Donald Trump is making moves intended to seriously restrict the public’s input on government rules — and give the president more power to erase regulations unilaterally.
This push reared its head in an unlikely place this week; Trump issued an executive order Wednesday evening changing the definition of “showerhead” and said that it did not need to go through the typical notice and comment period associated with changing a regulation. His justification: Because he says so.
“Notice and comment is unnecessary because I am ordering the repeal,” Trump wrote in the order. (During Trump’s first term, the Energy Department also changed the definition of “showerhead” at Trump’s instructions — but they used “notice and comment” to do so.)