If there’s one policy area where the Trump administration has regularly received plaudits, it is for reducing excessive regulation. The administration has taken steps to ensure major regulations are subject to sound cost-benefit analysis, that regulatory trade-offs are taken seriously, and that regulators do not put an infinite value on the pet concerns of fashionable special interest groups. Even President Barack Obama’s former regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, praised the Trump administration for being “admirably committed to cost-benefit analysis” in determining which federal rules are too expensive or unnecessary.

Unfortunately, even in the Trump era, the Food and Drug Administration stands out as being peculiarly immune to this approach. During his tenure, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb set out a radical agenda for heavily regulating tobacco products, including slashing nicotine in cigarettes, banning menthol cigarettes, and taking steps toward possibly banning flavored e-cigarettes and cigars.