Biden’s executive actions at Covid-19, immigration, economics and more, explained

President Joe Biden is not waiting for Congress to start approving his political agenda. His presidency is starting with an aggressive first 10 days in the Oval Office with a set of executive orders and actions.

The promised actions range from the substantive to the most symbolic. Some revoke important parts of former President Donald Trump’s agenda; others lay the groundwork for some of Biden’s own progressive promises.

On its first day, Biden will sign 17 executive initiatives. He will impose masks on federal property. He will rescind Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization. He will extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, as well as a pause on student loans. He will take several measures against global warming, including returning to the Paris agreement. He will advance immigration, reversing Trump’s travel ban and halting the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. It will reinforce commitments to racial equality and protections against discrimination for LGBTQ people. And more.

Biden’s team emphasized in a call to reporters that these actions from the first day were just the beginning. AN memo from White House chief of staff Ron Klain outlined Biden’s plans to deal with “four crises that overlap and combine”: Covid-19, the economy, global warming and racial justice. In the absence of Congressional action, Biden will sign “dozens of executive orders, presidential memos and guidelines for Cabinet agencies” to address these areas and more.

“In the coming days and weeks, we will announce additional executive actions to address these challenges and deliver on the President-elect’s promises to the American people, including lifting the ban on military service for American transgender people and reversing Mexico City policy,” Jen Psaki’s voice said in a statement on Tuesday.

There are limits to what Biden can do through executive action. Addressing some problems – including the most immediate crises in Covid-19 and the economy – will require more money. Biden will need Congress to approve that. Although Biden proposed a $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package (which includes a $ 400 billion Covid-19 plan), Democrats have only the smallest majority in Congress, and it is still unclear whether lawmakers will pass a proposal with such a high price.

Andrew Harnik / AP

Biden’s executive actions, in part, acknowledge this reality and guarantee that he will be able to claim some movement in its early days, when the hard work of getting legislation in Congress begins.

Some of the measures will also have an immediate impact – helping millions of Americans who would struggle to pay rent and student loans, providing some relief to undocumented migrants and driving the country to combat climate change.

The scope of the actions is a reflection of Biden’s performance on one of the most progressive agendas in history. But it is also a recognition that Democrats have not performed well in parliamentary disputes to fully implement that agenda. Now Biden will need to use his more limited executive powers to fill some of the gaps between his campaign promises and the harsh political realities.

What Biden’s executive actions do

Biden will take a series of executive actions quickly, simultaneously aiming to move the nation beyond the Trump era, address urgent crises and deliver on campaign promises. Full details can be read in a technical file and memo, but here are some of the larger components:

• Action at Covid-19: Biden will impose masking and physical distance requirements on federal properties – part of his “100 Day Mask Challenge” to get Americans to wear masks. He will move to return to the World Health Organization after Trump’s decision to withdraw from the group. He will create a position as Covid-19’s response coordinator and reinstate the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, an executive team that Trump dismissed who handled the response to the pandemic. More actions are coming, including efforts to expand testing and establish “clear public health standards” in relation to Covid-19.
• Economic relief: Biden will ask federal agencies to extend federal moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures until at least March 31, which will likely help millions of Americans. It will also extend a pause in interest and principal payments for direct federal student loans until at least September 30. And Biden pledged to direct his Cabinet “to take immediate steps to provide economic relief to working families who support the impact of this crisis.”
• Efforts to combat global warming: Biden will again adhere to the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that links countries to combating global warming. Biden will also sign an order reversing a wide range of Trump’s actions on climate change and taking new actions on his own. Included in this list: direct federal agencies to review vehicle fuel economy and emission standards, imposing a moratorium on oil and gas leases at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and revoking the Keystone XL pipeline license. Biden’s team also promised more action in the coming weeks “with the urgency that science requires”.
• Immigration reform: Biden will sign several immigration actions and orders, largely reversing Trump’s work in this area. Biden will reinforce the Deferred Action for Arrivals in Childhood (DACA), which offers legal protection to the children of undocumented migrants. It will also reverse Trump’s travel ban, rescind Trump’s attempts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census, and move to prevent the construction of the border wall, among other measures. With Biden already proposing legislation to reform the immigration system, this is an area he will certainly return to in the future.
• Rejecting intolerance: Biden will sign an executive order stating that “promoting equity for all … is the responsibility of our entire government”, ordering federal agencies to act on this principle. The order will also rescind Trump’s 1776 Commission and the limits on diversity and inclusion training within federal agencies. Separately, Biden will sign an order recognizing the prohibition of discrimination based on sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibiting discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including at federal agencies.
• Improve government function: Biden will sign an order requiring “all those nominated in the executive branch to sign an ethical commitment” and with the aim of “ensuring that executive branch officials act in the interests of the American people and not for personal gain”, based on action similarly by former President Barack Obama. He will also withdraw the Trump-era rules on establishing new regulations and, at the same time, guide the director of the Office of Management and Budget to improve the regulatory review process. And he will issue a regulatory freeze to give his government time to review the new regulations imposed during Trump’s final days.

