The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) has issued a series of short “fact sheets,” to aid understanding of the legal mechanisms and processes that the White House, federal agencies, and Congress are considering as a means of changing the regulatory approach to environmental, natural resources, and health and safety standards and safeguards.

Rather than re-invent a wheel that has been already well-designed and well-implemented, a number of them are provided here.  My intent is to help readers understand the processes that can and, in some cases, must be followed to do away with public protections.

Each of the linked sheets addresses a specific legal tool or pathway that could be used to change existing environmental — and other — protections. They assume the reader has some familiarity with the federal regulatory landscape, but no particular legal or technical background. Each fact sheet identifies the relevant actors, describes the applicable procedures, discusses key features of each procedure, and opportunities for public engagement. The  information is current as of March 21, 2017. Where relevant, the fact sheets highlight opportunities for stakeholder engagement that are specific to individual processes. The links (in process..) below do not include all the fact sheets; see Regulatory Reform in the Trump Era for more.

1: Reversing or Revising Executive Orders and Actions; 2: Undoing Presidential Actions Protecting Public Lands and Resources; 3: Fast-Tracking Projects That Require Federal Approval; 4: “Cancelling” the Paris Agreement on Climate Change; 5: Reversing or Revising Agency Regulations, Generally; 7: Implementing the New “Two-for-One” Executive Order on Federal Regulations; 12: Subjecting Agency Regulations to Additional Cost-Benefit Analysis; 13: Enacting New Procedures for Federal Regulation