Recently sworn-in President Joe Biden is already jumping in to take action in his first days in office. Biden issued more than a dozen executive orders on Wednesday and another batch on Thursday, with most aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic, while others deal with climate change and roll back some President Donald Trump's executive orders.
"Some of the executive actions I'm going to be signing today are going to help change the course of the COVID crisis, we're going to combat climate change in a way that we haven't done so far and advance racial equity and support other underserved communities," Biden told White House reporters Wednesday afternoon, quoted by Reuters. "These are just all starting points."
Some other major action Biden chose to immediately order included reuniting the United States with the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), as well as rejoining the Paris Climate Accord. Biden also issued an order that revoked the presidential permit grants to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and a rollback on Trump era environmental actions.
President Trump withdrew from the Climate Agreement in 2017 and had cut ties with the W.H.O. soon after the start of the coronavirus pandemic for he thought that China held too much power over the global health agency. Biden is hopeful he can restore these national relationships, and fight both the coronavirus and climate change.
Biden also issued multiple orders that were aimed helping the nation recover and conquer the coronavirus pandemic. These orders included a call for a coordinated federal response to the pandemic, a federal mask mandate, issuing of the Defense Production Act to help with supply chain issues, and the extension of the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums and the student loan repayments pause.
Biden also sought to rectify Trump era immigration policies, starting with the end of Trump's border wall construction funding, and the halting of the Muslim travel ban, which was a set of two executive orders that restricted entry from primarily Muslim and African countries. Biden also repealed Trump's Interior Enforcement Executive Order and reversed Trump's order that excluded undocumented immigrants from the reapportionment count.
The new presidency will bring many new changes to federal policies moving forward. Biden has many tough challenges ahead, including combatting a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This swift executive action in his first few days in office shows his commitment to bringing the nation through its many current crises.
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-executiveactions/biden-rolls-back-trump-policies-on-wall-climate-health-muslims-idUSKBN29P1E7
- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/biden-executive-orders-rejoin-paris-climate-accord-revoke-muslim-ban.html
- https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/20/22240386/biden-who-us-withdrawal-world-health-organization