In our debut episode, we break down Executive Order 12866, the 1993 order signed by President Clinton that created the modern framework for federal regulatory review. We cover how a roughly 50-person office inside OMB has reviewed over 48,000 rules and modified nearly 38% of them, the four criteria that trigger White House review, how every president from Obama to Trump 2.0 has built on it, and a real-world case study of the FDA hearing aid rule. Plus, we use audio from President Clinton’s actual signing ceremony.
Episode 001
In this episode, we cover:
- Audio from President Clinton’s signing of EO 12866 on September 30, 1993
- The history of presidential regulatory oversight from Nixon’s “Quality of Life Review” through Reagan’s EO 12291
- What EO 12866 actually requires: the $100M significance threshold, cost-benefit analysis, transparency, and the 90-day review clock
- How OIRA review works in practice: interagency circulation, stakeholder meetings, and negotiation
- The numbers: 54% of rules cleared without changes, 38% modified, and the disappearance of formal returns
- Case study: The FDA’s over-the-counter hearing aid rule (2017–2022)
- How each president has amended EO 12866:
- Obama: EO 13563 — non-quantifiable benefits, retrospective review
- Trump 1.0: EO 13771 — “one-in, two-out”
- Biden: EO 14094 — raised threshold to $200M
- Trump 2.0: EO 14215 — extended OIRA review to independent agencies, “one-in, ten-out”
Links:
- Blog post: What is Executive Order 12866?
- Track rules under OIRA review: app.regulationroundup.com
- Next in this series: What is OIRA?
Connect:
- Website: regulationroundup.com
- Dashboard: app.regulationroundup.com
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