Posted on 12/09/2024 7:04:43 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
The Biden administration has gone into overdrive securing progressive policy goals from the impending Trump administration 2.0.
From confirming progressive judges, to constraining American energy with environmental red tape, to simply spending every last unjustified dollar, the Biden-Harris administration is committed to ensuring its policies carry on into the second Trump administration for as long as possible.
“It comes [down to] setting land mines and making it more difficult for the incoming administration to reverse those changes,” Cato Institute policy analyst Tad DeHaven told The Washington Times. “It matters or else they wouldn’t be doing it.”
The American people have decisively rejected the Biden-Harris agenda. So, naturally, the administration has responded by forcing its agenda upon Americans even harder, right down to Donald Trump‘s inauguration Jan. 20.
1. Employees
Across the bureaucracy, career government employees are lining up lawyers and setting up to lobby against mass firings, reports The Washington Times.
At the end of Trump’s first term, by executive order he created a new class of federal workers (Schedule F) which would be easier to hire and fire. The Biden-Harris administration undid Trump’s change, and now the bureaucracy is afraid Trump might reinstitute it.
Employees in two divisions of the Justice Department are also rushing to unionize, according to the Times. This would make it more difficult to fire them.
It also provokes the question, why? Shouldn’t their unimpeachable integrity and relentless pursuit of nonpartisan justice be enough to protect their positions?
2. Rulemaking
While executive branch employees rush to protect their jobs, executive branch agencies rush to protect their progressive policies. For instance, the Department of Education is rushing to finalize a proposed rule canceling student loans for people with “financial hardships,” which it previously expected to finish in 2025.
Regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency have been particularly busy. They announced $3 billion in grants to facilitate a rule that requires local municipalities to replace lead pipes within 10 years. They finalized a rule Nov. 12 to fine oil and gas companies for “wasteful methane emissions.”
EPA regulators are also rushing to impose penalties and reach settlements with companies accused of violating their environmental regulations. They plan to grant California a waiver to enforce its rule banning the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles in the state by 2035.
Meanwhile, bureaucrats in the Department of Energy are hurrying to complete a study on liquified natural gas exports that is expected to conclude that they’re not “consistent with the public interest” because of their climate impact, The Washington Post reported.
This won’t directly stop the Trump-Vance administration from restoring America’s energy exports, but could help fossil fuel opponents challenge the new administration in court.
“Biden’s decision on LNG [liquid natural gas] is the most consequential thing he can do on climate and fossil fuels before Trump takes office,” declared Fossil Free Media spokeswoman Cassidy DiPaola.
Other environmental rules the Biden-Harris administration is rushing to finalize include “narrowing the scope of an oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” “restricting drilling, mining, and livestock grazing across nearly 65 million acres … to save an imperiled bird,” and “finaliz[ing] three rules restricting the release of toxic chemicals.”
“From what we can tell, they’ve done a very good job lining this stuff up, so there’s not a whole lot at risk of getting punted into the next administration,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities. “I think everyone learned that lesson in 2016.”
The flurry of administrative rulemaking aimed to meet a late-November deadline that marked 60 days from Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Rules finalized within 60 days of Trump taking office are subject to the Congressional Review Act, which means that the incoming Republican majority could block them with Trump’s approval.
3. Judges
Another area requiring cooperation between the Biden-Harris administration and Congress is judicial appointments. Senate Democrats are hurrying to confirm Biden-nominated judges to the federal bench, leaving few slots open for Trump to fill.
Positions in the federal judiciary, which are tenured for life, are officially not partisan, but it is generally acknowledged that judges appointed by Democratic presidents tend to lean more progressive, while appointees by Republican presidents tend to lean more conservative.
This means that the federal judges Biden can get through a lame-duck, Democrat-controlled Senate in the final days of his administration will likely look favorably on his progressive policies.
Before the Senate left for Thanksgiving break, Democrats and Republicans reached a compromise deal to vote on as many as 14 Biden nominees for district court appointments, but not to vote on four appellate court nominations.
4. Spending
The Biden-Harris administration is also hurrying to spend the remaining money allocated by Congress’ stimulus spending in 2021-2022, so that it won’t be available to the Trump-Vance administration.
The Washington Times’ reporting cites unnamed officials who plan to spend the remaining $46 billion available in fiscal year 2025, which ends next Sept. 30.
5. Foreign Policy
The Biden-Harris administration is also spending its lame-duck session making major foreign policy moves—which it declined or refused to make earlier—in hopes of constraining Trump’s diplomatic options.
Biden is trying to spend $6.4 billion in aid for Ukraine—funds Congress allocated in April but have not been spent—and cancel $4.65 billion in debt owed by Ukraine to the U.S. Also, Biden permitted Ukraine to fire longer-range missiles into Russia, provoking further Russian escalation.
NPR reported that the Biden-Harris administration is working hard to finalize another major loan to Ukraine through NATO, before Inauguration Day.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the administration pressured Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hezbollah before Trump takes office.
