President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 18 to enable the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to have oversight of independent federal agencies.
Examples of independent agencies include the Federal Reserve, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Trade Commission.
The executive order cites the Constitution, which states that the president is in charge of the executive branch and therefore those under him answer to him.
The measure said that the independent agencies “currently exercise substantial executive authority without sufficient accountability to the president, and through him, to the American people” and that “these regulatory agencies have been permitted to promulgate significant regulations without review by the president.”
Therefore, according to the executive order, “for the federal government to be truly accountable to the American people, officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected president.”
The order would enable Trump to fire the heads of these agencies.
“The President and the Attorney General (subject to the President’s supervision and control) will interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations,” the fact sheet stated.
The executive order comes as Trump has fired top officials at these agencies such as NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, Office of Special Counsel head Hampton Dellinger, and Office of Government Ethics Director David Huitema. These firings have shown Trump’s desire to have no agency leaders in the executive branch that he sees as undermining his “America First” agenda.
Dellinger, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in 2024, has taken legal action to keep his job. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and allow for Dellinger to be terminated.
Trump has also fired inspectors general despite, in accordance with the law, being required to notify Congress 30 days prior to firing them.
The executive order “does not apply to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or to the Federal Open Market Committee in its conduct of monetary policy” such as setting interest rates, but does when it comes to “its conduct and authorities directly related to its supervision and regulation of financial institutions.”
Therefore, this executive order could lead to Trump firing Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell was appointed by Trump in 2018 and, despite criticisms from Trump, has declined to resign.
Finally, the executive order requires the director of the Office of Management and Budget, currently Russell Vought, to create performance metrics for independent agency leaders and report on them to the president.
