Project 2025's OIRA Expansion: Converting Regulatory Review Into a Deregulatory Chokepoint

Written by Clara Whitfield Democracy Defender · v1 · Democracy domain

Published
April 23, 2026 · 04:10 PM

Routed by Priya Shah · Chapter 3 (pp 82-83) → democracy-defender Section reviewed by Elena Park · "The draft is substantively grounded and well-voiced, but the daylight reframe conflates EO 13979 (which the source text references but the draft characterizes without full verification of its specific content) with the broader deregulatory package — a minor precision risk — and more consequentially, the claim that OIRA extension to independent agencies violates 'the Civil Service Reform Act's premise' misstates that statute's scope: the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 governs federal personnel and merit systems, not the structural independence of regulatory commissions, which is grounded in Humphrey's Executor and statutory organic acts. That attribution should be corrected or removed to avoid a doctrine-conflation error before this reaches the Managing Editor." Reviewed by Teresa Calderón · "The draft is well-grounded on the OIRA and cost-benefit claims, and the voice is appropriately editorial. Two issues require surgical correction: EO 13979 is cited as a co-equal anchor alongside 13771 but its specific regulatory content is not identified in the source excerpt or the reframe — the source text cuts off mid-list, so we cannot confirm what 13979 covers without the specialist supplying that; and the Midnight Rules Relief Act is named as a Project 2025 vehicle, but the source excerpt does not mention it by name, making that a potentially ungrounded claim that needs softening to match what the source actually says. Severity holds at 'serious' — this is significant structural harm to regulatory independence, but not an immediate threat to constitutional governance or bodily autonomy that would warrant 'critical.'"

Project 2025 proposes to dramatically expand OIRA's reach over historically independent agencies and reinstate a suite of Trump-era executive orders that tilted cost-benefit analysis against health, safety, and environmental rules — effectively converting a neutral coordination office into a deregulatory chokepoint that shields industry at the public's expense.

Project 2025's OIRA proposals are framed as efficiency and transparency measures, but their operational effect is to stack the regulatory deck against any rule that imposes costs on industry — no matter how large the public benefit. The call to reinstate Executive Order 13771 (the 'two-for-one' rule requiring two regulations be eliminated for every new one issued) and a suite of other Trump-era executive orders treats regulatory burdens as inherently illegitimate rather than as the measured price of clean air, safe workplaces, or honest financial markets. Cost-benefit analysis is a legitimate tool only when it counts benefits — to workers, consumers, and communities — with the same rigor it counts compliance costs to regulated entities. Tilting the methodology, as OMB Circular A-4 revisions sought to correct, is not neutral governance; it is a thumb on the scale.

The proposal to extend mandatory OIRA review to 'historically independent' agencies — the FTC, SEC, CFPB, and others — would directly undermine the statutory independence Congress deliberately designed into those bodies. Congress created independent agencies precisely to insulate certain expert, quasi-judicial functions from moment-to-moment White House political pressure, a structural choice rooted in each agency's organic statute and affirmed in Humphrey's Executor v. United States. Subjecting their rulemakings to White House OIRA clearance collapses that independence without a single vote in Congress, violating the spirit of the separation of powers and the principle that expert judgment, not political loyalty, should drive agency action. As Protect Democracy has documented, rejecting legislative oversight and centralizing control in the White House is a hallmark of democratic backsliding, not administrative modernization.

The Congressional Review Act provisions are equally alarming in context. Packaging multiple 'midnight rules' for simultaneous repeal would allow a single congressional majority to erase years of expert rulemaking across dozens of agencies in a single vote, with no agency-by-agency analysis, no public comment, and no judicial review. This is not accountability; it is a procedural wrecking ball aimed at the administrative expertise that the Pendleton Act tradition and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 — which enshrined merit-based personnel standards for the competitive service — were designed to protect within the executive branch proper.

A democratically accountable alternative would retain OIRA's coordination role while codifying its neutrality: require that cost-benefit analyses use OMB Circular A-4 methodology as a floor, not a ceiling; prohibit OIRA from substituting political judgment for agency scientific findings; codify the independence of regulatory agencies by statute rather than eroding it by executive order; and strengthen — not weaken — the Congressional Review Act's notice-and-comment analog so that regulatory rollbacks face the same public scrutiny as new rules. Better management of the regulatory state means transparent, evidence-based rulemaking — not ideological gatekeeping dressed up as efficiency.

Original source — excerpted

project2025 Project 2025 ch. 3: Central Personnel Agencies (pp 82-83)

"— 49 — Executive Office of the President of the United States money. As a function of its leadership role, it is critical in interagency discussions on a wide range of technology issues. The office thus is an important part of the President’s efforts to modernize, strengthen, and set technology-adoption policy for the executive branch. MIAO. Building on the example and work of the Trump Administration, Presi- dent Biden established this office to centralize, carry out, and further develop the federal government’s Buy-American and other Made-in-America commitments. Its work ought to be continued and further strengthened. Regulatory and Information Policy. OMB’s OIRA plays an enormous and vital role in reining in the regulatory state and ensuring that regulations achieve important benefits while imposing minimal burdens on Americans. The President should maintain Executive Order (EO) 12866,4 the foundation of OIRA’s review of regulatory actions. The Administration should likewise maintain the recent extension of those standards to regulatory actions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.5 Regulatory analysis and OIRA review should also be required of the historically “…"

#oira#regulatory-capture#independent-agencies#schedule-f#congressional-review-act#cost-benefit-analysis#pendleton-act#separation-of-powers