President Signs Executive Order on Infrastructure

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP WORKS TO REBUILD AMERICA'S INFRASTRUCTURE - "Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land." - President Donald J. Trump, August 15, 2017. --The following is the Executive Order signed by President Trump on August 15, 2017:


Executive Order Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects

Summary:
The Executive Order (EO) establishes the policy of the Administration to facilitate the efficiency and effectiveness of federal infrastructure decisions by establishing greater accountability in the environmental review and permitting process.

The policy goals of this will be as follows:

• To safeguard our communities and maintain a healthy environment.
• To ensure the Federal decision makers make informed decisions concerning the environmental impacts of infrastructure projects.
• To develop infrastructure in an environmentally sensitive manner.
• To provide transparency and accountability to the public on environmental review and authorization decisions.
• To be good stewards of public funds used to develop infrastructure projects and avoid duplicative and wasteful processes.
• To conduct environmental reviews and authorization processes in a manner that is sufficiently coordinated, consistent, predictable, and timely to give public and private investors the confidence necessary to make funding decisions for new infrastructure projects.
• To speak with a coordinated voice when conducting environmental reviews and providing authorization decisions.
• To make well-informed and timely decisions with the goal that the process for the completion of all Federal environmental reviews and authorization decisions for major infrastructure projects take no longer than 2 years. This EO will require agencies to process environmental reviews and permitting decisions for major projects under a "One Federal Decision" plan, meaning a lead agency is identified and works will all relevant agencies to develop a unified schedule for completion. Additionally, this EO will establish a 2-year goal for the Federal Government to process all of the actions required by Federal law for the environmental reviews and permits of major infrastructure projects.
This EO also directs the implementation of the following process enhancements:

• Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Action Plan: The EO directs CEQ to develop and implement a list of actions that will help facilitate Federal environmental reviews. The EO also empowers CEQ to mediate interagency disputes between Federal agencies to ensure that the environmental review and permitting process for an infrastructure project does not indefinitely stall due to the lack of a decision.
  
• Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC): The FPISC is a Federal interagency council established by statute that is comprised of all Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews and permits of infrastructure, and is statutorily charged to facilitate the review and permitting of certain infrastructure projects with costs in excess of $200 million. The EO authorizes the FPISC Executive Director to facilitate the environmental review and permitting process of any infrastructure project in the Federal Government upon request of a Federal agency or project sponsor.
Finally, this EO will repeal EO 13690, which was signed by President Obama, which established a climate-based approach to defining actions that arise in a floodplain.

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What You Need to Know About Obama’s Plan to Bypass Congress on Guns

Stymied by Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama is expected to act alone to take executive action to tighten restrictions on gun sales. --White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, speaking at a vigil last week for victims of the 2012 Newtown, Conn., shooting, confirmed that the president has asked his staff to complete a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.

Read more at The Daily Signal
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Battle over Guantánamo set to erupt: Obama threatens closure of Gitmo via Executive Action

President Obama is on a collision course with congressional Republicans over the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, with increasing chatter in Washington that he might seek to close the prison through executive action. The administration is expected to hand over a plan to Congress for shuttering the Cuban prison, in an attempt to fulfill a long-standing campaign pledge before Obama leaves office.

Read more at The Hill
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

President Obama Signs Executive Order on Labor Day Requiring Contractors to Pay for Sick Leave

Hundreds of thousands of American workers could become newly eligible for paid sick leave after President Barack Obama signs an executive order Monday forcing companies who contract with the federal government to provide the benefit to their employees. --The Labor Day announcement comes after a set of similar orders requiring federal contractors to boost paychecks and conditions for their workers, including expanding overtime compensation, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and raising workers’ minimum wage.

Read more at KTLA.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

New York Gov. Cuomo to state Economy: "Drop Dead"

Getta load of Andrew Cuomo, the governor of the once-great state of New York. For the first time ever, reports Business Insider, a U.S. state "may single out one industry for a big wage hike." --Under a plan approved by New York's Fast Food Wage Board, a $15-per-hour minimum wage would be phased in over three years in New York City and six years across upstate New York, whose economy has long been the American equivalent of East Germany. The mandate would apply to any restaurant chain with 30 or more locations in the state.

Read more at Reason.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Castro Encourages Obama To Rule By Executive Orders — And To Throw One His Way

It's a little known fact that President Reagan's 1981 firing of the air traffic controllers for an illegal strike was watched closely by ... the Kremlin. It concluded that President Reagan was a man of his word — and not to be messed with.  Well, it seems the tyrants in Havana have been watching U.S. domestic dramas closely, too. In Cuban dictator Raul Castro's weekend speech on President Obama's move toward normalizing relations, he noted that President Obama issued a lot of executive orders, something that corresponds to how the Castro brothers rule, the better to get around a dissenting Congress on issues such as ObamaCare and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Examiner Editorial: Liberals ready to use government power against Tea Party

Sen. Chuck Schumer's endorsement of President Obama's use of the IRS to target and harass Tea Party, conservative and evangelical nonprofits is further evidence that many contemporary liberals are comfortable using government power to squelch political opponents. They are even willing to steamroll one of America's most cherished rights -- freedom of speech -- to thwart people with views contrary to their own. Speaking to the Center for American Progress last week, Schumer decried the Tea Party's influence on House Republicans and declared that “there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies -- we must redouble those efforts immediately.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

Guns: Obama releases 23 Executive Orders

The following is a list provided by the White House of executive actions President Obama plans to take to address gun violence:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 
10.  Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. 
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

(Hat tip: Fox Nation) Read More......

