Since the inauguration of President Trump last Friday, there have been a couple of developments that could have a significant impact on our industry.
Regulatory Freeze Pending Review — On January 20th, President Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, ordered a freeze on regulations for all government agencies. A copy of the White House’s release on this matter is attached.
Obviously this good news because this order will put at least a temporary hold on the two proposed rules currently pending at the FDA. (Amendments to the Performance Standard and Restricted Device/Under 18 ban). In conversations with our counsel this morning, she pointed out that the memo contains an exception for “critical” health and safety regulations. Our counsel tells me she does not think the indoor tanning regulations would be considered “critical,” but it is possible that FDA might try to place the regulations in that bucket to keep them moving forward. It is the opinion of our counsel that FDA will likely wait until it has better direction from the new Administration.
It is important to remember that this does not kill the proposed rules but most likely delays them. It is very important that we continue our efforts to make sure only regulations that are fair and based on sound science are promulgated by the Trump-led FDA.
Repeal and Replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — Also on January 20th President Trump signed an Executive Order directing members of his administration to take steps that will facilitate the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. While this is important, it doesn’t actually make any changes in the law. It is more of a policy statement reiterating it will be the Administration’s policy to repeal and replace the ACA.
However, with passage of the 2018 Budget Resolution a little over a week ago, the Congress set in motion the process of the actual repeal of parts of the ACA. However, this budget resolution only affects the taxing and spending parts of the ACA (which includes the tan tax). This is significant because under arcane congressional budget procedures, legislation directed by the budget resolution affecting taxing and spending are not subject to delay through a filibuster and will only need a simple majority vote to pass the Senate. (Other equally contentious parts of the replacement for the ACA will not have that luxury and will require Democrat support.)
While there have been indications that the House and Senate tax writing committees will repeal the ACA taxes fairly soon, there is no guarantee. There is simply no way to tell how quickly the ACA repeal will play out and until it does, unfortunately the Tan Tax is still the law of the land.
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Thanks, John Overstreet
