The recently appointed leads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have proposed a plan where the government pauses enforcement of its own rules to help companies avoid environmental regulations.
In response to that idea, Bracewell’s Jeff Holmstead told E&E News, “I don’t think it would really reduce the burden on industry for the most part, because companies have a legal obligation to comply with regulatory requirements.”
Holmstead added that “this idea that somehow announcing you’re not going to enforce existing regulations is not only not a panacea, but it’s almost meaningless.”
“The only way to reduce the regulatory burden is to actually change the regulations,” he said.
