Biden should explain his executive orders

On March 1, 2022, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will address Congress and the American people with his first State-of-the Union speech.

His planning for this night began in 1987 when his plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock ended his first presidential run. Twenty years later, in January 2007, after more than a dozen Democratic debates led to his receiving less than 1 of the votes in the Iowa caucus ended that campaign. 

His decades as a U.S. senator ended when he was elected vice president (2009-2017). In 2020, some 33 years after his first presidential campaign, he finished fourth and fifth place in Iowa and New Hampshire before COVID-restricted South Carolina was his first ever primary win. Then the other Democratic candidates dropped out.

What a day Jan. 20, 2021, must have been for a boy from Scranton, Penn., who, like me, needed financial assistance to attend a public university, the University of Delaware, and then Syracuse University law school. What an American story that the 76th-ranked graduate out of a class 85 law students, after a career in politics, raised his right hand and said:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, serve and defend the Constitution of the United States (U.S. Constitution, Article II).”

Hopefully in his State-of -the-Union speech, President Joe Biden will discuss the priorities that he spent 34 years developing that could not wait one day before he signed executive orders immediately after his taking the oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” Here they are:

EO 13985. Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government by the “Federal Government” pursuing “a comprehensive approach to advancing equity.” Will he discuss why “equity,” which is varying the levels of support, rather than “equality of opportunity” that is the standard in our Constitution he swore to defend?  

EO 13986. Ensuring a Lawful and Accurate Enumeration and Apportionment Pursuant to the Decennial Census by “counting non-citizens, whether legal or illegal, persons for apportioning congressional seats.” Will he discuss why he reversed President Trump’s counting only those citizens who own, and pay for, the government?

EO 13987. Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government To Provide a Unified Effective Response to Combat COVID -19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security by creating the positions of response coordinator (appointed Jeff Zients) and deputy coordinator (appointed Natalie Quillian) of the COVID-19 response within the Executive Office to produce and distribute vaccines and medical equipment. 

Will he discuss former President Donald Trump creating the vaccines and the states handling distributions? How about the accomplishments of Mr. Zients and Ms. Quillian? Dr. Anthony Fauci’s leadership?

EO 13988. Requires all Federal Agencies to Extend Existing Protections on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which reversed the legislation and courts limiting coverage to immutable characteristics, meaning those at birth. Will he discuss the impact on women athletes?

EO 13989. Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel to require each appointee to sign a commitment to “maintain public trust in government by decision making on the merits and upholding law enforcement and precluding improper interference with investigative decisions of the Department of Justice.” 

Will we ever hear about the FBI investigation of Hunter Biden’s computer?

EO 13990. Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis to implement various environment policies including “revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline and temporarily prohibiting drilling in the arctic refuge.” 

This order directed agencies to review any Trump policies and consider reversing them, as well as established an Interagency Working Group to study the social cost of greenhouse gasses (Cows flatulence?).

President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord because it calls for the U.S. to fund a billion dollars for restitution and does not include China. Why is President Biden rejoining it?  

Will he discuss why he converted the U.S. from a creditor nation exporting oil to Europe to a debtor nation that borrowed to import 232 million barrels of Russian oil in 2021? Ironically, the refusal of the U.S. to limit the Russian oil that is financing their invasion of the Ukraine is because he recognizes the importance of oil for Europe. Why did he use this EO to reduce U.S. oil?

EO 13991. Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing was discussed in my article “Masks: Scientific or Political?,” New-Press, Feb. 20.

EO 13992. REVOCATION (emphasis added) of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation that revoked the following EOs signed by President Trump:

— EO 13771. Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs by establishing budgets for federal agencies and requiring agencies to eliminate two old regulations for each new one issued.

— EO 13875. Evaluating and Improving the Utility of Federal Advisory Committees by eliminating non-statutory advisory committees whose missions have been accomplished, whose subject matter has become obsolete, whose primary functions have been assumed by another entity, or whose cost outweigh benefits

— EO 13777. Reducing Regulation through task forces.

— EO 13891. Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents by prohibiting issuing binding rules through guidance documents,

— EO 13892. Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication by requiring federal agencies to provide the public with fair notice of regulations, and

— EO 13893. Increasing Governmental Accountability for Administrative actions by Reinvigorating Administrative PAYGO by requiring agencies to consider cost reduction efforts.

— EO 13993. Space limitation requires this one to be discussed later.

Will President Biden discuss his reasons for revoking the Trump EOs that required budgets for federal agencies, eliminated useless committees, reducing regulations, limited enforcement to actual rules rather than guidance documents, provided notice of regulations and reduced cost?

Brent E. Zepke is an attorney, arbitrator and author who lives in Santa Barbara. Formerly he taught at six universities and numerous professional conferences. He is the author of six books: “One Heart-Two Lives,” “Legal Guide to Human Resources,” “Business Statistics,” “Labor Law,” “Products and the Consumer” and “Law for Non-Lawyers.”