Big Deregulation Moves in the One Big Beautiful Bill

One big win in the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) is a funding infusion for President Trump’s signature deregulatory initiatives. If that provision from the House package makes it into the final bill, expect the Trump Administration to go into overdrive on deregulation, which we know contributes significantly to economic growth for America. Sec. 70200 of the House’s BBB provides the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) an additional $100 million for “improving regulatory processes and analyzing and reviewing rules issued by a covered agency.” That is a massive win for regulatory reform. OMB, through its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and other procedural control functions, has long played a key centralized role in developing and enforcing regulatory processes and standards across the Executive Branch. OMB is therefore the perfect place to provide additional funding for President Trump’s regulatory process reforms. So, how might these new funds be used to improve regulatory processes? For starters, OMB could use the funds to accelerate the ambitious reforms begun by President Trump’s recent executive orders, including Executive Orders 14192, 14215, 14219, and 14275. That means President Trump’s efforts to impose regulatory budgeting discipline, expand the universe of regulations subject to cost-benefit analysis and centralized review, modernize other outdated regulatory systems and processes, and more, could all get a major boost from Congress. President Trump could also use the increased funding to continue other regulatory process reforms begun during his first administration, including with respect to agency guidance practices, information quality, federal permitting, and more. He could also use it to make key regulatory process reforms permanent by implementing other regulatory reform proposals currently under consideration in Congress. Conducting White House oversight of federal agency regulatory and information policy is always an extremely labor-intensive job. That is especially true now that President Trump has reintroduced the federal regulatory budget, expanded the scope of centralized regulatory review to agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and commenced a wide range of other regulatory and information process reforms. The BBB’s funding boost for OMB will help it to deliver on its core mission and accelerate implementation of President Trump’s bold regulatory agenda. President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda is a critical part of his economic plan for the nation. To succeed, the White House office primarily responsible for overseeing the development of regulatory and information policy needs a cash infusion. Sec. 70200 of the Big Beautiful Bill is the rocket fuel OMB needs to drive economic growth through regulatory reform. The House should be commended for its work on this front. Now all eyes are on the Senate.