The Trump admin wants to dramatically cut—by at least 1/3—the expert panels that widely advise federal agencies.
The Trump administration wants to dramatically cut the number of expert panels that widely advise federal agencies on pollution, public health, spending, and planning, according to a White House executive order released late Friday.
Just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey hit the coast of Texas threatening the state with massive flooding, the White House revoked Executive Order 13690, which increased standards for federal flood risk management.
In January 2015, President Obama issued an executive order requiring all federal investments involving floodplains to meet higher flood risk management standards.
One of Trump's repeated promises (lies) during the campaign was to go after pharmaceutical companies and take action to lower prescription drug prices. Why would a White House owned by corporate interests do such a thing to help the American people? Turns out they won't, bowing to powerful industry as usual over the interests of the people they were elected to represent.
This White House has issued executive orders related to enhanced immigration enforcement and its Department of Justice has instructed staff to act as aggressively as possible. Several prior Smart Dissent stories will get you up to speed:
On Wednesday the President intends to sign an order for the Interior Department and Secretary Zinke to review all national monument designations made by the past 3 presidents over the past 21 years, which could "upend protections that previous presidents have put in place in Utah and elsewhere across the country."
In an executive order to be signed on Tuesday, April 18, 2017, the President aims to make it more difficult for companies to hire foreign technology workers in an attempt to keep those jobs for American workers.
Expectations from the industry, however, suggest that this will badly damage the American technology sector. According to Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology Innovation Foundation:
In late March with little notice, Trump signed an executive order to revoke the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order President Obama put in place to ensure that companies with federal contracts comply with 14 labor and civil rights laws. The 2014 order was an attempt to keep the worst violators from receiving taxpayer dollars
The White House signed an executive order on Monday aiming to "reorganize" the executive branch of government. Titled the "Comprehensive Plan For Reorganizing The Executive Branch," the order seeks to empower the president and his advisers to eliminate federal agencies. Essentially, we have the "destruction of the administrative state" words Steve Bannon used several weeks ago put into direct action.