Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficiency" Deregulatory Initiative

The order directs all federal agency heads, working with their DOGE Team Leads and the OMB Director, to review every regulation under their jurisdiction and identify those falling into seven categories: regulations deemed unconstitutional or raising serious constitutional problems; those based on unlawful delegations of legislative power; those not matching the best reading of the underlying statute; those addressing significant matters without clear statutory authorization; those imposing costs that outweigh public benefits; those harming national interests in areas such as energy, infrastructure, or economic development; and those burdening small businesses. Within 60 days, agencies must submit their lists to the OIRA Administrator, who will develop a Unified Regulatory Agenda to rescind or modify the flagged rules.

Separately, the order immediately directs agencies to de-prioritize enforcement of regulations deemed to exceed constitutional or statutory authority, and allows agency heads to terminate ongoing enforcement proceedings on a case-by-case basis. New regulations must be reviewed with DOGE Team Leads and OIRA before promulgation. Military, national security, homeland security, foreign affairs, immigration, and federal employee-management matters are all exempted from the order's reach.

All federal agencies subject to 44 U.S.C. 3502, their leadership, and the DOGE Team Leads embedded at each agency. Private parties and businesses currently facing federal enforcement proceedings under regulations the order targets are directly affected, as are small businesses that interact with those regulatory programs.

Private parties currently subject to federal enforcement proceedings under broadly drawn regulations could see those actions scaled back or terminated before any rule is formally repealed. Businesses subject to significant regulatory costs may eventually gain relief through the Unified Regulatory Agenda, but actual rescissions depend on future rulemaking that can take months or years.

Agency heads coordinate with their embedded DOGE Team Leads and consult the Attorney General as appropriate to build their regulation lists within 60 days. Those lists feed to the OIRA Administrator, who synthesizes them into a Unified Regulatory Agenda. The OMB Director oversees implementation guidance and can grant additional exemptions. Enforcement de-prioritization takes effect immediately but is framed as discretionary and subordinate to existing legal obligations and public safety. Actual rule rescissions require separate notice-and-comment rulemaking under existing processes — this order does not itself revoke any specific regulation.