President Trump’s pledge to reduce red tape has been largely conducted in private, with a team of political appointees with deep industry ties and potential conflicts of interest. A joint investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times has identified 71 appointees, 28 of which have potential conflicts of interest. These include lawyers who have represented businesses in cases against government regulators, staff members of political dark money groups, and employees of industry-funded organizations opposed to environmental rules. In some cases, the appointees are reviewing rules their previous employers sought to weaken or kill, with at least two potentially profiting if certain regulations are undone.
The process has been largely opaque, with some agencies soliciting public feedback while others have refused to disclose who is in charge of the review. Responses to public records requests have been denied, delayed, or redacted. The Interior Department has not disclosed the correspondence and calendars for its team, but a review of more than 1,300 pages of handwritten sign-in sheets found that appointees had met regularly with industry representatives.
Over a four-month period from February to May, at least 58 representatives from the oil and gas industry were recorded in the visitor logs of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA also declined to release the appointment calendar of the official leading its deregulation team, a former executive of an industry-funded political group, despite her meetings with industry representatives. The Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security provided titles of appointees to their review teams, but not names. The White House referred reporters to the Office of Management and Budget, who said, “As previous administrations have recognized, it’s good government to periodically reassess existing regulations.”
As billions of dollars are at stake in the push to deregulate, corporations and other industry groups are hiring lawyers, lobbyists and economists to help them gain influence. Companies are paying for economic and legal analyses to help expedite changes, as agencies are often short on staff. For example, Syngenta, a top pesticide maker based in Switzerland, has spent eight years and millions of dollars lobbying the Obama administration on environmental rules. The company has an in with the new administration, as Scott Cameron, newly installed at the Interior Department and a member of its deregulation team, had just left a nonprofit he had founded which advocated getting pesticides approved and out to market faster. Syngenta was a financial partner.
The company has been pushing for changes to the Endangered Species Act, and has funded advocacy groups aligned with their cause. Lobbyists have been working behind the scenes at agencies and on Capitol Hill to change the provision. Companies have argued that they should be exempt from consulting with the Interior Department because they already undergo EPA approval.
The nonprofit organization, headed by Cameron, has stated that its goal is to reduce the regulatory burden of the Endangered Species Act on American society by addressing invasive species. To do this, the organization is creating “business opportunities for commercial products and services used to control invasive species.” Syngenta, a pesticide company, is one of the organization’s “generous sponsors” and Cameron has served on a committee of experts and stakeholders, including Syngenta, that advised the federal government on decisions related to invasive species. Paul Minehart, a Syngenta spokesman, said that their purpose is to balance public health and environment with enabling farmers’ access to innovation.
Samantha Dravis, chairwoman of the deregulation team at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), previously worked for the Republican Attorneys General Association and the Rule of Law Defense Fund, which brought together energy companies and Republican attorneys general to file lawsuits against the federal government over Obama-era environmental regulations. Donors to the Republican association included the American Petroleum Institute, ConocoPhillips, Alpha Natural Resources and Freedom Partners, backed by the Koch brothers. Liz Bowman, an EPA spokeswoman, declined to say whether Dravis had recused herself from issues dealing with previous employers or their backers, or had discussed regulations with any of them.
At the Agriculture Department, Rebeckah Adcock is the only known appointee to the deregulation team. She previously lobbied the department as a top executive both at CropLife America, a trade association for pesticide makers, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, a trade group for farmers.
The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for its appointees to deregulation teams, with questions raised about potential conflicts of interest and the lack of transparency regarding ethics waivers and recusals. However, the administration maintains that all political staff have had an ethics briefing and know their obligations.
The Department of Agriculture has been dealing with a range of issues concerning farmers, such as crop insurance and land conservation rules, but it has not revealed whether Adcock had recused herself from discussions related to her former employers.
At the Department of Energy, Brian McCormack, who had previously worked in political and external affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association representing investor-owned electrical utilities, is part of the deregulation team. During his time there, McCormack was involved with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group funded by the industry, which fought against rooftop solar policies across the country. As utility companies lose money when customers generate their own power, this could be a potential boon for them.
