Leading the White House regulatory office has long been considered one of the most powerful and most under-the-radar gigs in Washington.
That job is now held by Mark Paoletta, the top lawyer in the White House budget office, who stepped in last month after the regulatory office’s former boss appears to have run up against a limit on how long he could serve in that role.
Jeff Clark previously served as acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs starting in March. Environmental watchdogs warned in November that staying beyond what federal law allows for Senate-confirmed posts could have made Clark’s work rolling back rules vulnerable in court.
By putting Paoletta in charge of the office known as OIRA, the administration appears to have reset the clock on the office’s temporary leadership. The shift isn’t expected to dramatically alter the work of the regulatory shop; Clark is staying on the team, and both he and Paoletta are expected to aggressively pursue Trump’s deregulatory agenda under Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought.
