of his first term in 2017, which were largely honored by most agencies (even independent agencies, such as NCUA and FDIC).
Other parts of the order included that the agencies:
- Immediately withdraw any rules that have been sent to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) but not yet published in the Federal Register, “so that (the rules) can be reviewed and approved.
- Consider postponing for 60 days from the date of order the effective date for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise. The agencies are also ordered to consider opening a new comment period to collect comments about “issues of fact, law, and policy raised by the rules postponed under this memorandum, and consider reevaluating pending petitions involving such rules.”
- If pending rules (and proposals) raise no substantial questions of fact, law, or policy, the order states, no further action needs to be taken. But, for those rules that do, the order directs agencies notify and take further appropriate action in consultation with the OMB Director.
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