OMB Final Accounting for 2025 Shows Incredible Regulatory Reduction Results for E.O. 14192

The final accounting for Fiscal Year 2025 under Executive Order 14192 issued by OMB in December demonstrates the dramatic impact of disciplined regulatory review. In 2025, agencies collectively finalized 646 deregulatory actions for just 5 regulatory actions, achieving net cost savings of approximately $211.8 billion through rule deletions, modifications, and refinements across the government. These results underscore both the appetite for deregulatory reform and the tangible benefits of a framework that emphasizes cost savings and burden reduction, specifically Trump’s E.O. 14192. That Executive Order is best known for requiring agencies to (1) issue 10 deregulatory actions for each new regulatory action; and (2) not exceed a regulatory cost allowance.  

But perhaps the most impressive results shown by OMB’s Final Accounting report was a mandate set forth in a separate executive order—E.O. 14215, Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies—which required independent agencies to follow E.O. 12866’s interagency regulatory review process for the first time government-wide.  

Issued in 1993 under President Clinton, Executive Order 12866 was designed to improve regulatory quality by promoting careful analysis, public accountability, and coordination among agencies. By requiring cost-benefit analysis and centralized review, the order tries to prevent duplicative regulation and ensures that agencies fully consider the economic consequences of their actions. Independent agencies’ exemption from these requirements has too often led to insufficient analysis and limited interagency engagement—precisely the problems the order was meant to address. 

For decades, Washington treated independent regulatory agencies as exempt from the core principles that govern federal rulemaking. Unlike executive agencies, bodies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are not required to follow E.O. 12866, which critically provides structure and analytical rigor—including the interagency coordination, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) review, and reasoned cost-benefit analysis—that helps ensure regulatory and deregulatory actions are well-justified, consistent, and transparent. The result has been an uneven regulatory system that undermines transparency, accountability, and coherence across the federal government. 

It is for this reason that EO 14192’s results also highlight why independent agencies’ voluntary adoption of E.O. 12866 is so important. The OMB’s financial accounting report showed that independent agencies led the charge in regulatory burden reduction. According to the report, “Executive Order 14192 regulatory actions are defined as those final actions that both impose costs greater than zero and qualify as “significant” under Section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866,” meaning that all regulatory actions captured were subject to E.O. 12866’s review requirements. Of those regulations reviewed, the Securities and Exchange Commission and FCC—both formerly not subject to E.O. 12866—totaled 23 deregulatory actions in FY 2025 with cost savings of $4.2 billion and 10 deregulatory actions with a total cost savings of $418 million respectively. Those two independent agencies alone reduced regulatory costs by $4.6 billion in FY 2025.  

With data now available showing the value of independent agencies following the processes set forth in E.O. 12866, there is no doubt that consistency across the government in regulatory procedures and analysis only improves certainty and transparency of the process. It is now time for Congress to codify E.O. 12866 and require independent regulatory agencies to conduct robust cost-benefit analyses of their significant rules and subject their analysis to third-party review through OIRA, just as Executive agencies have for decades.  

Graham Owens is a Policy Fellow at Americans for Prosperity.