So now it’s the turn of the Democrats to say, “if you didn’t like Obama’s executive orders, you ought to be outraged at Trump, because he’s doing the same thing.”
Is he? Obama’s most notorious executive order was DACA, which was a matter of taking the executive power to determine not to deport certain individuals, and applying this to the better part of a million people. OK, that’s not true — is most notorious was DAPA, which would have covered 5 million people had the court not blocked it.
Are Trump’s orders exceeding his authority and effectively going so far as to be legislating? Let’s see . . .
There are multiple lists of his executive orders so far, from CNN, for example. And the White House website even includes links to the text. Let’s look at them:
- “Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal.” According to CNN,
The directive called on the secretary of health and human services, in addition to other agencies, to interpret regulations as loosely as possible to minimize the financial burden on individuals, insurers, health care providers and others.
What does this mean? One possible implication I could envision is that the determination of when an individual has a hardship that exempts him or her from the mandate is apparently somewhat cryptic, so this could be loosened. But other than that, I don’t really know of regulations that can be interpreted, at this point in time anyway. Is this intended to “bypass Congress”? I don’t really see the point of it when it’s a given (to my understanding) that Congress has the power to implement a repeal by making use of certain loopholes This is so vague as to largely be symbolic, as far as I can tell.
2. “Expediting environmental reviews and approvals for high profile infrastructure projects.” This order calls on the departments charged with environmental review to deliver their reviews more quickly. Are there any concrete actions to be taken as a result of this order? Probably not, so far as I can tell, except to set a general tone.
3. “Border security and immigration enforcement improvements.” This order increases border patrol by 5,000 agents, and directs the building of the wall. Now, I’ve read that Congress has already passed legislation authorizing the building of the wall, but that was never completed (see Wikipedia, though it’s not clear on the outcome); the issue seems to be that Trump couldn’t start building without the appropriate appropriation. And, in fact, the order itself includes as one component, making the necessary appropriation requests from Congress.
4. “Enhancing public safety in the Interior of the United States.” This aims at tripling the number of agents tasked with interior immigration enforcement, adding 10,000 new agents. This also cuts funding from sanctuary cities, though there are disputes about what types of funding Trump may unilaterally cut — and, indeed, the statement is that funds will be cut to the extent permitted by law.
Now, these are the only Executive Orders in CNN’s list because the remaining actions are “executive memoranda” — and these are:
- “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies”: this halts any new regulations until the administration can review them, and is, CNN reports, standard for a president coming into office.
2. “Regarding the Mexico City Policy” — this re-implements the Mexico City Policy that says that organizations that perform or promote abortions are ineligible for federal funding in family planning programs abroad. The abortion-rights crowd, every time a Republican president takes office, says that the sky is falling. Honestly, corporations have spin offs and divestitures all the time — is it really so out of the question to spin off the abortion-providing arm of an international family-planning organization?
3. “Regarding Withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement.” Not a big surprise that Trump would withdraw from the TPP, which had not been ratified by Congress, nor even submitted for ratification.
4. “Regarding the Hiring Freeze”: a foolish policy, it seems to me, but I can’t say whether it exceeds his authority. I suppose if this were to stay in place for the long term, it would be a sort of legislating, if it pares away the workforce so much that laws passed by Congress are simply not able to be administered.
5. “Construction of American Pipelines”: All pipelines shall consist, to the extent permitted by law, of American materials. I don’t get this: pipelines are built by private entities, and not under contract to the American government but for their own business purposes, right? Is Trump claiming the authority to mandate this? Are the weasel words of “as permitted by law” the indicator that this is another one of his efforts to, shall we say, strongly encourage businesses do abide by his wishes?
6. “Regarding Construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline”: Invites the pipeline company to resubmit its application, and calls for an expedited 60 day approval process, but doesn’t guarantee approval.
7. “Regarding Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline”: restarts the approval process for the DAPL.
8. “Streamlining Permitting and Reducing Regulatory Burdens for Domestic Manufacturing”: which seems to generically say that approvals for manufacturers should be expedited.
So I’m not really seeing anything that’s a shocking overreach, but, on the other hand, I’m not sure what to make of many of these.
The only ones that appear to be concrete actions are the Mexico City Policy, the hiring freeze, and the TPP withdrawal; the others seem to be more statements of policy.
And the moratorium on refugees, and visas from certain Middle-Eastern countries? This is still in draft form, not signed or officially released yet.
So I’m simply not sure what to make of anything yet. When will Trump propose actual legislation, or will he wait for Congress to do the same, or will he find that that’s much harder work than a photo-opportunity signing of an Order or Memorandum prepared by his staff?
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