What is Executive Order 12866? The Blueprint for Regulatory Review
In our debut episode, we break down Executive Order 12866, the 1993 order signed by President Clinton that created the modern framework for federal regulatory review. We cover how a roughly 50-person office inside OMB has reviewed over 48,000 rules and modified nearly 38% of them, the four criteria that trigger White House review, how every president from Obama to Trump 2.0 has built on it, and a real-world case study of the FDA hearing aid rule. Plus, we use audio from President Clinton’s actual signing ceremony.
Episode 001
In this episode, we cover:
* Audio from President Clinton’s signing of EO 12866 on September 30, 1993
* The history of presidential regulatory oversight from Nixon’s “Quality of Life Review” through Reagan’s EO 12291
* What EO 12866 actually requires: the $100M significance threshold, cost-benefit analysis, transparency, and the 90-day review clock
* How OIRA review works in practice: interagency circulation, stakeholder meetings, and negotiation
* The numbers: 54% of rules cleared without changes, 38% modified, and the disappearance of formal returns
* Case study: The FDA’s over-the-counter hearing aid rule (2017–2022)
* How each president has amended EO 12866:
* Obama: EO 13563 — non-quantifiable benefits, retrospective review
* Trump 1.0: EO 13771 — “one-in, two-out”
* Biden: EO 14094 — raised threshold to $200M
* Trump 2.0: EO 14215 — extended OIRA review to independent agencies, “one-in, ten-out”
Links:
* Blog post: What is Executive Order 12866? [https://regulationroundup.com/blog/what-is-executive-order-12866/]
* Track rules under OIRA review: app.regulationroundup.com [https://app.regulationroundup.com/]
* Next in this series: What is OIRA? [https://regulationroundup.com/blog/what-is-oira/]
Connect:
* Website: regulationroundup.com [https://regulationroundup.com/]
* Dashboard: app.regulationroundup.com [https://app.regulationroundup.com/]
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