Just hours into his presidency, Joe Biden has already made sweeping changes to erase signs of Donald Trump’s reign.
Five hours after Biden was sworn in, he signed the first of 17 executive orders covering climate action, coronavirus and more.
Climate action
Biden has signed the US back up to the Paris Accord, pledging to keep global warming to under two degrees by 2030. He has also reversed more than 100 Trump policies, many of them environmental.
He rescinded the permit for the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline and issued a moratorium on oil and natural gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Mask mandate
Biden is encouraging Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his administration and has made face coverings and social distancing a legal requirement for those in on federal property.
COVID-19 response
Biden has signed an order to structure the federal government to coordinate a unified national response to the pandemic. He has also signed the US back up to the World Health Organisation after Trump left in May, accusing it of being too close to China.
Pandemic assistance
A pause on evictions and foreclosures has been extended until at least March 31, and student loan repayments have been paused, interest-free, until September 30. Biden also plans to introduce a US$1.9 trillion relief bill.
Racial equity and immigration
Biden has stopped funding for the US-Mexico border wall that Trump started building. He’s also reversed a ban on immigration from some Muslim-majority countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia and launched a whole-of-government initiative to advance racial equity.
Non-citizens will also be counted in the US census. He has also extended the stay of displaced people from Liberia in the US on temporary visas.
Biden also plans to introduce a directive to speed up the process for families separated at the US-Mexico border under Trump’s policies and make it easier for those in the US illegally to become citizens.
Ethics
An initiative to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation has also been launched, and new ethics rules for political appointees have been implemented.
Well there is the first contrast. Trump was a lazy useless layabout when it came to anything besides his mates. COVID being the prime example.
There is a certain similarity (though no symmetry) in those flashy EOs.
“Now,” scratches bonce, “wot could be the link?” Something goodish feel, ineffectual but distracting?
Always watch the hand that is not doing the trick… or EO signing.
Wow if only Biden had been in a position to stop the keystone pipeline before Trump took office!
He wasn’t alas. Obama delayed it but Trump OK’d it a coule of months into is term.
The return of the ban on the keystone pipeline is causing problems in Canada. The idiot rightwing premier of Alberta whose oil the pipe would carry wants Canada to impose economic sanctions in retaliation!
Trudeau (not Gary) ain’t above hopping on the populist train/pipeline.
He has long supported the pipeline as part of an effort to balance his priority to fight climate change with his support for Canada’s energy industry in Alberta and in other western provinces. NYTimes.
That’s quite a straddle as Joh might say, naked across a barbed wire fence.
In the middle of the resource collapse road.
While the Canadian permafrost thaws.
True. Further, in 2018 the Canadian federal government bought for $4.5 billion another pipeline being built to transport Alberta’s oil to a sea port in British Columbia.
But as in Australia, in Canada there is a split between the majority who want to do something substantial to cut global warming and who support the carbon tax, and a big conservative minority and the energy industry who oppose substantial cuts to global warming.
Trudeau is seeking to build enough support for a compromise to ensure the continuation of the carbon tax once the conservatives regain power federally. If this fails the next conservative federal government will end the carbon tax, with the support of most of the premiers who are conservative.