Executive orders aim to undo Trump’s legacy.
Wall construction and environment atop agenda
– President Joe Biden wasted little time Wednesday in working to undo President Donald Trump’s policies that were anathema to Democrats during his four years in office.
Sitting in the Oval Office, Biden signed an order requiring masks and social distancing on federal property, followed by an order to provide support to underserved communities. As part of the third order he signed, Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change, a treaty the U.S. formally exited in November after Trump withdrew in 2017.
Biden signed 15 executive orders and two other directives Wednesday, and several more will come over the next 10 days. The first three were signed on camera from the Oval Office.
Biden has ended construction of Trump’s signature wall on the U.S. - Mexican border by proclaiming the “immediate termination” of the national emergency declaration Trump used to fund it.
He also rejoined the World Health Organization, which Trump abandoned in July.
Biden also took executive action to reverse Trump’s ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.
The swiftness was meant to demonstrate urgency to turn the page on a divisive four years under the Trump administration, experts said. Most of the actions hit what the Biden team calls “four overlapping and compounding crises” – the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic damage, climate change and lagging racial equity.
Also on his first day in office, Biden canceled the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to move oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, rescinding Trump’s approval of a project long criticized by environmentalists.
Biden also extended the pause on student loan payments and nationwide restrictions on evictions and disclosures.
The president signed an order launching a government-wide initiative directing every federal agency to review its state of racial equity and deliver an action plan within 200 days to address any disparities in policies and programs.
The Biden administration will create an equitable data working group to make sure federal data reflects the country’s diverse makeup and direct the Office of Management and Budget to allocate more federal resources to underserved communities.
“Delivering on racial justice will require that the administration takes a comprehensive approach to embed equity in every aspect of our policymaking and decision-making,” Biden’s domestic policy chief Susan Rice said Tuesday.
Other Day One executive orders include:
● Rescinding Trump’s 1776 Commission, a panel Trump established as a response to the New York Times’ 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that focused on America’s history with slavery.
● Revoking Trump’s plan to exclude non-citizens from the census.
● Prohibiting workplace discrimination in the federal government based on sexual orientation and gender identity and directing federal agencies to ensure protections for LGBTQ people are included in anti-discrimination statutes.
● Creating a COVID-19 response coordinator who will report directly to the president.
● Revoking Trump’s 2017 Interior Enforcement Executive Order, which broadened the categories of undocumented immigrants subject for removal, restarted the Secure Communities program and supported the federal 287(g) deportation program.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s incoming White House communication director, called the executive orders “decisive steps to roll back some of the most egregious moves of the Trump administration” in an interview Sunday on ABC’S “This Week.” “And he’s going to take steps to move us forward,” she added.
More orders will come Thursday, Biden’s first full day in office, when he signs several executive actions related to the COVID-19 crisis and reopening schools and businesses, Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in a memo outlining the first 10 days of the administration. That includes expanded testing, protections for workers and establishing public health standards.
Friday, Biden will direct his incoming Cabinet to “take immediate action to deliver economic relief” to working families struggling financially as a result of the pandemic, the memo said.
Other orders confirmed by Biden’s team include revoking the ban on military service by transgender Americans and reversing the “Mexico City policy,” which blocks federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion services abroad.
Next week, Biden will sign orders to carry out his “Buy American” pledge, “advance equity and support communities of color and other underserved communities” and implement criminal justice changes.
He will sign additional executive actions related to climate change, expanding access to health care – particularly for low-income women and women of color – and on immigration and border policies, including the process of reuniting families separated at the U.s.-mexican border, according to Klain.
“Of course, these actions are just the start of our work,” Klain said.
The Biden team acknowledged that congressional action will be required to achieve much of Biden’s early agenda. Topping that list is passage of a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan, that Biden introduced last week.
Biden promised to introduce an immigration bill “immediately” upon taking office. It will include an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status, an expansion of refugee admissions and the use of new technology to patrol the border.
Perhaps no other early action will deliver a bigger statement symbolically than rejoining the Paris Agreement, which will show the world the United States is ready to work multilaterally again, a departure from the isolationist tendencies of Trump, experts said.
The president plans to sign a broad executive order to reverse more than 100 Trump administration environmental policies and direct all agencies to review federal regulations and executive actions from the past four years.