The duo are convinced they have enough legal authority to pull this off in the executive branch. The legal theory of the case is that the Supreme Court’s West Virginia v. EPAand Loper Bright rulings reining in the administrative state mean that much of what the federal government now does is illegal.
Mr. Trump has set a laudable goal of eliminating 10 regulations for every new one, and there is no shortage of targets. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Wayne Crews says 217,565 rules have been issued since the Federal Register first began itemizing them in 1976, with 89,368 pages added last year.
DOGE’s first order will be to pause enforcement of overreaching rules while starting the process to roll them back. Mr. Trump and DOGE could direct agencies to settle legal challenges to Biden rules by vacating them. This could ease the laborious process of undoing them by rule-making through the Administrative Procedure Act. A source tells us they’ll do whatever they think they legally can without the APA.
The DOGE duo believe this will provide the legal justification for reducing the federal workforce. As we recently noted, the federal head count has ballooned by 120,800 during the Biden years. Civil service and union protections make it hard to fire workers.
The saga in Peculiar is playing out in small towns across the country as tech giants look to build hundreds of new data centers — often lured by tax abatements — to house the thousands of computers that would power the booming and energy-intensive artificial intelligence industry.
Reid J. EpsteinLisa Lerer and Nicholas Nehamas
Reid J. Epstein reported from Madison, Wis., Lisa Lerer from New York and Nicholas Nehamas from Washington.
Mr. Cerdà, a journalist and the author of “Presentes,” wrote from València, Spain.
