Highlights from the Practical Law webinar
The February 2025 webinar A First Look at Trump 2.0 and Agency Rulemaking is a critical resource for legal professionals seeking to understand the procedural and legal implications of the new administration’s regulatory policies, delving into the procedural requirements for agency rulemaking, the potential for judicial review, and the impact of the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
Moderated by Thomson Reuters Director of Product Management Zach Ratzman, the discussion featured insights from Practical Law attorney-editors Elizabeth H. Goldman, Nicholas Haddad, Barbara Harris, and Kyle Murray. The panelists, each with extensive experience in regulatory law, provided a detailed examination of the rulemaking process, judicial review, and the impact of the initial round of executive actions. They covered the regulatory freeze, executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and the rollback of health equity initiatives, to provide an overview of the expected changes in health care, benefits compliance, and employment policies, as well as broader regulatory trends under the new administration.
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Agency rulemaking and judicial review
Recent executive actions on health care
Recent executive actions affecting employment law
Expected changes in health care and employment policies
Emerging trends in health plan compliance
Agency rulemaking and judicial review
The rulemaking process is governed by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which outlines the steps agencies must follow to promulgate new rules. Nicholas Haddad, Senior Specialist Legal Editor for Practical Law on federal civil litigation, explained the interplay of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright decision and the new administration’s priorities:
In terms of judicial review of agency rulemaking, courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency acted within its statutory authority and may not defer to agency interpretations of a statute. What does this mean looking forward? Any regulation that’s viewed as taking an approach that strays too far from the statutory text is going to be open to challenge in court. But there’s also a potential for more stability in administrative law. It’s going to be harder for agencies to defend rules that stray from the statute’s text. And that means we may see a little bit less shifting from administration to administration.
Executive orders
The panel noted this administration’s reliance on executive orders, and both their wide-ranging impact and their potential to be modified or overturned quickly. Haddad explained “Perhaps most top-of-mind these days, in the early days of the new administration, are executive orders. These orders are typically permissible only where Congress delegated authority to the president and the president acted within the scope of that delegation. That means that generally, an executive order can implement or clarify existing federal law and can revoke or modify previous executive orders. But executive orders may not rescind, modify, or override statutes and regulations.”
Recent executive actions on health care
Elizabeth H. Goldman, Senior Specialist Legal Editor for Practical Law’s Health Care service, gave an overview of the first “whirlwind few weeks of the second Trump administration, including rescinding Biden administration policies, pausing grants and other federal funds and other new directives. Many aspects of health care and public health have been impacted.” Some of the initial Trump administration actions she highlighted include:
- US withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO)
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directed all subagencies to pause external communications until the documents can be approved by a presidential appointee
- Cancelling federal advisory committee meetings, grant review panels, and other types of meetings
- Scrubbing of federal health care websites
- And executive orders impacting reproductive and gender-affirming care.
Some of those actions have since been paused or partially reversed by action in federal courts. For the most up-to-date view of the activities of the new administration, see the Practical Law resource Trump Administration Toolkit. Practical Law also created an initial resource, 2025 Trump Administration Transition Toolkit: The First 100 Days, covering the early days of the administration
Recent executive actions affecting employment law
The webinar covered several then-current executive actions, including the regulatory freeze. Barbara Harris, a Senior Executive Editor in the Labor & Employment group of Practical Law, examined the administration’s many actions directed at dramatically reshaping the federal workforce, giving some background on their focus on dismantling DEI programs: “I think the message that this administration is trying to send from the top down is that they’re really serious about dismantling DEI, or trying to, at least within the federal government. . . [T]hey do technically only take issue with those illegal DEI initiatives, [but] they don’t define what that really means or what the bounds of a legal DEI program might look like. I suspect that’s something we’re going to see litigated in the future.”
As predicted, the legal challenges to the administration’s DEI initiatives have begun and are likely to continue for some time. For the latest developments, see the Practical Law resource 2025 Labor & Employment Law Developments Tracker: Trump Administration Executive Actions.
Expected changes in health care and employment policies
One of the most significant areas of focus is the expected changes in health care and employment policies. Panelists discussed effects of the slowdown in rulemaking, as well as potential rollbacks of health equity initiatives, restrictions on gender–affirming care, and a shift in the enforcement of non-discrimination laws. Goldman said, “All of this leaves a lot of uncertainty over access to gender affirming care for minors, and whether the administration could take further action to restrict such care across the board… Based on the administration’s actions so far on DEI, it’s quite probable that there will be a rollback of health equity initiatives and perhaps associated payment models.“
Emerging trends in health plan compliance
Addressing emerging trends in employee benefits, Kyle Murray, a Senior Specialist Legal Editor who specializes in health plan compliance with Practical Law, observed that an important nondiscrimination law under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has changed repeatedly under recent presidential administrations. Murray indicated that this law, which governs issues such as health plan exclusions for gender transition surgery, including facial feminization surgery, is likely to be read more narrowly under regulations expected from the second Trump administration. He also addressed compliance issues such as ACA contraceptives, “junk insurance,” mental health parity, and health plan price transparency.
Broader regulatory trends
The webinar also examined the broader regulatory trends under the new administration. For regularly updated details on the Trump administration’s executive orders and related developments, and their impact on multiple practice areas, see Trump Administration Toolkit.
Staying informed
It’s clear the regulatory landscape is changing more quickly, and more substantially, than any time in recent memory. As Zach Ratzman, the moderator, noted, “Understanding these changes is crucial for legal professionals navigating the new regulatory environment. The coming months will be marked by significant shifts in policy, and staying informed will be key to effectively representing clients and navigating the legal landscape.”
To keep up with the rapid changes of this administration, see Practical Law’s Toolkit.