Why It Matters
The Biden-Harris administration is hoping to outfox the incoming Trump-Vance administration in a high-stakes, bureaucratic game of hot potato. Every time the White House changes hands, the incoming administration seeks to undo the rules adopted by its predecessors.
Thus, in 2021, the Biden-Harris administration reversed administrative actions taken by the outgoing Trump-Pence administration, just as the new Trump-Pence administration, in 2017, had reversed policy moves made by the Obama-Biden administration.
This back-and-forth has gone on at least since President Bill Clinton reversed President Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Policy, but it has recently expanded to cover an ever-growing number of issues.
“It’s unfortunate but expected that [Biden officials] will try to throw as many roadblocks at what President-elect Trump has pledged to do,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told the Post.
The reason why competing administrations play increasingly critical games of bureaucratic football is that they realize the legislative branch lacks either the ability or the will to stop them. And the sad truth of the matter is that progressives—with greater buy-in from employees of the executive branch and greater faith in the government’s problem-solving capabilities—are usually better at playing the game than conservatives.
To the extent that there is a “Deep State” in “The Swamp,” this is it.
Ordinary Americans don’t spend their lives obsessing over politics, except for occasionally wondering why voting for good people never seems to produce the desired results. In my conservative opinion, the answer resides not in electoral results but in the long-term executive and judicial strategies that round out our system of checks and balances (currently tilted in favor of the executive branch).
This is why bureaucratic maneuvering like these by the Biden-Harris administration matter. When Trump takes the keys and slides behind the wheel on Jan. 20, the success of his whole second administration will depend on how quickly he can take America from zero to 60.
This question—and particularly Trump’s first 100 days—will set the momentum for the next four years. And this question depends on how adroitly his deputies can remove these roadblocks thrown in their path by the Biden-Harris administration.
If Trump wants to return America to the prosperous, cruising state of 2019, he must undo four years of rulemaking by the Biden-Harris administration, and he has only four years to do so.
Can his bureaucracy work faster than Biden’s? We’ll soon find out.
BTTT
With the exception of Judges, everything else can be undone pretty quick.
P
“Every time the White House changes hands…”
When people don’t get to know Trump they continue to think like this
It’s not going to be another let’s turn it over to cheating and corruption election
That is over
Anyone trying to perpetuate that is just trying to sell copy. In a lazy way.
Because, when Republicans oppose them, that is "regressive."
Deplorable, that the "garbage" -- Biden's word -- is now taking out the refuse.
Stealing a handful of Senate and Congressional seats was step 1.
AI can be helpful here.
Any regulation put in place in the past year should be automatically deleted.
Joe Biden!! He’s our man! IF joe can’t “F” it up, ain’t nobody can!!!!
Suck on it, ya evil communist basstids......he’s your boy, right along with your mighty POS: odongo.
Chevron Deference put an end to a lot of those environmental rules.
Flurries of lawsuits are being prepared now to tie up Trump’s entire agenda in court. They’re going to nitpick over everything to try to thwart everything Trump does.
We need to revise the “Congressional Review Act” so that ANY regulation, no matter when finalized can be revoked by a President with Congressional approval.
No, it cannot.
Firing civil service employees runs into the civil service regulations and they obstruct any such thing absent some felony or other extreme realities.
You can eliminate entire departments, and those employees are entitled to take civil service jobs from elsewhere in the area at any department.
One of the regulations forbids transferring an employee more then 50 miles from their current position.
Civil service has worked for decades to defend its aspect of the Swamp.
About the only possible maneuver is to retain the employee at his or her current payscale and reduce their activities to zero. Eliminate all responsibilities. Most will retire rather then endure the boredom.
But they will be paid as long as they are there.
Which is why deficit reduction is a silly thing to expect from the new Administration.
Trump will act as he sees fit, let the courts sort out the challenges. And put Congress on the spot to defend their opposition to their constituents.
Stealing a handful of Senate and Congressional seats was step 1”
Yes 4 Senate seats and at least a dozen House seats. No one who matters has said a word about it.
Schedule F
Trump needs to prove the election was stolen and then void everything Biden and Harris left their fecal smears on.
“One of the regulations forbids transferring an employee more then 50 miles from their current position.”
That is not correct.
First of all any civilian federal employee can be detailed anywhere at any time—for at least six months.
Second of all an agency can close or move offices at any time. While the employee can apply to another agency there is no guarantee they will be hired.
In addition an agency can reorganize and eliminate entire functions or divisions or move them to distant locations.
Specific example: I know folks who worked as federal employees in Hartford, CT offices.
Many of those offices were closed and the employees had to move to Boston if they wanted to keep their jobs.
That was 100 miles.
Republicans should filibuster every judicial appointment until Jan. 20.
“With the exception of Judges, everything else can be undone pretty quick.”
Also with the exception of money already dispersed from the Treasury by speeding up spending.
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