Let the deconstruction commence

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Congress’s actionable hierarchy for administrative state burial & constitutional resurrection

Alongside restoring fiscal sanity, Congress must establish a hierarchy of actions to make Donald Trump’s several regulatory streamlining directives permanent changes—particularly EO 14219’s mandate for agencies and “DOGE Team Leads” to “commence the deconstruction” of the administrative state. While the major rules ($100 million) inventory supplied here is critical, it reveals how little is truly known about regulatory burdens. Oversight committees need a broader vision, recognizing that notice-and-comment rulemaking captures only a fraction of federal intervention in need of restraint. As Congress squeezes liberty-stealing regulations through the “Hierarchy of Deconstruction” funnel shown here, it will find that the tightest constraints at the top are its own creations.

A CONGRESSIONAL/DOGE HIERARCHY OF DECONSTRUCTION

FREEZE THE RULES PIPELINE: The easy part? Freezing WIP rules seen at bottom of the hierarchy; Trump did that on day one.

ENACT RESOLUTIONS OF DISAPPROVAL OF RECENT MAJOR RULES: The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows expedited disapproval of late-term Biden rules and guidance documents. Early targets include appliance standards, emission charges, and tire manufacturing emissions. A 2024 surge in major rules, reflected in  of 146 (https://shorturl.at/X6s2Z) compiled from Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions provides additional rollback candidates by agency. Congress could enact the Midnight Rules Relief Act to address such rules in bulk.

DELETE/REFORM 21ST CENTURY MAJOR RULES: Major rules with quantified costs are the most obvious targets among the 3,000+ yearly rules. The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) annual Report to Congress on Costs and Benefits—often tardy and incomplete (latest: FY 2023)—identifies some 478 additional rules, by department and agency, as follows:

Committees should scrutinize these lists, flagging rules for repeal under EO 14219’s Sec. 2 (i)-(vi) criteria. Standouts needing Hill backup are dozens of Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reworkings of costly rules already underway.

STRIKE SUB-MAJOR RULES: Policymakers will note that major rules comprise a fraction of tens of thousands issued since the turn of the century—and only a relative handful of over 400 agencies, underscoring that quantification and monetization are the exception.

Trump’s EO 14219 instructs agencies to prioritize repealing “significant regulatory actions” under EO 12866—widening the target list beyond major rules (3,000+ since 2015). Further, seemingly minor rules among tens of thousands of rules not deemed significant may nonetheless be so. Trump’s one-in, ten-out order (EO 14,192) demands an expansive approach.

DECONSTRUCT INDEPENDENT AGENCIES: Independent agency rules historically evaded EO 12866’s cost benefit requirements and were never classified “significant.” These include bodies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. While historically omitted from the foregoing counts and costs, that changed recently with Trump’s EO 14215 “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” subjecting independent agencies to OMB review. Some independent agency rules are classified “major” under the CRA, but OMB review has played no role, making these potential targets now. The FCC, much like EPA, has called for comment on “every rule, regulation, or guidance document that the FCC should eliminate for the purposes of alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens.”

ELIMINATE REGULATORY DARK MATTER: Guidance documents have remained undisciplined and uncatalogued until Trump’s own 2019 E.O. 13891 generated the makings of an inventory. While Biden rescinded Trump’s streamlining, an unofficial tally by this author still finds over 108,000 such documents (https://shorturl.at/nA276) ripe for 10-for-1 reckoning.  

END LAUNDERING VIA GRANTS AND CONTRACTS: Subsides, grants, federal procurements, and state grants-in-aid are vehicles for laundering regulation as well as cash.  Trump’s EO 14222 “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Cost Efficiency Initiative,” identifies and targets these discretionary contracts and grants, a potentially powerful expansion of Trump’s deconstruction efforts,.

TERMINATE AGENCIES AND ENABLING STATUTES; RESTORE ENUMERATED POWERS AND FEDERALISM: Congress’s toughest—but most necessary—task is dismantling the spending-regulation fusion at the heart of the administrative state. The most prominent effort underway is abolition of the Department of Education. But this must be only the beginning—a broader reexamination of enabling statutes is essential to prevent regulatory creep.

Trump’s EO 14219 emphasis on significant regulatory actions is a starting point for restoring congressional primacy in lawmaking but the DOGE mandate expires in 15 months. Meanwhile, Trump’s own “swamp things”—(antitrust crusades, tariffs, AI cartelization, a sovereign wealth fund, campus speech codes, a DOGE dividend)—risk fueling new regulations for progressives to exploit. Ultimately, the Hierarchy of Deconstruction reveals the core truth: Congress’s own laws built the administrative state. If lawmakers want true reform, they must start at the top of the funnel.