Senate Leaders Finalize Deal that Significantly Increases Number of Trump Appointees Approved by the Senate
AGC signed onto a letter this week with more than 90 groups that said that “the  slow pace of confirmations is depriving agencies across the government of critical leadership and in the case of independent agencies, the quorum necessary to conduct critical business.” It noted that there were numerous nominees ready to be confirmed (“over 80 nominees to administration positions have been reported favorably by the committee of jurisdiction but were awaiting Senate confirmation”) and, it is estimated that at the current rate, “it will take 11 years to confirm all of the president’s nominees to executive branch positions.”
The Senate has now moved from health care to nominations and Senate leaders reached agreement on a package of nominations that gets President Trump closer to his predecessors in the number of nominees confirmed in the first six months of their administrations.  At the start of this week, only 49 key positions in the administration were filled by Trump appointees. Since then, more than 60 more nominees have been confirmed by the Senate.
AGC is meeting with agency personnel to work on rolling back regulations as soon as the nominees are confirmed by the Senate. But, most agencies had few political appointees confirmed before this week (Dept. of Labor and the EPA each had 1 political appointee through the confirmation process at the beginning of this week). We hope for more action on nominees before the Senate adjourns for their August break.
For more information, contact Jeff Shoaf at [email protected] or (202) 547-3350.