Report Issued On Two-For-One Executive Order, But What About The SEC?

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently published a report on the fiscal 2018 results of President Trump's Executive Order 13771 (Jan. 30, 2017) requiring federal agencies and departments to, among other things, eliminate two regulatory actions for each new regulatory action.  According to the OIRA, agencies issued 176 deregulatory actions and 14 significant regulatory actions.  The ratio of significant deregulatory  actions to significant regulatory actions was 4 to 1. 

The OIRA's report includes a chart lists the federal departments and agencies and the numbers of deregulatory and regulatory actions taken by each together with the present value of the costs or cost savings associated with those actions.  The Department of Health and Human Services took the most deregulatory actions (25) followed closely by the Department of Education (24) and Department of Transportation (23).  

Notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission does not appear in the OIRA's chart.  The President's Executive Order imposes the two-for-one requirement on each "executive department or agency".  That would seem to include the Securities and Exchange Commission.  However, guidance subsequently issued by the Office of Management and Budget limited its excludes "independent agencies" as defined in 44 U.S.C. § 3502(5). That statute lists the SEC as an independent agency, even though it may not be truly independent.  See  How Independent Is The SEC And How Independent Should It Be?