What matters to me today is regulatory déjà vu . . . again.
If it feels like we’re reliving the same regulatory battles every administration, it’s because we are. The latest wave of proposed rules from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a textbook example of regulatory whiplash—where each presidential administration reverses the environmental regulatory framework of its predecessor.
In just the past week, FWS has issued four major proposals revisiting the Endangered Species Act’s core machinery. These include designating critical habitat, revising the processes for listing and delisting species, overhauling interagency consultation under Section 7, and protection for threatened species. Collectively, these proposals unravel substantial portions of prior regulatory revisions, themselves products of earlier political swings.
EPA has joined the cycle as well, publishing yet another redefinition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) in response to Sackett v. USEPA—but also in response to shifting executive priorities. This latest proposal rewrites key jurisdictional terms, eliminates longstanding categories, and reopens decades-long debates about federal authority under the Clean Water Act.
The result is a regulatory environment that resembles a pendulum locked in perpetual motion. Regulated entities—from homebuilders to infrastructure agencies to farmers—must constantly re-learn the rules, re-evaluate project risks, and recalibrate compliance strategies. Agencies, courts, and stakeholders are left navigating frameworks that may last only as long as the next election cycle.
This isn’t policymaking by evolution; it’s policymaking by oscillation. And until stability becomes a bipartisan priority, we should expect to experience regulatory déjà vu—again and again.
That’s what matters to me today in 250 words or less. What matters to you? I’d really like to know.