Biden Plans Immediate Flurry of Executive Orders to Reverse T---p Policies
by Matt Viser, Seung Min Kim and Annie Linskey
(November 7th, 2020. The Washington Post)
President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on Jan. 20, immediately forecasting that the country’s politics have shifted and that his presidency will be guided by radically different priorities.
He will rejoin the Paris climate accords, according to those close to his campaign and commitments he has made in recent months, and he will reverse President Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He will repeal the ban on almost all travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and he will reinstate the program allowing “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States illegally as children, to remain in the country, according to people familiar with his plans.
Biden’s top advisers have spent months quietly working on how best to implement his agenda, with hundreds of transition officials preparing to get to work inside various federal agencies. They have assembled a book filled with his campaign commitments to help guide their early decisions.
Biden is planning to set up a coronavirus task force on Monday, in recognition that the global pandemic will be the primary issue that he must confront. The task force, which could begin meeting within days, will be co-chaired by former surgeon general Vivek H. Murthy and David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
There has also been a recognition of those around him that he may have to lean more on executive actions than he had once hoped. He can reorient various federal agencies and regulations, and he can adopt a different posture on the world stage.
But pushing major legislation through Congress could prove to be a challenge.
Although the Democrats will hold a narrowed majority in the House, the final makeup of the Senate is not yet clear. That will be decided on Jan. 5, with two runoff elections in Georgia. Democrats would need to win both races to effectively have control of the Senate — with Vice President Kamala D. Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote — while Republicans would retain a narrow advantage by winning at least one.
“The policy team, the transition policy teams, are focusing now very much on executive power,” said a Biden ally who has been in touch with his team who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “I expect that to be freely used in a Biden administration at this point, if the Senate becomes a roadblock.”
A Republican-held Senate — or even one with a narrow Democratic majority — probably will affect Biden’s Cabinet picks given the Senate’s power to confirm nominees.
One option being discussed is appointing Cabinet members in an acting capacity, a tactic that Trump also used.
“Just by virtue of the calendar and how many positions are filled, that’s always a possibility,” the person said. “Because the Senate moves so slowly now, so much more slowly than it used to.”
On Saturday afternoon, about two hours after networks called Biden the winner of the election, the president-elect had a brief call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who called to congratulate Biden on a “tremendous victory,” according to two Democratic officials.
Schumer called while en route to a celebration in Brooklyn, holding his flip phone out the window so that Biden could hear the cheering crowd.
If Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stays as majority leader, he would be trying to manage a conference torn between two factions with different interests, but neither necessarily eager to help Biden — one with senators running for reelection in swing states in 2022, and another with those seeking the national spotlight as they vie for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“In the old days, the mandate meant that the other side would be more amenable, or feeling they had an impetus to work,” said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.). “I’m not sure that applies any longer.”
A closely divided Congress could hamper Biden’s efforts to do sweeping legislative actions on immigration changes. He has also said he would send a bill to Congress repealing liability protections for gun manufacturers, and close background-check loopholes. He has pledged to repeal the Republican-passed tax cuts from 2017, an effort that could be stymied if Republicans hold the Senate majority.
Without congressional cooperation, however, Biden has said that he plans to immediately reverse Trump’s rollback of 100 public health and environmental rules that the Obama administration had in place.
He would also institute new ethics guidelines at the White House, and he has pledged to sign an executive order the first day in office saying that no member of his administration could influence any Justice Department investigations.
Biden has long pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accords by executive order, but he has also said that he would attempt to persuade other nations to adopt higher standards in an attempt to curb the impacts of climate change.
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a longtime Biden ally who holds the seat Biden had for 36 years, offered a broad overview of Biden’s initial agenda: “Get us out of this pandemic that’s been made far worse by Trump’s bungled mishandling of it, rebuild our economy in a way that’s more sustainable and more inclusive, and deal with division and inequality.”
Biden has long pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accords by executive order, but he has also said that he would attempt to persuade other nations to adopt higher standards in an attempt to curb the impacts of climate change.
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a longtime Biden ally who holds the seat Biden had for 36 years, offered a broad overview of Biden’s initial agenda: “Get us out of this pandemic that’s been made far worse by Trump’s bungled mishandling of it, rebuild our economy in a way that’s more sustainable and more inclusive, and deal with division and inequality.”
Biden also wants to quickly appoint a supply commander to oversee production and distribution of testing — and, when ready, vaccines — as well as materials such as masks and gowns.
The coronavirus — and Biden’s response to it — could also significantly impact the traditional spectacle that surrounds the transfer of power. Inaugural balls could be altered. And while Biden has previously said he wouldn’t envision wearing a mask while being sworn in, he has said they could try to limit the traditional throngs that fill the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
(Special Note: This is an exceptionally well written news article, which is very long but filled with vital information. Click on the WaPo title to go directly to the original article for further reading).