Industry experts made the case for cutting regulatory red tape and unleashing American industry at a Daily Caller Live event sponsored by the American Chemistry Council on Tuesday.
Caller reporter Ashley Brasfield asked how much of the challenge in reviving the U.S. manufacturing base was due to regulation and permitting, prompting Director Andrew Langer of the Center for Regulatory Freedom at the CPAC Foundation to label it a major issue. Regulatory studies fellow Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) also considered it an obstacle. The panelists laid out the progress on deregulation achieved during President Donald Trump’s second term so far and turned their attention to project permits, arguing they represent a major obstacle to unleashing innovation and production. (RELATED: GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne, Panelists Lay Out Key Race Against China At Daily Caller Event)
“Obviously when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” Langer said. “But the reality is the Trump administration, building on the successes of the first term, had a much better understanding of the complexities in the administrative state and what they needed to do to start dismantling.”
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He noted the launching of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to tackle federal waste, fraud and abuse and the use of “requests for information” to obtain ideas from the public on reforms.
“And now we’re dealing with the fundamentals … seriously dismantling the regulatory growth under the Biden administration,” he said, estimating that regulatory costs rose around 15% annually during former President Joe Biden’s term.
Wayne Crews said the Trump administration has “basically frozen” regulatory growth, noting many of the new rules rolled back previous rules and regulations. “It’s the lowest number we’ve had since numbers were even tallied in terms of federal register pages and rulemaking,” he said before warning Congress was passing costly legislation and agencies were regulating Americans through “regulatory dark matter” that doesn’t show up in public rulemaking.
CEI Director of the Center for Energy and Environment Daren Bakst said American policymakers “shoot [themselves] in the foot” before turning to permitting laws and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), an environmental law. He argued the Trump administration needs to “reduce the number of triggers” that enact NEPA and called for Congress to protect coal and natural gas firms from unfair treatment under the Clean Air Act.
Bakst also said new projects frequently get stalled by third parties aiming to shut them down, and noted that the Environmental Protection Agency has been known to veto projects after authorities signed off on them. (RELATED: Experts Discuss State Of American Manufacturing At Daily Caller Live Event)
Langer argued the paperwork needed for a project permit in the U.S. is one of the primary barriers to getting things done, saying the Jones Act — a law on what ships can dock in U.S. ports and shipbuilding — makes it too difficult for firms to invest in building ships in the U.S.
Wayne Crews said one issue with permitting is regulation takes place in “silos” based on separate industries, arguing there’s a “crisis in property rights” in complex sectors such as digital technology. He added that new approaches need to be taken to better address the issue.
Bakst cited pushes for reform in Congress, noting that the House passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act in December 2025. The bill is aimed at limiting NEPA’s reach and reducing triggers for a review, and it would also exclude some proposed agency actions already reviewed by other federal, state or tribal officials from NEPA review, according to its summary. The Senate reviewed the bill and referred it to its Committee on Environment and Public Works shortly after it cleared the House.