President Trump Discards Obama Legacy, One Rule at a Time

Just days after the November election, top aides to Donald Trump huddled with congressional staff members in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s suite of offices at the Capitol. The objective: not to get things done, but to undo them — quickly.

For about three months after Inauguration Day, President Trump would have the power to wipe away some of his predecessor’s most significant regulations with simple-majority votes from his allies in Congress. But the clock was ticking. An obscure law known as the Congressional Review Act gives lawmakers 60 legislative days to overturn major new regulations issued by federal agencies. After that window closes, sometime in early May, the process gets much more difficult: Executive orders by the president can take years to unwind regulations — well beyond the important 100-day yardstick for new administrations. So in weekly meetings leading up to Jan. 20, the Trump aides and lawmakers worked from a shared Excel spreadsheet to develop a list of possible targets: rules enacted late in Barack Obama’s presidency that they viewed as a vast regulatory overreach that was stifling economic growth. The result was a historic reversal of government rules in record time.