President Trump’s first term had a significant impact on HSE: deregulation and policy shifts hoped to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses, often at the expense of stricter HSE oversight.
Beyond mere strategic priorities, Trump made tangible impacts with the rollback of several regulations from preceding administrations; rollbacks that continue to impact how operators approach legislation and standards. Throughout their first term, Trump & co. reduced the extent of OSHA inspections and potentially delayed the implementation of new safety standards in construction and oil and gas.
While these shifts undoubtedly played a starring role in President Trump's broader mission to streamline operations, reduce project lead-in times (especially in the energy sector) and minimise business costs, many still feel that worker protections were eroded to a degree that they have yet to recover fully from, four years on from the successive administration's inauguration.
In the case of over 100 environmental protections that the New York Times found were rolled back or restricted in breadth, many will argue that, beyond worker protections, the planet paid the price, too.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated for his second term in office, industries should anticipate further deregulation and policies favoring economic growth over stringent oversight.
In the face of such rollbacks, the industry may see current CSR and ESG strategies pushed to the wayside in favour of the lower operating costs and project efficiencies granted by a less-regulated environment. Federal policy changes, and businesses' reaction to them, will become even more critical to project success: those reacting quickest to them will likely be the most efficient, profitable and, in the eyes of many organisations, successful.
Whether short-term cost savings (courtesy of deregulation) cannibalise long-term HSE, ESG and CSR strategies, or businesses hold strong on their ambitious commitments, the sustainability and safety spheres are undoubtedly in for a transformative second Trump term.
How a second term of Trump deregulation could transform HSE (again)
