President Trump signs executive orders to waive tariffs and establish a women’s health division, and more…

IN THE NEWS:

• President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. The act authorizes sanctions and increased tariffs on goods from Russia and countries involved in purchasing Russian energy or helping Russia avoid sanctions. Under the act, Russian goods face a 500 percent tariff increase from the current tariffs, and goods from certain countries involved in Russian energy purchases or sanctions avoidance face 100 percent increases. President Trump waived these tariff increases and several sanctions, which prevents them from taking effect, citing U.S. national interests. The order also directs the United States Trade Representative to monitor Russian energy purchases and sanctions avoidance and inform the President of developments that may require further action, including changes to the waivers.
• President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health to advance research on health conditions affecting women. The new division will coordinate research, improve women’s participation in clinical trials, and help incorporate research findings into medical care. President Trump also established a White House Women’s Health Task Force to coordinate federal efforts and recommend policy and regulatory changes to improve women’s health. The order revokes two Biden-era actions aimed at advancing women’s health research and innovation.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied most of a request by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to pause a lower court’s ruling against the agency’s funding notices for fair housing grants. The lower court blocked HUD’s plan to direct most of the program’s funding to five large grants, including $25 million to a law school, instead of the more than 100 smaller grants the program has awarded in the past. The appeals court concluded that HUD had not made a strong showing that its funding decisions were exempt from judicial review or that the district court exceeded its authority. The court paused the parts of the district court’s rulings that would have required HUD to issue new fiscal year 2025 funding notices using the fiscal year 2024 structure while the appeal proceeds.
• The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced its intention to develop a framework for regulating artificial intelligence (AI) agents working in financial industries. The FCA published a set of best practices for AI use in the financial services industry and identified flaws in financial companies’ AI deployment strategies, such as inconsistent monitoring of AI use and rigid customer service workflows. The FCA emphasized the importance of maintaining human oversight in decision-making processes to ensure accountability. In the best practices, the FCA noted existing rules that apply to AI use in financial services and explained that financial institutions and senior managers remain accountable for issues arising from the use of AI agents.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule that would approve Utah’s request to control permitting for carbon sequestration on nontribal land within its borders. The rule would grant Safe Drinking Water Act enforcement authority, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency holds by default, to the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Utah’s proposed permitting scheme invoked the Safe Drinking Water Act because it would allow permit holders to inject carbon dioxide into the ground for long-term storage, an activity that could contaminate drinking water supplies without proper regulation.
• The U.S. Department of the Interior authorized oil and gas producers to capture, kill, or harm polar bears and walruses unintentionally in the course of oil and gas production in the Beaufort Sea and on the North Slope of Alaska. The Interior Department concluded that the National Environmental Policy Act does not require environmental impact statements before issuing permits to fossil fuel companies because the relevant natural resource exploration and extraction operations will not affect human environments. The Interior Department explained that the policy will not cause significant population declines for either species because the data show that most interactions with the animals will be limited to temporary behavioral disturbances rather than physical contact or habitat destruction.
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a proposed rule that would allow operators of liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants to carry out certain modifications without obtaining case-specific approval from the agency. The Commission explained that its current case-by-case review of some equipment replacements and other plant modifications within authorized design limits is “administratively inefficient.” Under the proposal, the Commission would automatically authorize routine changes within a plant that do not increase the plant’s storage and delivery capacity. The Commission estimated that the proposal would save LNG companies about $1 million.
• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a final rule implementing the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act for companies under its supervision that issue payment stablecoins, digital assets used for payments that issuers promise to exchange for a fixed amount of money. Under the rule, these companies must meet requirements for how they manage the assets held to back their stablecoins, exchange customers’ stablecoins for money, and manage risks. The OCC explained that under the rule, companies have more choice about where to invest and hold assets while keeping safeguards to ensure customers can exchange their stablecoins for money “in a timely manner.”

WHAT WE’RE READING:

• In a recent New America report, Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future program at New America, argued that the shared, unprotected tier of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS)—part of the mid-band spectrum that commercial users share with U.S. Navy radar—has become “the indispensable engine of the band.” Calabrese noted that 96.3 percent of the more than 446,000 active CBRS base stations use this general authorized access tier, which, unlike priority access licenses, offers no protection from interference. The Federal Communications Commission is considering proposals from mobile carriers such as AT&T and Dish that would raise allowable power levels—the permitted strength of a signal—in the band by 32 times and 320 times. Calabrese contended that higher power would cause “a classic tragedy of the commons,” as operators raise their power to expand coverage or to defend against other users, which would reduce available channels and increase interference. He warned that the change could be “catastrophic” for rural wireless internet providers, which cannot easily buy priority licenses or replace equipment designed for current power limits.
• In a recent Yale Journal on Regulation article, Abbe R. Gluck, a professor of law at Yale Law School, Elle Rothermich, the deputy director at the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy at Yale Law School, and Liam Bendicksen, a student at Yale Law School, argued that the main impacts of the decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo affect health care litigation involving controversial rules. In Loper Bright, the U.S. Supreme Court reduced the degree to which courts defer to administrative agencies when determining whether agencies complied with relevant laws. Gluck, Rothermich, and Bendicksen contended that, because the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination limited executive agencies’ authority to interpret laws, parties now rush to court in pursuit of favorable judicial interpretations that will establish binding precedents. They argued that Loper Bright’s effect on less salient statutory interpretation issues remains unclear.
• In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that disagreements over regulatory authority and unrealistic cleanup requirements increased the cost and length of nuclear waste cleanup. GAO explained that because much nuclear waste contains both hazardous chemicals regulated by states and radioactive materials that are generally regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy, disputes over the limits of state authority have delayed cleanup and increased costs. GAO also found that some cleanup plans assumed land would be used for housing or groundwater for drinking, even when experts considered those uses unrealistic. GAO recommended that Congress clarify state and federal authority and allow federal review of potentially improper state requirements, and that the Energy Department compare cleanup costs and timelines for different future land uses.

EDITOR’S CHOICE:

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Monica Sanders, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and founder of The Undivide Project, argued that limited internet access undermines disaster resilience in many of the country’s most climate-vulnerable communities. A review by The Undivide Project found that fewer than 10 percent of over 190 laws and policies in 10 digitally excluded states, including Texas and Virginia, mention environmental justice, and none explicitly address digital access. Sanders explained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not fund broadband infrastructure as a disaster resilience strategy, even as disaster reporting and alerts increasingly rely on digital tools. Sanders contended that regulators should treat broadband “like electricity or water.” She recommended that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FEMA make digital infrastructure, such as broadband deployment and digital literacy training, eligible for mitigation grants.