President Trump’s “Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs” has received a fair amount of attention for its “2-for-1” formula: if an agency wishes to promulgate a new regulation, it must “identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed.” But there is an additional requirement built into the executive order that has received less attention, which is the creation of a “regulatory budget.” Under the terms of the order, “the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, to be finalized this year shall be no greater than zero.” That is, for every dollar of costs produced by a new regulation, an agency must simultaneously eliminate one dollar of costs from some other regulation (likely by repealing the regulation entirely).

Trump’s executive order has been widely condemned for its anti-regulatory bias. But it is not merely anti-regulatory — it is deeply confused at its core. 

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