Policy and Legal

The regulatory onslaught facing manufacturers has “reached a fever pitch” over the past four years, but the incoming administration can turn things around, the NAM and more than 100 other manufacturing associations told President-elect Trump and his Cabinet today.

What’s going on: “You have the opportunity to tackle this challenge by addressing burdensome regulations that are stifling investment, making us less competitive in the world, limiting innovation and threatening the very jobs we are all working to create right here in America,” the groups wrote to the president-elect.

What they said: The letter outlines a pro-manufacturing regulatory agenda based on more than three dozen regulatory actions the administration can take starting on Day One. Key highlights include the following:

• Instituting a “regulatory reset”: The NAM and its partners are calling on the incoming administration to “stop the trend of overreaching regulations that seek to expand agencies’ authority” and instead focus on tailored rulemakings based on robust collaboration with the industry.
• Lifting the LNG export ban: President-elect Trump should undo the Biden administration’s January moratorium on liquefied natural gas export permits. A protracted pause would jeopardize 900,000 jobs and $250 billion in U.S. gross domestic product, according to a recent NAM study.
• Easing the permitting burden: “The United States’ out-of-date permitting laws and procedures are holding back progress and restricting manufacturers’ ability to compete globally,” says the letter. The Trump administration should accelerate the permitting process for critical energy infrastructure, create enforceable deadlines and provide regulatory certainty to manufacturers.
• Reconsidering NAAQS PM2.5 and maintaining the existing NAAQS ozone standard: In February, the Environmental Protection Agency announced an unworkably stringent National Ambient Air Quality Standard for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The Trump administration should relax the PM2.5 rule and maintain the existing NAAQS for ozone—a standard the European Union has set more than 70% above the current U.S. threshold—when it comes up for review in 2025.
• Replacing unbalanced power plant rules: The Trump administration should replace the EPA’s new rules for existing coal-fired and new natural gas–fired power plants with workable standards.
• Depoliticizing the proxy process: In recent years, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken steps to empower activist investors and proxy advisory firms. The incoming administration should rescind damaging standards, such as Staff Legal Bulletin 14L, which requires companies to include activist proposals on their proxy ballots, while preserving and protecting much-needed reforms from the first Trump administration, including the landmark 2020 proxy firm rule.

Other asks: The group also urged the new administration to:

• Reverse the trend of overly burdensome and unworkable chemicals regulations, such as the Biden administration’s PFAS rules;
• Take decisive measures to protect manufacturers’ intellectual property rights;
• Narrow the scope of proposed cyber incident reporting requirements; and
• Reconsider the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s damaging “walkaround” rule and more.

Ready to move forward: America’s manufacturers are committed to a regulatory environment that “truly supports manufacturing, innovation and American prosperity”—and they are “ready to move forward” with the president-elect to “make America’s manufacturing sector unstoppable.”