The Energy Department does not directly regulate electrical utilities, but it does help oversee international electricity trade, the promotion of renewable energy and the security of domestic energy production. After joining the Department, McCormack initiated a review of the nation’s electrical grid, according to an agency memo. Clean-energy advocates fear the inquiry could cast solar energy as a threat to grid reliability, which could discourage state public utility commissions from implementing solar policies. Disclosure records show that while McCormack was at Edison, the trade group lobbied the federal government, including the Energy Department, on issues including grid reliability.
At least two appointees to deregulation teams have been granted waivers from ethics rules related to prior jobs, and at least nine others have pledged to recuse themselves from issues related to former employers or clients. This includes Bob Eitel, who leads the education team at the Education Department and was previously vice president for regulatory legal services at an operator of for-profit colleges, and Byron Brown, an EPA appointee who is married to a senior government affairs manager for the Hess Corporation, the oil and gas company. Brown has recused himself from evaluating regulations affecting the company, but it is unclear if he will do the same for issues affecting the American Petroleum Institute.
Maren Kasper, selected to lead the deregulation team at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was formerly a director at Roofstock, an online marketplace for investors in single-family rental properties. She was allowed to keep her stake in the company, but she pledged not to take actions that would affect it.
At a public meeting held by the EPA to discuss potential rollbacks, few businesspeople attended, but the agency has received more than 467,000 comments on the matter. One of the few attendees was Brian McCracken, the owner of a local painting company, who was frustrated by costly rules that forced him to test for lead-based paint in homes before he could begin painting.
Trump is not the first president to take on such frustrations; President Bill Clinton assigned Vice President Al Gore to collect agencies’ suggestions for rules that should go.
The Department of Agriculture has been dealing with a range of issues concerning farmers, such as crop insurance and land conservation rules, but it has not revealed whether Adcock had recused herself from discussions related to her former employers. At the Department of Energy, Brian McCormack, who had previously worked in political and external affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, is part of the deregulation team. The Energy Department does not directly regulate electrical utilities, but it does help oversee international electricity trade, the promotion of renewable energy and the security of domestic energy production. Disclosure records show that while McCormack was at Edison, the trade group lobbied the federal government, including the Energy Department, on issues including grid reliability.
At least two appointees to deregulation teams have been granted waivers from ethics rules related to prior jobs, and at least nine others have pledged to recuse themselves from issues related to former employers or clients. This includes Bob Eitel, who leads the education team at the Education Department, and Byron Brown, an EPA appointee who is married to a senior government affairs manager for the Hess Corporation. Brown has recused himself from evaluating regulations affecting the company, but it is unclear if he will do the same for issues affecting the American Petroleum Institute.
Maren Kasper, selected to lead the deregulation team at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was formerly a director at Roofstock, an online marketplace for investors in single-family rental properties. She was allowed to keep her stake in the company, but she pledged not to take actions that would affect it.
At a public meeting held by the EPA to discuss potential rollbacks, few businesspeople attended, but the agency has received more than 467,000 comments on the matter. One of the few attendees was Brian McCracken, the owner of a local painting company, who was frustrated by costly rules that forced him to test for lead-based paint in homes before he could begin painting. This was echoed by other members of the public, who urged government officials not to weaken regulations intended to protect children from lead. President Trump is not the first president to take on such frustrations; President Bill Clinton assigned Vice President Al Gore to collect agencies’ suggestions for rules that should go.
President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama both implemented regulatory overhauls, but with different focuses. Bush’s changes sought to control how new regulations were created, while Obama’s sought to update existing rules. President Donald Trump has taken a different approach, emphasizing the cutting of old rules. On the day he signed an executive order initiating the review, he addressed a crowd of conservative activists, declaring that he would “put the regulations industry out of work and out of business.” Trump’s decision to create teams of political appointees, known as regulatory reform task forces, is intended to make it easier for the White House to overcome bureaucratic resistance to his rollback plans. According to Heather Krause, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, the effect of Obama’s reforms was mostly to clarify and streamline rules, not eliminate them. Amit Narang, a regulatory expert at the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, believes the task force will be effective in trying to get the Trump agenda in place.
The New York Times’ Kitty Bennett contributed reporting to this story.
