Monitoring democratic institutions through public records
Independent Agency Rules — Week of Mar 16, 2026
Some government agencies (like the FDA or EPA) are supposed to make decisions based on science and law, not politics. Can the President control what rules they write?
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This week, two government actions drew attention for how they could affect the independence of regulatory agencies and local governance. An executive order on housing construction directed the EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies to weaken or remove environmental protections that the administration considers barriers to building homes. Separately, a Senate bill proposed expanding Congress's power to reject not just Washington, D.C.'s laws but also its executive orders and regulations.
The executive order on Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction tells agencies to "maximally exempt" housing projects from environmental reviews and to eliminate energy-efficiency standards the White House considers too costly. This might matter because agencies like the EPA are designed to make rules based on scientific evidence and legal standards rather than presidential preferences, and directives that treat environmental protections as obstacles could weaken the independent, science-based rulemaking process that laws like the Clean Water Act were created to ensure.
There are important alternative explanations. Most likely, this is a normal use of presidential authority to set regulatory priorities — every modern president has directed agencies to reconsider burdensome rules, and the order includes language saying changes must be "consistent with applicable law." It's also possible the order targets genuinely outdated requirements and agencies will retain discretion over final decisions.
The D.C. Home Rule bill would let Congress reject individual provisions of D.C.'s regulations and executive orders, not just its laws. While Congress has constitutional authority over D.C., this would represent a significant expansion of federal micromanagement of local governance. The most likely explanation is that this reflects longstanding political preferences of certain members of Congress and faces uncertain prospects of passage.
Limitations: This analysis is AI-generated and based on a small number of documents. The executive order's real-world impact will depend on how agencies respond, whether courts intervene, and whether Congress acts on the D.C. bill.