President Donald Trump aims to reduce the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy's regulatory powers, and he is using the Supreme Court to try to achieve that goal.

In a recent memo to all department and agency heads, Trump directed them to commence repealing unlawful regulations in light of 10 specific Supreme Court decisions that limited or narrowed the federal government's regulatory authorities, Fox News reported.

The move suggests that Trump is serious about implementing his deregulatory agenda and flies in the face of critics who have asserted that the president has no respect for and will not abide by high court rulings that constrain the power of the executive branch.

Trump's deregulatory move

On February 19, President Trump issued an executive order that directed all department and agency heads to coordinate with their respective DOGE teams on a 60-day review of all regulations under their jurisdiction to identify those that were known or suspected of being unlawful or contrary to the national interest.

With that review period now drawing near its end, Trump issued a presidential memo last Wednesday that instructed those same department and agency heads to begin the process of repealing all "unlawful, unnecessary, and onerous regulations" that obstruct the primary goals of "economic growth and American innovation."

"In recent years, the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions that recognize appropriate constitutional boundaries on the power of unelected bureaucrats and that restore checks on unlawful agency actions," the president observed. "Yet, despite these critical course corrections, unlawful regulations -- often promulgated in reliance on now-superseded Supreme Court decisions -- remain on the books."

Citing the Supreme Court

President Trump referenced in the memo his previously ordered regulatory review and called for all of the identified "unlawful and potentially unlawful regulations" to be further evaluated ahead of repeal in light of 10 Supreme Court decisions over the past decade that curtailed executive regulatory authority, at least half of which involved the Environmental Protection Agency.

The cited cases include: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, (2024); West Virginia v. EPA, (2022); SEC v. Jarkesy, (2024); Michigan v. EPA, (2015); Sackett v. EPA, (2023); Ohio v. EPA, (2024); Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, (2021); Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, (2023); Carson v. Makin, (2022); and Roman Cath. Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, (2020).

"In effectuating repeals of facially unlawful regulations, agency heads shall finalize rules without notice and comment, where doing so is consistent with the 'good cause' exception in the Administrative Procedure Act," Trump said in the memo. "That exception allows agencies to dispense with notice-and-comment rulemaking when that process would be 'impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.'"

"Retaining and enforcing facially unlawful regulations is clearly contrary to the public interest," he added. "Furthermore, notice-and-comment proceedings are 'unnecessary' where repeal is required as a matter of law to ensure consistency with a ruling of the United States Supreme Court. Agencies thus have ample cause and the legal authority to immediately repeal unlawful regulations."

Litigation seems likely

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News of President Trump's memo, "The President is right: agencies must repeal regulations that the Supreme Court has deemed unlawful. The President continues to deliver on his promises to roll back regulations and government overreach crippling American enterprise."

Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino told the outlet, "Any administration that really cares about making sure that they were following the law should be reviewing regulations," and added, "We want a government that isn't just taking every bit of power that it can get away with, but one that wants to make sure the constitutional limits are guarded as well, which is why this memorandum is refreshing and novel in a good way.

Of course, not everybody is pleased with Trump's deregulatory memo, according to Politico, and some critics have complained about the expressed intent to skip the APA's public notice-and-comment rulemaking process as well as asserted that Trump's directive to conduct retroactive reviews is based on a misinterpretation of a Supreme Court ruling that was explicitly "forward-looking."

As such, the outlet noted that there will almost certainly be litigation filed to challenge the president's ordered regulatory review-and-repeal, particularly concerning the skipped over public notice-and-comment procedures -- though the administration is likely already prepared to address the anticipated legal challenges.