in effect
This is a presidential Executive Order (EO 14270, signed April 9, 2025), an instruction from the President to federal agencies. It directs certain energy-related agencies to add automatic expiration (“sunset”) dates to their existing and future regulations, forcing those rules to be reviewed periodically or else disappear.
Named agencies must issue a “sunset rule” by September 30, 2025 that attaches a conditional expiration date to each covered regulation; existing covered rules are set to expire one year after that sunset rule takes effect, and new covered rules must expire within five years. Unless an agency actively extends a rule, it stops being enforced on its expiration date and is removed from the Code of Federal Regulations to the extent the law allows. Before a rule expires, the agency must give the public a chance to comment on its costs and benefits, after which the agency can extend the date—but never to more than five years out, and extensions can be repeated as needed. The order applies only to regulations issued under specific listed statutes (for example, the Atomic Energy Act, Federal Power Act, Endangered Species Act, and others tied to each agency); EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers must submit their own list of applicable statutes within 30 days. Rules that expire or get extended under this order do not count toward the separate “ten-for-one” deregulation requirement in EO 14192, and permitting programs authorized by statute are excluded.
The order directly binds the EPA, Department of Energy, FERC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, and several Interior Department bureaus (surface mining, land management, ocean energy, safety enforcement, and Fish and Wildlife), which must rewrite their rules and coordinate with OMB and internal “DOGE” team leads. Businesses and individuals regulated in energy production, mining, and related wildlife/environmental areas would be affected as specific rules potentially lapse or get renewed. The order states it is carried out “to the extent permitted by law” and creates no new legal rights that anyone can enforce in court.