The Trump administration’s “One In Ten Out” deregulation plan has served as a policy framework designed to reduce the federal regulatory burden on businesses by requiring agencies to eliminate two existing regulations for every one new regulation they propose. This executive order, which prioritizes deregulation as a core economic strategy, reflects a particular philosophy about government size and business freedom—that removing regulatory obstacles will stimulate economic growth and reduce compliance costs. However, the actual implementation and measurable progress of this initiative remains subject to debate, with critics questioning whether the plan delivers meaningful relief or merely masks selective deregulation that benefits specific industries.
The policy’s track record demonstrates significant variation in how different federal agencies have executed these directives. Some agencies have moved quickly to identify redundant or outdated rules for removal, while others have struggled to identify regulations that meet the specific criteria, or have argued that certain safeguards cannot be eliminated without compromising public interest protections. For example, environmental and financial regulators have consistently reported lower compliance rates with the deregulation mandate compared to agencies managing business licensing or commercial operations.
Table of Contents
- How Does the One In Ten Out Rule Actually Work?
- The Challenge of Measuring Regulatory Burden Reduction
- Which Industries Have Benefited Most From Deregulation?
- Regulatory Removal Versus Regulatory Modification—What’s the Difference?
- Implementation Gaps and Resistance From Government Agencies
- State and Local Regulatory Gaps Left Behind
- The Absence of Independent Verification
How Does the One In Ten Out Rule Actually Work?
The one In Ten Out framework requires federal agencies to identify two existing regulations to eliminate or substantially revise whenever they propose a single new regulatory action. The order sets a monetary offset target: agencies must ensure that the costs of the one new regulation do not exceed the costs saved by eliminating the two prior rules. This creates a mathematical and bureaucratic challenge—identifying older regulations that carry precisely quantifiable costs, proving those costs will actually be eliminated, and ensuring the new rule’s costs fall within the established offset.
Implementation has revealed practical complications. Many regulations serve multiple purposes or interact with state and local rules in ways that make simple elimination difficult. A rule governing industrial waste disposal, for instance, may have been adopted to comply with federal environmental law while also addressing state pollution standards. Removing the federal regulation does not necessarily remove the underlying requirement at the state level, meaning businesses may not experience the promised cost reduction. Additionally, some agencies have discovered that their oldest regulations lack adequate cost documentation, making it difficult to calculate precise savings.
The Challenge of Measuring Regulatory Burden Reduction
Quantifying actual regulatory cost reduction presents a significant methodological problem that affects how progress is assessed. The government has struggled to establish baseline measurements for regulatory burden before and after implementation. Different agencies use different calculation methods—some measure only direct compliance costs, while others include indirect economic effects.
This inconsistency makes it difficult to claim that a specific dollar amount of regulatory burden has been eliminated. A critical limitation is that removing a regulation does not necessarily reduce business costs if the underlying market pressure or consumer demand for safety, quality, or disclosure still exists. For example, if a company voluntarily maintains safety standards equivalent to eliminated regulations to protect its reputation and avoid liability, the practical burden on that company remains unchanged despite the formal regulatory elimination. Conversely, when regulations are removed but no market or reputational mechanism replaces them, the result may be externalized costs—such as environmental damage or consumer risk—that become societal problems rather than corporate compliance expenses.
Which Industries Have Benefited Most From Deregulation?
Deregulation efforts have been unevenly distributed across sectors. Financial services, energy production, and pharmaceutical approval processes have seen more aggressive regulatory rollback compared to healthcare, environmental protection, and workplace safety. Financial institutions reported reduced compliance costs following relaxation of certain lending standards and consumer disclosure requirements, though these changes also preceded compliance challenges and disputes in consumer finance.
Energy sector companies, particularly fossil fuel producers, benefited from streamlined permitting processes and eliminated environmental review requirements on certain projects. A specific example emerged in the streamlining of oil and gas drilling permits on federal lands, where agencies compressed multi-year review processes into shorter timeframes by eliminating specific environmental impact assessments. However, this created new risks: companies operating under expedited permits faced higher rates of environmental disputes and legal challenges from conservation groups, effectively creating new compliance costs through litigation rather than regulatory compliance.
Regulatory Removal Versus Regulatory Modification—What’s the Difference?
The One In Ten Out rule technically requires elimination of two regulations for every one new rule. In practice, agencies have pursued alternatives: they modify existing regulations to reduce their scope or stringency rather than eliminating them entirely. A regulation can be narrowed to apply to larger companies only, to require less frequent reporting, or to adopt cheaper compliance methods. These modifications count toward the two-for-one goal.
This distinction matters because a modified regulation may retain its core function while reducing burden, or it may dangerously weaken protections. The difference depends on which aspects are removed. For example, modifying a food safety regulation to reduce inspection frequency may save money for compliant companies but increase risk during periods of disease outbreaks or contamination discovery. Comparing the tradeoff between cost reduction and risk increase requires case-by-case analysis that agencies have not consistently provided in their reporting.
Implementation Gaps and Resistance From Government Agencies
Not all federal agencies have pursued aggressive deregulation. Agencies responsible for public health, environmental protection, and consumer safety have consistently reported lower numbers of regulations eliminated or modified compared to the policy goals. These agencies cite statutory obligations that prevent them from eliminating certain rules—environmental regulations tied to Clean Air Act requirements, for instance, cannot be eliminated without Congress changing the underlying law.
A significant warning: some agencies have responded to the Two-Out requirement by identifying cosmetic or minor regulations for elimination rather than substantive rules. This creates an illusion of progress—an agency can claim to have eliminated many regulations while preserving the most economically significant ones. Without detailed analysis of each elimination, aggregate reporting on “number of regulations removed” can be misleading. An agency might eliminate five outdated recordkeeping procedures (each genuinely obsolete) while preserving three major compliance rules that impose substantial costs—and report this as successful deregulation.
State and Local Regulatory Gaps Left Behind
When federal regulations are eliminated, the responsibility for regulation does not automatically transfer to states. Businesses operating in multiple states face a patchwork effect: federal baseline standards are removed, but individual state regulations remain in place. This can create compliance complexity where it previously did not exist. A pharmaceutical company, for example, might have previously followed one federal standard for drug labeling that applied everywhere.
After federal rule elimination, the company must now comply with the label requirements of each state where it sells products. This fragmentation can actually increase some companies’ compliance costs, even as total regulatory cost is claimed to have declined. Smaller companies with regional operations sometimes prefer uniform federal standards—easier to comply with one national rule than twelve state rules. The deregulation plan does not account for these secondary effects.
The Absence of Independent Verification
Federal agencies self-report their progress on the One In Ten Out initiative. The Government Accountability Office and other independent oversight bodies have not conducted systematic audits to verify that claimed regulatory eliminations actually occurred as described, that cost savings were real, or that new regulations truly fit within the offset targets. Without independent verification, the reported progress figures remain unconfirmed.
This lack of transparency means that stakeholders—businesses, consumers, advocacy groups—cannot independently assess whether the policy is working as intended. A complete accounting would require agencies to publish detailed data on each regulation eliminated: what it required, what it cost industry, what it cost to comply with, and what public interest protections it served. Few agencies have provided this level of documentation.
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