Heritage Foundation Experts Analyze Trump’s Executive Orders
By Heritage Foundation Staff
Note: This OP consists of a few excerpts from the article cited. Interested readers are advised to refer to it.
President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders his first day in office. His executive orders covered policies related to the economy, the border, gender ideology and more.
Below, we round up analysis from The Heritage Foundation’s policy experts on these executive orders. This article will be regularly updated to include new analysis.
>>> If you are a journalist interested in booking or interviewing Heritage Foundation experts quoted in this article, please email: Heritagepress@heritage.org
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Political Prosecution of Pro-Life Activists Comes to an End With Pardon of 23 Pro-Lifers
On Thursday, a day before the annual March for Life, Trump issued pardons for 23 protesters who were prosecuted under the Biden administration for violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
The FACE Act, passed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, makes it a federal crime to use “threats of force, obstruction or inflict property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” And while the Act also protects houses of worship and crisis pregnancy centers that offer assistance to women with unexpected pregnancies, the Biden administration disproportionately focused on cases involving abortion clinics. Pro-life pregnancy resource centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities, and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, 436 church and pro-life pregnancy resource centers were firebombed or vandalized.
The disparity has resulted in some Republicans in Congress calling for the FACE Act’s repeal on the basis of the fact that there are both state and federal legal remedies available for conduct covered by the FACE Act, and the fact that the Constitution reserves the general police power to the states, something they can use to protect houses of worship, pregnancy centers, and abortion clinics. [...]
—Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow, Edwin Meese III Center for Legal & Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation.
Wind Energy
Trump issued a presidential memorandum directing the temporary halt of all federal offshore and onshore wind energy leasing and permitting activities, while ordering a comprehensive review of existing practices. This memorandum, which took effect Jan. 21, specifically places a temporary moratorium on the Lava Ridge Wind Project approved in the Dec. 5, 2024 Record of Decision.
One of wind energy’s fundamental flaws is its intermittency. Wind power projects consistently overpromise and underdeliver while imposing massive costs on taxpayers. Recent Heritage Foundation analysis shows these projects cost communities billions. In New Jersey’s case, nearly $75 billion ($8,000 per resident) for a global temperature reduction of just 0.0007 degrees Celsius by 2100.
In 2023, wind power operated at full capacity only 33% of the time, dropping to 26% during summer. American families and businesses need power 100% of the time. Utility scale battery backup can help curtail this deficiency some, but it remains very expensive and not widely deployed. This is why despite decades of subsidies, wind is not economically sustainable without ongoing taxpayer support and policy mandates. It is estimated that the tax credits enjoyed by wind producers would have cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars between 2025 and 2034.
That is why it has long been the Heritage position that subsidies for wind (or any source of energy) distort energy markets and results in less reliable, more expensive energy. Heritage analysis shows that energy access determines whether societies thrive or suffer. Looking across every nation on Earth, we see that high-energy societies are high-prosperity societies, while low-energy countries remain trapped in poverty.
—Jack Spencer, senior research fellow for Energy and Environmental Policy, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation
Paris Agreement Withdrawal
Trump issued executive order, “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” which withdraws the United States from all commitments, including the Paris Agreement, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The order directs the U.S. United Nations ambassador to immediately submit notification that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change. It goes on to withdraw the U.S. from any agreement associated with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ends the U.S. International Climate Finance Plan, and directs federal agency heads to review, identify and stop any activities associated with the global warming agenda.
The Heritage Foundation has consistently argued for withdrawing from these commitments for the benefit of every American family and business—and the rest of the world. As academic research shows, alarmist rhetoric around global warming is overblown while the economic consequences of global warming policies are real and growing. This is critical step to modernizing America’s energy and environmental policy.
Though the agreement never made good economic or environmental sense, China’s decision to virtually abandon the pact exacerbated these underlying issues. The Biden administration’s obsession with the global warming agenda has been an unmitigated disaster by any measure. It has caused inflation, reduced consumer choice, empowered America’s strategic competitors, increased the threat of electricity blackouts,, chilled investment in new energy infrastructure, and left Americans less prepared to deal with natural disasters.
