President Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021 without any of the usual markers of a new administration such as parades and inaugural balls. The beginning of Biden’s administration has been anything but usual as he has given out so many Executive Orders he has broken the record for most Executive orders issued in the first week of a Presidency. He has issued more orders in his first 10 days than the last five presidents who came before him.
While campaigning Biden said “some of my Republican friends, and some of my Democratic friends even, occasionally say if you can’t get the votes, by executive order. You’re going to do something, things you can’t do by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy.” Yet in his first days he enacted many Executive Actions that affected so many Americans. Biden’s press Secretary stated the President didn’t believe Executive Orders should be used for everything.
The administration maintains “the President doesn’t believe they [Executive Orders] should be used for everything” but Biden has no indications of stopping the Executive Actions anytime soon. He claims to be “undoing the damage Trump has done.” Part of the orders directly change policies put in place by Trump’s administration but others implement brand new policies. The official list of Executive Orders rolled out by the Biden administration up until January 28, 2021 include:
Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government to Provide a Unified and Effective Response to Combat COVID-19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on the Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Ensuring a Lawful and Accurate Enumeration and Apportionment Pursuant to the Decennial Census (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identify or Sexual Orientation (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel (January 20, 2021)
Executive Order on Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Improving and Expanding Access to Care and Treatments for COVID-19 (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on a Sustainable Public Health Supply Chain (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Supporting the Reopening and Continuing Operation of Schools and Early Childhood Education Providers (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Establishing the COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board and Ensuring a Sustainable Public Health Workforce for COVID-19 and Other Biological Threats (January 21, 2021)
Executive Order on Economic Relief Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce (January 22, 2021)
Executive Order Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform (January 25, 2021)
Executive Order on Ensuring the Future is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workers (January 25, 2021)
Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities (January 26, 2021)
Executive Order on Racial Equity (January 26, 2021)
Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (January 27, 2021)
Executive Order on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (January 27, 2021)
Executive Order on Strengthing Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (January 28, 2021)
Executive Order President: Everything has been affected
The president rolled back things like work/volunteer requirements for Medicaid. He also lifted the ban on using federal funds for abortions. The Executive actions that have rolled out of the early Biden administration have affected a vast number of high paying jobs since he has done things such as stopping the building of the wall and pipeline. Biden gave 60 days for federal agencies to redirect wall funds. He also claims halting the building of the Keystone Pipeline would help with climate change and that new higher paying jobs would come from investments in clean energy companies. He claims these are not “Pie in the sky dreams.” For America’s sake let’s hope that is the truth.
We definitely see a radical and unprecedented beginning to an administration. Even the New York Times Editorial Board was quoted asking Biden to “ease up on the executive actions.” In the coming weeks and months the effects of these orders will be felt by many citizens and communities across America. We will have to see what orders or legislation, if any, come from the Biden administration in the coming weeks. But what we know now is that Biden is now known as the executive order President.
