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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - September 6, 2017
Trump Administration (first term)  Vice President Mike Pence Cabinet • White House staff • Transition team • Trump's second term |
Domestic affairs: Abortion • Crime and justice • Education • Energy and the environment • Federal courts • Firearms policy • First Amendment • Healthcare • Immigration • Infrastructure • LGBTQ issues • Marijuana • Puerto Rico • Social welfare programs • Veterans • Voting issues Economic affairs and regulations: Agriculture and food policy • Budget • Financial regulation • Jobs • Social Security • Taxes • Trade Foreign affairs and national security: Afghanistan • Arab states of the Persian Gulf • China • Cuba • Iran • Iran nuclear deal • Islamic State and terrorism • Israel and Palestine • Latin America • Military • NATO • North Korea • Puerto Rico • Russia • Syria • Syrian refugees • Technology, privacy, and cybersecurity |
| Polling indexes: Opinion polling during the Trump administration |
This is the September 6, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
On January 30, 2017, President Trump issued the Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, which proposed that “for every one new regulation issued, at least two prior regulations be identified for elimination, and that the cost of planned regulations be prudently managed and controlled through a budgeting process.” In light of Trump’s executive order, as well as former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s objective to bring about what he called the dismantling of the administrative state, the size of the Federal Register can provide context to help determine the scope and magnitude of federal administrative agencies.
What is the Federal Register?
According to the publication’s website, the Federal Register, published each federal working day, serves as the “the daily journal of the United States government." The first edition of the Federal Register was published on March 14, 1936, in order to inform government officials, regulated parties, and the general public about new regulations, rules, orders and codes.
Each issue of the Federal Register provides information about recent activity by federal administrative agencies. Readers can peruse proposed administrative rules, final administrative rules, policy statements, and interpretations of existing rules. The journal also includes notices of public hearings, grant applications, administrative orders, executive orders, and other presidential documents. Since the Federal Register is the first point of publication for this information, it is a valuable resource for government officials and private citizens who are interested in the impact of the daily activities of administrative agencies and the executive branch.
Why is tracking the Federal Register important?
The Federal Register serves as a communication tool to keep government officials and interested members of the public up-to-date on administrative agency activity as well as a means to facilitate public engagement in the rulemaking process.
The size of the Federal Register can also provide clues to help gauge the breadth of federal administrative agencies. According to the Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies, a publication of the Administrative Conference of the United States, the actual number of federal administrative agencies is unknown. The Sourcebook identified conservative estimates of “78 independent executive agencies and 174 components of the executive departments” and broader assessments of up to “137 independent executive agencies and 268 units in the Cabinet.” Due to the lack of consensus, Ballotpedia’s list of additions to the Federal Register can serve as a measuring stick to help quantify the scope of federal administrative agencies.
What does Ballotpedia track?
Ballotpedia tracks weekly additions to the Federal Register, including agency notices, presidential documents, proposed rules, final rules, and total pages. Our tracker also features 2017 totals for each category to help readers quantify annual federal administrative activity since January 1.
How does 2017 compare to previous years?
The Federal Register published an all-time high of in the Federal Register (1936 - 2016) 95,894 total pages in 2016, exceeding the 2015 total by more than 15,000 pages. From January 1 to September 1, 2017, 38,222 pages had been added to the Federal Register—30,600 of which were added during the Trump administration.
The following table identifies total annual published pages in the Federal Register over the last 40 years for the first and final years of each presidential administration. The list includes the page totals for the full calendar year (Jan. 1 - Dec. 31) in which each president assumed office as well as the final, full calendar year of each administration.
Stay tuned to Ballotpedia every Friday for updates on additions to the Federal Register in 2017.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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