The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] on Tuesday announced [Federal Register, PDF] the creation of the Smart Sectors program to “re-examine how the EPA engages with industry in order to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden, create certainty and predictability, and improve the ability of both EPA and industry to conduct long-term regulatory planning while also protecting the environment and public health.”

The EPA identified 11 different industries that will be the initial focus of the program: aerospace; agriculture; automotive; cement and concrete; chemical manufacturing; construction; electronics and technology; iron and steel; oil and gas; ports and shipping; and utilities and power generation.

Each industry will be assigned liaisons who are experienced in those individual industries. These liaisons will have three main goals: “building relationships and improving customer service to sectors; developing additional expertise in each industry’s operations and environmental performance; and informing the planning of future policies, regulations, and Agency processes.”

The use of the liaisons should help ensure that environmental improvements are still experienced, but also allows the industries to better provide their input into innovative ways that the EPA’s environmental goals can be met in order to reduce unnecessary burdens.

President Donald Trump has previously expressed the need to reduce regulations within the US. In January Trump signed [JURIST report] an executive order requiring two regulations to be removed for every new regulation enacted. In February Trump signed [JURIST report] another executive order requiring the creation of regulatory task forces in every agency to determine which regulations can be removed or consolidated.