The foundation for much of this bad policy is America’s participation in international environmental agreements that put premium on environmental virtue signaling at the expense of America’s economy and world standing. This executive order changes that.
—Jack Spencer, senior research fellow for Energy and Environmental Policy, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation
Stopping the Abuse of the Government’s Power
In his executive order, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” Trump at long last sets out the policy of the United States “to correct misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
The executive sets out an unfortunately accurate summary of that misuse over the past four years:
The American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions [that were] oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.
Those activities were “inconsistent with the Constitution and/or the laws of the United States, including those activities directed at parents protesting at school board meetings, Americans who spoke out against the previous administration’s actions, and other Americans who were simply exercising constitutionally protected rights.”
In fact, it was a “third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process.” As just one example, the executive order points out that while the Justice Department “ruthlessly” prosecuted the 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, it “simultaneously dropped nearly all cases against BLM rioters.” It was unequal justice under the law.
The attorney general is directed to review the activities of executive branch “departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority,” and the director of intelligence is to undertake a similar review of all intelligence agencies, for any conduct over the past four years “contrary to the purposes and policies of this order.” They must submit a report to the president and federal agencies are ordered to preserve all documents of their activities.
More information on the weaponization of the federal government can be seen here: https://www.heritage.org/weaponization-government
—Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
Rescinding Biden EOs on gender identity, DEI, and more
In his executive order, “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” President Donald Trump revoked 67 executive orders issued by his predecessor and 11 “Presidential” memoranda.
They cover everything from “gender identity,” the “climate crisis,” and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” to withdrawing areas of the country from “oil or gas leasing,” rescinding Cuba’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” and weakening enforcement of our immigration laws.
In revoking these orders and memoranda, Trump says that the Biden administration “embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government.”
The “injection” of DEI “into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.” On immigration, Trump says Biden’s orders opened “the borders” and “endangered the American people.” The orders on the climate amounted to “extremism” that “exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulations.”
Executive orders are not the legal equivalent of laws passed by Congress. They are orders from the president as the chief executive directing the behavior and actions of federal agencies and employees in carrying out their responsibilities under those laws and the duties of the president as the commander in chief.
—Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
‘Total and Efficient Enforcement’ of Immigration Laws
President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” to achieve “total and efficient enforcement” of immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens.
The order directs the attorney general and secretary of Homeland Security to establish Homeland Security task forces in all 50 states to provide logistics, intelligence, and operational support to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking networks throughout the U.S.
The order directs a long list of tools to be used to enforce immigration laws, including alien registration, visa sanctions, and incentives to self-deport. It also requires a pause and analysis of contracts and grants given to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that hav\e facilitated mass migration, including termination and claw back authority, if appropriate.
Heritage has consistently called for a return to fully enforcing immigration laws and defunding the NGOs that have been enriched for implementing mass illegal immigration to, and throughout, the U.S.
—Lora Ries, director of Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation
Undoing Biden’s Illicit ‘Promoting Access to Voting’
Among the many prior “illegal and radical” executive orders of Biden that his successor, President Donald Trump, revoked on the latter’s first day in office in his “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions” was Executive Order 14019 (March 7, 2021). That EO, which Biden misleadingly titled “Promoting Access to Voting,” should have been titled “Illegally Using the Federal Government to Manipulate Election Outcomes for the Democratic Party.”
Biden’s EO ordered federal agencies and federal employees to implement a get-out-the-vote operation using government resources and taxpayer funding that was clearly intended to benefit his political party. He had no constitutional or statutory authority to engage in such reprehensible actions and, in fact, spending federal funds on such activity violated federal law.
Biden’s Justice Department used its resources in court to fight all attempts to get the administration to disclose what it was actually doing and to stop its misbehavior.
More information about this attempted election interference can be found at The Heritage Foundation, “Biden Executive Order 14019: Unlawful interference in State Election Administration,” and at The Daily Signal, “Latest Federal Takeover of Elections Violates Federal Law.”
The new administration should ensure that all information hidden by the Biden administration is now publicly disclosed.
—Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
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