Editors' Summary: Regulatory reform must be carried out through the same reasoned decisionmaking processes which the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires for the promulgation of new rules. This, Mr. Stohbehn argues, is the Third Circuit's message to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Environmental Protection Agency, 12 ELR 20833. The Reagan EPA had indefinitely deferred the effective date of pretreatment regulations promulgated on January 29, 1981 (in a midnight action of the Carter Administration) in order to subject them to the regulatory impact analysis mandated by President Reagan's regulatory reform Executive Order 12291. The court found the deferral to be tantamount to repeal of the rule, an action which requires compliance with the APA's notice and comment procedures.

Mr. Strohbehn analyzes the regulatory history of the pretreatment regulation and court's decision. Noting that the court carefully avoided the substantive implications of the Reagan regulatory reform actions, and even sidestepped the question of whether a deferral of fixed duration would have required notice and comment, he concludes that the Third Circuit's primary concern was to ensure that the principles of good government decision-making embodied in the APA not be circumvented in the regulatory reform process.