Trump will ramp up action on executive orders this week: reports

by Rebecca Savransky - 04/23/17 3:30 PM ET

President Trump is planning to sign executive orders this week on energy and the environment, Reuters reported Sunday, citing a White House official.

“This builds on previous executive actions that have cleared the way for job-creating pipelines, innovations in energy production and reduced unnecessary burden on energy producers,” the official told Reuters.

Axios said Sunday that by the end of the week, Trump will have signed at least 32 executive orders — the most in the first 100 days of an administration since World War II.

A White House source previewed the actions expected to come from Trump this week, including:

an order “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protections at the Department of Veterans Affairs”
review of Designations under the Antiquities Act
an order implementing an “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy”
and an order “Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America.”

The president is expected to sign on Wednesday an order regarding the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives presidents the ability to make areas of land and water federal and to designate them as national monuments, Reuters added.

{mosads}On Friday, he will sign an order related to his administration’s “America First” energy policy, Reuters added.

Last month, the president signed a wide-ranging executive order to start the process of rolling back former President Barack Obama’s aggressive climate change agenda, promising the measure would create jobs in the fossil fuel industry.

“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” Trump said at the time, using a term coined by the industry and its supporters to describe government regulations harmful to their industry.

“I am taking an historic step to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations.”

The order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to formally consider repealing the Clean Power Plant, a central piece of Obama’s second-term climate agenda.

This weekend, the president tweeted he is “committed to preserving the natural beauty of our nation.”

“I am committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection,” he tweeted. “Jobs matter!”

The Obama administration used the Antiquities Act to designate several national monuments in his final years in office.

Tags Barack Obama