President Donald Trump’s effort to repeal and replace certain Biden administration regulations “is not as simple as signing a few executive orders,” McGuireWoods Washington, D.C., partner John Moran wrote in a Jan. 19, 2025, article in The Hill.
Moran, a partner in the firm’s nationally recognized Government Investigations & White Collar Litigation Department, served on the first Trump presidential transition, as associate White House counsel and as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice. In The Hill, Moran noted that Trump’s announcement of the Department of Government Efficiency put a sharp focus on plans to unwind former President Joe Biden’s regulations on the environment, the economy and more.
But Moran wrote: “Deregulation can be just as cumbersome as regulation, especially if the new administration wants those efforts to survive inevitable legal challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act.”
Moran said Trump can rely on three tools to achieve his goals: the Congressional Review Act, the regulatory process itself and litigation under the Administrative Procedure Act. Moran explained how the new administration can deploy those tools to advance Trump’s deregulation agenda.
“Trump has the tools necessary to pursue his deregulatory agenda,” Moran wrote. “It will take a thoughtful and sustained effort to see it through.”