Business group sends Trump list of rules to repeal

by Lydia Wheeler - 02/23/17 12:17 PM ET

An association of CEOs for leading U.S. businesses on Thursday sent President Trump a list of Obama-era rules it wants delayed, altered or repealed.

In its letter to the White House, Business Roundtable listed 16 rules most concerning for its members — several of which are already being challenged in court — including the Labor Department’s overtime rule and an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule giving the agency jurisdiction over ponds and streams.

The group recommended the EPA go back to the drawing board on the Clean Power Plan and asked Trump to sign the resolution that passed the House earlier this month to repeal the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council’s rule requiring all prospective federal contractors to report any labor law violations they’ve had in the last three years when bidding on contracts over $500,000.

{mosads}“The majority of these regulations directly and negatively impact economic growth,” said Mark Costa, chairman and CEO of Eastman Chemical Company and chairman of the group’s Committee on Smart Regulation.

“The cumulative effect of these regulations has drained resources from innovation and job creation and directed them to non-value adding administrative and bureaucratic activities.”

Other regulations on the Business Roundtable’s list include the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s rule requiring companies with 100 or more employees to report pay by race, ethnicity and gender starting in 2018, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule requiring companies to publicly disclose how much more money CEOs make than their employees.

The SEC has already re-opened the rule for public comment, a sign it’s planning to revise or roll back the regulation.

Business Roundtable also recommended Trump extend the executive order requiring a cost-benefit analysis for all major rules to regulations from independent agencies, set more rigorous standards for guidance documents, and reduce or eliminate the amount of deference courts give agency interpretations of laws.