In an interview with NPR Monday, President Obama offered some advice for President-elect Trump: Don’t become overly reliant on unilateral executive actions that can be easily undone by your successor. “My suggestion to the president-elect is, you know, going through the legislative process is always better, in part because it’s harder to undo,” Obama said. Indeed, since voters handed the Democratic party thunderous defeats in the 2010 and in 2014, giving Republicans control of Congress, Obama has increasingly relied on a series of increasingly bold, and in some cases illegal, executive actions.
But even as he is facing the prospect of having nearly the entirety of his legacy undone by the incoming administration, the New York Times reports that Obama is rushing forward in an attempt to pass even more executive rules:
Mr. Obama invoked an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which he said gives him the authority to act unilaterally. While some presidents have used that law to temporarily protect smaller portions of federal waters, Mr. Obama’s declaration of a permanent drilling ban on portions of the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska’s coast is breaking new ground. The declaration’s fate will almost certainly be decided by the federal courts. … Last week, the Obama administration issued a final rule to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other health clinics that provide abortions, a measure that will take effect two days before Mr. Trump takes office. Rules were also finalized to determine whether schools should be considered succeeding or failing under the new Every Student Succeeds Act. The Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Dakota Access oil pipeline that had raised the ire of Native Americans. Mr. Obama has created a national monument in Maine, and on Monday he issued a new round of pardons and commutations.
Obama is hoping that these rules will be difficult to undo, but some of them, particularly the massive unilateral drilling ban and Planned Parenthood funding, are such hot button issues for Republicans, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t be challenged by Trump’s White House and/or a GOP-controlled Congress.