Many of the executive actions are focused on reversing Trump’s legacy, especially on his iconic immigration issue. From the travel ban to the border wall, Trump has done a lot on this topic that Biden and the Democrats objected to. But, since a large part of it was linked to actions by the Executive, and not by Congress, a new President has the chance to undo most of that work.

Biden’s team emphasized that more is to come – particularly to make it easier in the coming months and years to apply for asylum in the United States, which Trump made much more difficult in his years in office.

But Biden will also take a series of actions that are essentially based on the Obama presidency. On climate change, for example, Biden’s measures to re-join the Paris Agreement and bring back the rules imposed by Obama begin where the last Democratic government ended. Climate change remains an important issue among Democrats, so this is a logical area, politically, for Biden to focus some proactive energy.

And some of the actions simply address the most pressing problems of the time, especially Covid-19 and the economic crisis.

Still, these actions are limited. They may provide some relief to millions of Americans and make other improvements here and there, but they will not come close to resolving any of the continuing and aggravated crises that Biden’s team has recognized. This will require an act of Congress – and probably weeks, months or years of work.

Biden is doing what he can for now

Although it was widely considered the moderate option in the Democratic presidential primaries, Biden ended up running a very progressive campaign as soon as he won the nomination. From economic inequality to health and global warming, Biden promised a big shift to the left on a number of issues. As Matt Yglesias wrote for Vox, “his platform is, in many ways, a surprisingly progressive approach to politics that the left sees as a triumph of its own work in trying to change the terms of the debate in American politics.”

Patrick Semansky-Pool / AP

Progressive hopes were largely dashed on election day 2020, when Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives and did not take control of the Senate. Some of those hopes were revived by the second round of Georgia, which gave Democrats a minimal majority in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. But with a majority as small and moderate as Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) effectively setting the limits of the Democratic agenda, there is a ceiling to how far Biden can go.

This does not mean that Biden gave up. He has already proposed a $ 1.9 trillion stimulus plan, including a $ 400 billion Covid-19 plan and a comprehensive immigration reform project. He talked about finding common ground with Republicans – which would challenge the polarized tendencies of the latest presidential administrations, but would give Biden some leeway to do more.

The reality, however, is that this will be a difficult political environment for the broad agenda that Biden championed. There is likely to be action on some of the most pressing issues, particularly Covid-19 and that stimulus plan. But more controversial actions, particularly those that cannot be passed by the Senate with a simple majority such as tax and spending measures, seem less likely, such as building on the Affordable Care Act, an increase in the minimum wage, democratic reform, radical actions on climate change or significant criminal justice legislation.

Moving on to executive actions is a way for the Biden White House to start running. But it is also a reflection of this broader political reality.