The policy consequences of this decision are mixed and potentially troubling, as the dissent<\/a>, authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the concurrence<\/a> by Justice Neil Gorsuch explain. I return to those briefly below. But one positive outcome is that the decision affirms a President\u2019s ability to oversee the regulations of independent agencies, just as he does executive branch agencies.<\/p>\n The U.S. Congress for decades has delegated to regulatory agencies broad authority to write binding regulations, and the number, significance, and scope of those regulations has grown<\/a> over the years. To provide some accountability for these agencies\u2019 rules, presidents since at least 1981 have exercised<\/a> control over how executive branch agencies develop and issue their regulations to ensure they are consistent with law, address a compelling public need, and provide net social benefits.<\/p>\n President Bill Clinton\u2019s Executive Order 12,866<\/a>, still in effect today, requires executive branch agencies to submit to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) significant proposed and final rules before publication, along with assessments of alternatives and expected benefits and costs. However, Executive Order 12,866<\/a>, and its predecessor Executive Order 12,291<\/a>, signed by President Ronald Reagan, carved out from those requirements independent regulatory commissions, including the FTC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and others. The legal rationale for the carve-out was<\/a> never airtight, but it rested in part on the same premise Humphrey\u2019s supplied\u2014namely, that these agencies\u2019 insulation from presidential removal meant they should likewise be insulated from presidential review of their substantive policy choices.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s Supreme Court opinion overturning Humphrey\u2019s affirms what President Donald J. Trump said last year in Executive Order 14,215<\/a>, entitled \u201cEnsuring Accountability for All Agencies,\u201d that \u201cthese regulatory agencies currently exercise substantial executive authority without sufficient accountability to the President, and through him, to the American people.\u201d He required them, for the first time, to follow the analysis and review requirements of Executive Order 12,866.<\/p>\n As a former OIRA economist and later its administrator, I think this oversight will lead<\/a> to better policy. Over the years, there have been bipartisan calls<\/a> to extend Executive Order 12,866 to independent regulatory agencies, including from the American Bar Association<\/a> and Congress<\/a>. This is because the requirement<\/a> to conduct benefit-cost analysis adds<\/a> discipline and rigor to the regulatory process. OMB review provides what President Barack Obama called<\/a> \u201ca dispassionate and analytical second opinion\u201d on agencies\u2019 analysis and serves to coordinate policies across federal agencies. Experts agree<\/a> that independent agencies\u2019 regulations have broad social impacts and do not differ substantively from regulations issued by executive branch agencies. Yet, because they have largely been exempt from Executive Order 12,866, the analysis supporting independent regulatory agency regulations have tended<\/a> to be less robust<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, the Slaughter opinion may have unintended consequences. Justice Gorsuch\u2019s concurrence is worth reading on this point. He agrees<\/a> with the removal holding but worries that it transfers to the President, rather than eliminates, the vast legislative and adjudicatory powers\u2014in addition to executive power\u2014that these agencies hold. Justice Sotomayor\u2019s dissent defends<\/a> the multimember, bipartisan commission structure as a calculated judgment by Congress about which decisions should sit outside of partisan control. She warns<\/a> that unwinding agency independence will reduce the continuity and stability of government and make policies more subject to \u201cpresidential whim.\u201d<\/p>\n I think these are legitimate concerns. Going forward, I will be watching how this week\u2019s Slaughter decision\u2014which, by giving presidents greater control over agency regulations, may lead to greater swings in policy direction between administrations\u2014interacts with the Roberts Court\u2019s major questions doctrine<\/a> and the Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo<\/a> opinion\u2014which pushed in the other direction. The major questions doctrine requires agencies to point to clear congressional authorization when regulating on issues of vast economic and political significance, while, in Loper Bright, the Court removed lower courts\u2019 obligation to defer to agencies\u2019 reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Those opinions, by constraining the executive\u2019s ability to unilaterally interpret and make law without clear congressional direction, explicitly tried to reduce the policy swings each new presidency brings. Whether the net effect of these doctrines is more accountable policy or just more volatile policy remains to be seen.<\/p>\n This essay is part of a series titled, \u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s 2025-2026 Regulatory Term.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump v. Slaughter may force independent agencies to provide more rigorous justifications for new rules. For over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,13962,98078,325250,88700,3,15304,325251,10501,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-759744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-executive-branch","tag-executive-power","tag-humphreys-executor-v-u-s","tag-independent-agencies","tag-news","tag-supreme-court","tag-trump-v-slaughter","tag-u-s-supreme-court","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/dudley-hs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n