On February 18, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order intended to largely restrict the autonomy of independent federal agencies. 

Independent agencies are a part of the executive branch, but are structured and function differently than traditional executive branch agencies. For example, independent agencies typically have a commission or board comprised of five to seven members (and typically with a bipartisan membership), while traditional executive agencies usually have a single administrator or secretary. 

Independent agencies are also often insulated from political whims by having staggered terms for commissioners or board members, and by creating statutory limitations on the President's power to remove those commissioners or board members. Generally speaking, the reasoning behind insulating independent agencies from political whims is that they typically exercise quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial roles (by promulgating regulations and enforcing their rules), rather than merely acting as an arm of the executive branch.

Section 2(a)(2) of the Commodity Exchange Act established the CFTC as an executive agency by stating “There is hereby established, as an independent agency of the United States Government, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Commission shall be composed of five Commissioners who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” The number of other independent agencies is quite long, but includes the SEC, FERC, EPA, FTC, FCC, NLRB, CFPB, and the ITC (to name a few). 

While President Trump's executive order may be challenged in court, it seeks to greatly diminish the independence historically afforded to these agencies. For example, the order states that all agencies (including independent agencies) other than the Federal Reserve: 

• are subject to the President's supervision; 
• must submit all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) before publication in the Federal Register; and 
• must coordinate with the White House and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure consistency of their actions with the President's policies and priorities.

Additionally, the order restricts any executive branch employee from advancing an interpretation of the law that is inconsistent with the President's or the Attorney General's opinion on the matter, and gives the Director of the OMB authority to withhold funding to agencies for any actions that conflict with the President's policies or priorities. 

It is worth noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently been skeptical of the power vested in administrative agencies. Last year, for example, the Supreme Court overturned the decades-old “Chevron Doctrine,” which had stood for the proposition that courts owe deference to administrative agencies' determinations when a statute is vague or silent on a given issue. Additionally, in 2020, the Supreme Court decided Seila Law v. CFPB, which held that Congress could not limit the President's power to remove the Director of the CFPB, largely because the CFPB is a single-Director agency and was protected from executive oversight in other ways, as well. 

If challenged and appealed to the Supreme Court, this executive order (as well as other unrelated cases that are already pending) will test whether the Supreme Court will extend its regulatory skepticism further.