Musk, Ramaswamy will lean on Supreme Court rulings to cut federal agencies (updated)

Roivant Sciences

20/11/2024 19:57

(Adds detail from op-ed)
       Nov 20 (Reuters) - 
    Elon Musk and 
    
       government efficiency panel will follow recent Supreme
Court rulings that they say can be used to take power away from
federal agencies to reduce rules that are unnecessary, costly
and inefficient.
Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla  TSLA.O  and SpaceX, and
Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and the
founder of biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences  ROIV.O , have
been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a panel of
outside advisers to make efficiency recommendations. The two
wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the panel on
Wednesday.
    
      
    
  
    Many current federal regulations may exceed the legislative
power granted by Congress, they said, citing two Supreme Court
cases — 2022's West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
and this year's Loper Bright v. Raimondo. The panel will look
for such regulations, they added.
    With an electoral mandate and the 6-3 conservative majority
in the Supreme Court, Musk and Ramaswamy said, the panel has an
opportunity to enact substantial structural downsizing within
the federal government.
    The panel will give its list of regulations to President
Trump, "who can, by executive action, immediately pause the
enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for
review and rescission," they wrote.
    Musk and Ramaswamy say they can reduce federal spending by
$500 billion by cutting expenditures that have not been
authorized by Congress or are being used in ways that Congress
did not intend, citing $535 million for the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, $1.5 billion for international
organizations and nearly $300 million given to groups like
Planned Parenthood.
    They stated that a partnership with the Trump transition
team was underway to hire a team of "small-government
crusaders", which will work with the White House Office of
Management and Budget.
    The authors, who want to greatly reduce the size of the
federal workforce, also suggested that requiring federal
employees to come to the office five days a week would result in
workers leaving their jobs.
     
     

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Chris Sanders in
Washington, DC; editing by Alan Barona and Peter Henderson)
((Akash.Sriram@thomsonreuters.com; On X as @HoodieOnVeshti;
+91-74116-87774))