Legal experts are sounding the alarm after former President Donald Trump quietly issued an executive order that they say dangerously expands presidential power — bypassing laws meant to keep the White House in check.
Trump’s latest move allows federal agencies to kill or change major regulations without following the legal process that normally requires public input and expert review. Legal scholars are calling it an aggressive overreach — and one that could have far-reaching consequences.
One line in particular from a recent order stunned legal experts. In an executive order directing the Energy Department to repeal rules on showerhead water limits, Trump wrote:
“Notice and comment is unnecessary because I am ordering the repeal.”
“That is truly an extraordinary assertion of power,” said Max Sarinsky, regulatory policy director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, according to The Hill.
Under the law, agencies are required to go through a process called “notice and comment” when changing or removing rules. This means they must give the public a chance to respond and consider input from experts before making changes. It’s designed to make sure decisions are informed, legal, and in the public interest.
“One goal of notice and comment is to ensure the agency has full information, both from regulated entities … as well as the public and then experts,” said Carrie Jenks, executive director of Harvard’s environmental and energy law program.
Jenks said Trump’s executive order appears to “violate the Administrative Procedure Act,” which lays out these legal requirements.
Even more alarming to legal experts is how quickly Trump’s administration acted. Just days after the order, the Energy Department rushed out a final rule eliminating the Biden-era showerhead standards — without public feedback, without hearings, and without a formal process.
“The White House is asserting the power, essentially, to regulate or to deregulate by executive order. That is novel,” said Nina Mendelson, a law professor at the University of Michigan.
The law does allow exceptions for emergencies — but experts say that doesn’t apply here.
“[It has] typically been used in like emergency situations or, for some reason, the immediate implementation rule was necessary to address some sort of immediate threat to public health or safety,” said Sarinsky, who also served in the Biden administration. “There’s now decades of case law … and courts have emphasized generally that it should be used narrowly.”
Sarinsky called Trump’s actions “blatantly illegal.”
And this isn’t limited to one rule. Trump has also ordered sweeping regulatory rollbacks across multiple agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. His order would allow these agencies to “sunset” — or automatically cancel — large numbers of federal rules, some of which have been in place for decades.
Mendelson warned that if agencies start removing regulations without proper review, we could see “a radical reshaping of the regulatory structure in a very short time.”
She added that the courts have been clear: changing the effective date of a rule or removing it entirely requires a new rulemaking process. Anything else is a “substantive change,” which must go through notice and comment.
Trump has also given broad exemptions to coal plants, freeing dozens from a Biden-era rule limiting toxic emissions — a move that further alarmed environmental law experts.
“This would be a power grab at the expense of Congress, and it’s a power grab at the expense of American people,” said Jason Schwartz, legal director at NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity.
“It would be a real expansion of presidential power at the expense of Congress, which passed these statutes in the first place.”
Jenks agreed, calling Trump’s actions part of a “very aggressive executive authority” that goes beyond energy or environmental issues.
Legal experts now expect lawsuits to follow — but they warn that if the courts allow this to stand, the president may soon be able to rewrite entire areas of law with the stroke of a pen.
