Introduction
Donald J. Trump promised that if elected President, he would instruct federal agencies to reduce their regulations significantly. During the first year of the Trump Administration, this deregulation was underway in agencies across the federal government. One way for Congress and the public to be informed about this deregulatory activity is to consult the "Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions" (hereinafter Unified Agenda). The Unified Agenda is a government-wide publication of rulemaking actions that agencies expect to take in the coming months, and it contains both regulatory actions (i.e., new regulations) and deregulatory actions (i.e., reductions in or elimination of current regulations). The Trump Administration's first edition of the Unified Agenda, which was issued on July 20, 2017, and was referred to by the Administration as the "Update to the 2017 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions," contains information on many deregulatory actions that the Trump Administration has undertaken so far and intends to undertake in the coming months. The subsequent edition is expected to be issued in late 2017 and may contain more detailed information on the implementation of the Trump Administration's regulatory budget, which was announced on September 7, 2017, in addition to serving as an update on the deregulatory actions occurring across federal agencies. This report provides an overview of the Unified Agenda, discusses the additional significance of the Unified Agenda in the Trump Administration, provides summary information about the first edition of the Unified Agenda released by the Trump Administration, and discusses what additional information can be expected in the subsequent edition of the Agenda. Overview of the Unified Agenda

The Unified Agenda is typically published twice each year by the Regulatory Information Service Center (RISC), a component of the General Services Administration (GSA), for the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is the entity within OMB that has primary oversight responsibilities over most agencies' rulemaking activities. All entries in the first three categories listed above have uniform data elements that are searchable in a database. The searchable data elements typically include the department and/or agency issuing the rule, the title of the rule, the Regulation Identifier Number (RIN), an abstract of the action being taken, and a timetable of past actions and a projected date (sometimes just the projected month and year) for the next regulatory action. As will be discussed later in this report, it also appears that future editions of the Unified Agenda may contain information about the Trump Administration's regulatory budget. Reclassified . Withdrawn Actions37

The 2017 Update includes 469 rulemaking actions that were withdrawn since the Fall 2016 edition spanning 27 departments, agencies, and government corporations. Notably, 22 of the major and/or economically significant long-term actions had been previously classified as active actions in the Fall 2016 edition. The regulatory budgets are essentially cost caps for each agency's new regulations, and the caps are to be set by OMB for each agency and each fiscal year.
Donald J. Trump promised that if he were elected President, he would instruct federal agencies to reduce their regulations significantly. As of late 2017, this deregulation was underway in agencies across the federal government.
One way for Congress and the public to be informed about this deregulatory activity is to consult the "Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions." The Unified Agenda is a government-wide publication of rulemaking actions agencies expect to take in the coming months, and it contains both regulatory actions (i.e., new regulations) and deregulatory actions (i.e., reductions in or elimination of current regulations).
The Unified Agenda is typically published twice each year by the Regulatory Information Service Center (RISC), a component of the General Services Administration (GSA), for the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is the entity within OMB that has primary oversight responsibilities over most agencies' rulemaking activities. All entries in the Unified Agenda have uniform data elements that can be searched in an online database. Each entry includes information about the rule, including the department and agency issuing the rule, the title of the rule, the Regulation Identifier Number (RIN), an abstract of the action being taken, a timetable of past actions and a projected date for the next action, and information about the priority of the rule (e.g., whether it is "economically significant" or "major").
The Trump Administration's first Unified Agenda, which was issued on July 20, 2017, and was referred to by the Administration as the "Update to the 2017 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions," contains information on many deregulatory actions that the Trump Administration has undertaken so far. For example, the Agenda lists 469 actions that agencies have withdrawn since the previous (Fall 2016) edition of the Unified Agenda and 22 major and/or economically significant actions that were reclassified from "active" under the Barack Obama Administration to "long-term" under the Trump Administration. The 2017 Update lists a total of 58 economically significant "active" actions, as compared to 113 such actions that had been published in the Fall 2016 edition.
Notably, it also appears that the Unified Agenda could be an important source of information for another major regulatory development in the Trump Administration: the regulatory budget, which was announced in a memorandum issued by OIRA on September 7, 2017. The Trump Administration's regulatory budget will require the cost of most agencies' new regulations to remain below a regulatory cost cap, which OMB will set for each covered agency in each fiscal year. The tracking of agencies' implementation of this regulatory budget is expected to be tied to future editions of the Unified Agenda, beginning with the next edition.
This report provides an overview of the Unified Agenda, discusses the additional significance of the Unified Agenda in the Trump Administration, provides summary information about content of the 2017 Update, and discusses what additional information can be expected in the subsequent edition of the Agenda.