Governor Tom Wolf Rescinds 46 Executive Orders

Press Release

Governor Tom Wolf today announced that he will rescind 46 outdated and unnecessary executive orders by previous administrations -- some dating back 30 years -- to continue his efforts to clean-up state government. Outdated orders include those from seven previous Governors starting with Gov. Milton Shapp.

"My administration is prioritizing cleaning up state government and eliminating waste, outdated policies and duplicative bureaucracy," Governor Tom Wolf said. "Taking this step to streamline government and remove unnecessary directives allows for the executive branch to continue to lead by example in state government, as we have on ethics, government reform and curbing special interest influence."

Removing three decades of outdated executive orders that are no longer relevant or have been superseded by legislation or other executive actions is part of Governor Wolf's priority to modernize state government. Over the past two years, Governor Wolf's GO-TIME initiative has saved $156 million, spurred innovation and launched new and revamped programs to improve customer service in state government.

Many of the executive actions being rescinded include boards, task forces, programs and commissions that no longer exist, including a Sustainable Water Infrastructure task force that never reconvened and a Public Safety Communications Council that was never actually established. In the case of Executive Order 1996-07, the Pennsylvania Center for Environmental Education was defunded and closed in 2011, but the executive order remained in place.

Many other orders created policies that have either been codified in statute, superseded by new legislation or are no longer necessary.

Source