Law360, New York ( February 14, 2017, 11:22 AM EST) -- On Feb. 3, 2017, the president signed Executive Order No. 13772, "Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System," which instructs the secretary of the Treasury to evaluate the current status of the federal financial regulatory scheme. Among other things, the executive order directs the secretary to report back and identify within 120 days steps that might be taken to strengthen the competitive posture of the U.S. financial services system, while at the same time reducing unnecessary and excessive regulatory oversight. Because of his role as the chairman of the Financial Services Oversight Council, the directive of the executive order is a clear instruction to the Treasury secretary to utilize the authority of the FSOC to cause its agency members (most of which are independent agencies and arguably not technically subject to the executive order) to cooperate in an evaluation to determine what administrative steps might be taken to achieve the deregulation contemplated by the executive order....