WND: Obama slips DREAM Act amnesty past Congress

A new enforcement memo handed down by the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week has some accusing the White House of running around Congress to implement the DREAM Act – and consequent amnesty for some illegal immigrants – by executive fiat. Read more at World Net Daily... Read More......

Jim Huffman/WSJ: Donor Disclosure Hurts Democracy

(Hat tip: Linda Bartcher) On April 11th, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Huffman of Oregon entitled "How Donor Disclosure Hurts Democracy." On April 18th four letters to the editor took on the subject with three in agreement with Mr. Huffman

[Excerpt from Alexandria, VA] Former 2010 U.S. Senate candidate James Huffman discovered the hard way that disclosure of campaign donors comes with a steep cost, something the so-called campaign finance "reform" community has denied or ignored for decades. [...] His experience is not unique. Donors who have been disclosed through campaign finance reports have lost their jobs, faced boycotts of their businesses, suffered harassment at the hands of enraged political opponents, been threatened with losing government contracts... [Excerpt from Waco, TX] Perhaps the solution is to require that only the winning candidate disclose his or her political contributions after the campaign and while in office... [Excerpt from Western Springs, IL] Requiring disclosure of campaign contributions is an attack on one of the most important pillars of free elections, the secret ballot...

Today, the Wall Street Journal published, The White House Wants a List. Want a federal contract? Show politicians the money. [There's a new executive order in the works.]

Here's another reason to think the 2012 campaign is underway with a vengeance: If a company wants a federal government contract, from now on it will first have to disclose if the company or its executives gave more than $5,000 in political donations.

This latest federal rule comes courtesy of a new executive order now being drafted in the White House. The order would implement parts of last year's Disclose Act, which failed to pass Congress but was a favorite of Democrats because it would deter political contributions by business after last year's Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision. White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed last week that the order is in the works after former Federal Election Commission official Hans von Spakovsky obtained a copy of the draft.

The draft of the executive order describes the rule's purpose as a way to ensure the federal contracting system is free from the influence of "political activity or political favoritism." Hmmm. Last we checked, government contractors were already required to disclose contributions to candidates. The new twist here is the disclosure of donations to independent groups, a category in which conservatives outspent liberals for the first time in the last election cycle.

And what do you know? The draft order doesn't cover federal employee labor unions, the Democratic allies whose free speech rights were recognized alongside corporations in Citizens United. Nor do the disclosure requirements extend to recipients of federal grants, which often run into the millions of dollars. These donees are usually Democrats too. [Emphasis added]

Federal contracts are supposed to go to the lowest bidder, so it's hard to see how disclosure of political contributions would help contract decisions. Mandatory disclosure would impose politics on federal procurement choices as never before.

Even GOP strongman Tom DeLay never tried this one during his K Street heyday, though you can imagine the howls if he had. The closest we can come to something comparable is former Nixon henchman John Dean's memo during the Watergate era that the point of keeping an "enemies list" was to "determine what sorts of dealings these individuals have with the Federal Government and how we can best screw them (e.g., grant availability, federal contracts, litigation prosecution, etc.)."

These days the White House proxies on the political left will do the enemy listing. Disclosure may sound nice, but the real point is to put companies on notice that their political contributions will have, well, consequences. When the Disclose Act was before Congress, New York Democrat and co-sponsor Chuck Schumer made clear the bill was designed to "embarrass companies" out of exercising the rights recognized in Citizens United. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he said.

Exhibit A was last year's campaign against Target Corp. When the retailer donated $150,000 to an independent group running ads in the Minnesota governor's race, MoveOn.org smeared the company as antigay, threatened a boycott, and said Target needed to be made an example of or such donations could be "the tip of the iceberg." Target stopped donating to that group.

The executive order is only the latest Democratic effort to intimidate business donors. Last month, the liberal Media Access Project asked the Federal Communications Commission to begin requiring groups that run political ads to disclose their major donors on the air, a wacky interpretation of the 1934 Communications Act. Last week, Maryland Democrat Chis van Hollen sued the FEC to demand donor disclosure.

The point of all this is to discourage political speech by certain speakers. Citizens United was a landmark victory for liberty because it blew a huge hole in the architecture of campaign finance limits that had increasingly restricted political speech. Having failed to overrule Citizens United in Congress, Democrats now want to do it via executive diktat. Remember when Barack Obama campaigned as a postpartisan who'd stop all that Washington nastiness? Read More......

Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?

THE CORNER, 12/23/2009 by Andy McCarthy (Hat tip: Nic, Lee, Jean) - You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.

[Excerpt from article] "Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?"

Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.

On Wednesday [? Thurs., Dec. 17], however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).

Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?

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Steve Schippert [and Clyde Middleton] have more at ThreatsWatch.org: Wither Sovereignty [Includes Executive Order as amended]

Also see UN Dispatch: Interpol Under Siege by Uninformed Bloggers (Comments are especially interesting --bc) Read More......