On Monday President Trump added to his growing list of executive orders by issuing a new one on regulations. Not only does the new order require that “for every federal regulation put in place, two other regulations must be eliminated,” but is also “requires that the cost of all new regulations this year be zero.” Despite Trump claiming the new order will be great for small businesses because they will supposedly be able to expand more quickly, many consumer groups aren’t happy with it.
On Monday President Trump added to his growing list of executive orders by issuing a new one on regulations. Not only does the new order require that “for every federal regulation put in place, two other regulations must be eliminated,” but is also “requires that the cost of all new regulations this year be zero.” Despite Trump claiming the new order will be great for small businesses because they will supposedly be able to expand more quickly, many consumer groups aren’t happy with it.
Just how unhappy are consumer groups with this new order? Isn’t it a good thing to help out small businesses when we can? Well, many consumer groups, including many in the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), an association made up of 250 nonprofit consumer groups, are calling the president’s recent executive order “arbitrary and irrational” and “a threat to consumer safety.” Additionally, many are also “denouncing the order as a nonsensical simplification of regulations that help protect our food supply, medicines, environment and more.”
At the heart of it, people are concerned about the effects this order will have on consumer protection, and people, such as Rachel Weintraub, the legislative director and general counsel of the CFA, believe the executive order will “have a devastating impact on necessary consumer protection.” She added:
“Creating an arbitrary one-in-two-out rule utterly disregards the substance and purpose for existing regulatory protections and the benefits they can provide to consumers. Our nation deserves a rigorous and deliberative rulemaking process, not one that is based on arbitrary gimmicks that refuse to acknowledge why these rules exist at all.”
Other organizations have and are voicing concern over the new order, like the Consumers Union, the organization that publishes Consumer Reports. The vice president of consumer policy and mobilization for Consumer Reports, Laura MacCleery recently issued the following statement:
“We believe it is the role of government to set reasonable rules for the marketplace that protect consumers from dangers like predatory lending, dirty air and water, foodborne diseases and unsafe medications. This order is telling federal agencies to trade off one rule that improves health or safety for two other rules, and that does not make sense.”
She also noted that “agencies will have to put corporate costs before Americans’ well-being” because, under the Trump’s order, new regulations aren’t allowed to “impose any financial costs on businesses.”
Even the Safe Food Coalition has condemned the order, calling it a “bean counting standard.” They’re also afraid the new order will endanger America’s “food safety and increase the risk of widespread outbreaks of foodborne illness by hampering the work of the FSIS at the USDA and FDA.”
Consumer safety, including food safety, are things that shouldn’t be toyed with. Unfortunately, when President Trump issues orders like this one, it makes people wonder how much he actually cares about U.S. consumers.
Sources:
Consumer Groups Slam New Trump Executive Order on Regulations
Safe Food Coalition Condemns President Trump’s ‘Bean Counting Standard’
Join the conversation!