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President Trump signs order for formation of agency task forces to eliminate unneeded regs
WASHINGTON — With a dozen or more CEOs from blue chip companies standing behind him including 3M, Lockheed-Martin, Dow Chemical, Campbell Soup, Archer Daniels Midland and International Paper, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on all executive agencies to comb through regulations and pinpoint those that in the administration's estimation are unnecessary.
"Excessive regulations are killing jobs, driving companies out of our country like never before,'' Trump said as he signed the executive order. "Today this executive order directs each agency to establish a regulatory reform task force. It will ensure that every agency has a team of dedicated people to research all regulations that are unnecessary, burdensome and harmful to the economy, and harmful to the creation of jobs and business."
The Department of Transportation and thus the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration fall under the order, which calls for each task force to make recommendations to repeal or simplify existing regulations. It's unclear how this might impact FMCSA since many of their rules are Congressionally mandated and eliminating a mandated regulation would likely take Congressional action, a source told The Trucker.
The regulatory system represents "an impossible situation and we're going to solve it very quickly," Trump said. "They (the task forces) will have to every once in a while report to us so we can report on the progress, and so we can come up with some even better solutions."
Friday's order comes on the heels of two other executive orders related to regulations, one in effect freezing the regulatory process with some exceptions, the other ordering federal agencies to identify two regulations that could be eliminated for every one new regulation they write.
"This executive order is one of many ways we're going to get real results when it comes to removing job-killing regulations and increasing economic opportunity," Trump said. "We're working very hard to roll back the regulatory burden so that coal miners, factory workers, small business owners and so many others can grow their businesses and thrive. We cannot allow government to be an obstacle to government opportunity. We're going to bring back jobs and create more opportunities [than] ever before in our country."
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