Book Review: Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman has recently released a new book entitled Norse Mythology.  This book, per the introduction, is a labor of love on Gaiman's part and he is trying to share his love of story as well as demonstrate how many stories are really very old, they are just retold in slight variations with new names for the characters.  However, I fear this ends up being his "Silmarillion": bookish, pedantic and missing the crafting required to have made it a whole rather than a collection of parts.

Between Muspell and Niflheim was a void, an empty place of nothingness, without form.  The rivers of the mist world flowed into the void, which was called Ginnungagap, the "yawning gap".

Gaiman has tried to piece together a set of myths into a whole story.  In my opinion, this does not work terribly well.  There are a bunch of episodes, almost like a sitcom that nearly resets at the end of each episode.  A few events have consequences later in the book, but relatively little.  I kept having flashbacks to a rendition of "You're a good man, Charlie Brown" as one parallel to this book.
More fascinating are the characters of Thor, Loki and Odin.  Thor is powerful, but yet makes bad choices and falls victim to his hubris (actually reminds me a lot of a certain current politician).  Loki causes trouble simply because he is bored.  He lies so well to people he does so just to see if he can get away with it.  Odin is wise and thoughtful but somehow never seems to lead action:  Thor and/or Loki are always taking care of the business at hand.  We also have a lot of giants of different types that are involved in the stories and as a result few humans.  But in many ways the gods (the Vanir and Aesir) and the giants are of recognizable human archetypes.  If one thinks of these as stories told to children, then adults who would exhibit the behaviors in the story could appear to be giants, so in a way it fits.
I found it to be disjointed, fairly pedantic (I mean at a few points, family history was being explained to the extent I thought I was reading Deuteronomy), and a struggle to keep my interest.  The end where Ragnarok was explained, (and this is the point: it was explained rather than it being a story told) it seemed a list of unrelated events.  Your mileage may vary and perhaps if you have already been submersed into this ethos, his re-telling might be splendid.  Gaiman has made a brave try, but unfortunately, I have to give it a C.

Executive Order 13784:Opioid Crisis

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13784 is entitled "Establishing the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis."  This EO was originally issued on March 29th, 2017 and it has 9 sections.

Section 1

This section defines the policy as combating drug abuse, including opioid abuse.  There is a mention of 50,000 deaths due to this "public health crisis".  It is unclear whether this means drug abuse in general or just opioids.  On the commission website, it mentions 33,000 deaths due to opioid overdoses.

Section 2

This section establishes a commission.  The commission is chaired by Chris Christie and will closely coordinate with Jared Kushner according to the website.  The website has a statement to "check back soon for updates regarding the Commission and its upcoming meetings."  There is also available a commission charter document.  This document was created April 24, 2017 and is quite vague although its unclear whether that is by design or because no work is being done.

Section 3

This section makes vague statements as to the membership of the commission.  In a May 10, 2017 press release the intent to appoint individuals to the commission was announced.

Section 4

This section defines the mission of the commission.  There are 6 subsections.  In summary the mission ends up being to summarize where we are and recommend where we should go from here.

Section 5

This section defines that the commission should work under the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).  The commission members will not be paid other than travel expenses.

Section 6

This section defines that spending by the commission will come out of the ONDCP budget.  I have not read the recently released President's proposed budget to see if ONDCP is up or down next year.

Section 7

This section defines the requirements for reports.  First, within 90 days an interim report is to be issued and by Oct 1, a final report is to be issued.  The 90 day deadline is coming up fast.

Section 8

This section provides a sunset clause for the commission such that it is dissolved automatically 30 days after submittal of the final report.

Section 9

This section includes the necessary legal fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My commentary

The drug abuse problem is a real tragedy.  It is disgraceful that so many people ended up being addicted to pain pills and from there moved onto other drugs while making large profits for drug manufacturers and other entities in the health care sector.
It appears that the proposed members of the commission are relatively serious people.  I imagine that the commission will not come back with a recommendation to build a wall along the Mexican border as has been proposed during the presidential campaign.
While Opioids, especially synthetic variants, are relatively new, I don't see that there is anything that fundamentally changes what we have been doing for the last 30-40 years (or longer) with regards to fighting drug addiction.  There is both a demand and a supply side.  On the demand side is education, treatment and just getting people not to use drugs.  On the supply side is cracking down on the manufacture and distribution of drugs.  Actions taken on either side have unintended consequences on the other side.  The problem is complex and often drug addition is just a symptom of other underlying problems such as physical/sexual abuse or undiagnosed mental illness.  Also, there are proponents of legalization vs. prohibition to consider along the lines of when alcohol was prohibited for that short time in American history.  There will not be a magic bullet and therefore the solutions are difficult to craft, effectiveness will be difficult to measure and all of this will leave an impression in the general public of civil servants arguing over minutiae that really does not matter.
It is disappointing that this problem and the commission are not getting the attention, budget and urgency of what is probably one of the most significant social problems facing the USA.  I am still hopeful that some good will come out of the commission, but it could certainly also result in nothing.

Executive Order 13785: Enforcing Antidumping Duties

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13785 is entitled "Establishing Enhanced Collection and Enforcement of Antidumping and Countervailing Duties and Violations of Trade and Customs Laws" and it has 6 sections.  This EO was originally issued on March 31, 2017.

Section 1

This section defines the policy of the administration.  It notes that there are $2.3 billion of duties owed to the government that are uncollected.  It does not specify whether this is current accounts receivable or if this is just what has been written off as bad debts.  Also, to put it in perspective, compared to the trillions of dollars of imports annually, this is a rounding error.  The section goes on to mandate risk based bonding requirements.

Section 2

This section provides definitions for "importer" and "covered importer".

Section 3

This section directs that the Secretary of Homeland Security provide a plan within 90 days for implementation of risk based bonding requirements on covered importers.

Section 4

This section discusses cracking down on violators of trade and customs laws generally, but specifically with regards to "knock-off" products.  It also promises to share information with rights holders regarding violations that occur.

Section 5

This section directs the Attorney General to give prosecution of trade violations high priority.

Section 6

This section includes the usual fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

I do not know how much resources were allocated to detecting and pursuing trade violations including those regarding "knock-off" products prior to the issue of this EO.  My opinion is that adding to these resources is not value for money although large corporations who have trademarks and those industries who have been battling with lower priced imports may feel better because of the issuance of this EO.
First, there is a process already for filing for a review of whether something is being dumped on the American market.  If you search in the Federal Register for "antidumping", there are thousands of notices of investigations that are in process and have been performed for specific products.  Of course these are all initiated after the fact once the goods are already released through customs.  Application of duties or penalties on the importer after the conclusion of the investigation is where some or all of the mentioned $2.3 billion comes from.  If the importing company has little or no assets and if the exporting company does not have a presence in the US, then there is nothing that the government can do to collect the money, it just shuts down that importer.  You can see how this might end up in a game of whack-a-mole.  I do not imply that this kind of behavior does not cause harm.  Certainly any anti-competitive behavior can harm small businesses.
Second, focusing enforcement efforts here will likely not yield significant results and if the risk-based methodology that is adapted is overly broad it can result in being a deterrent to trade and could be perceived as a reason for retaliation against US exports by other countries.
Finally, the end result of success with regards to the actions being initiated by this EO will result in higher prices paid by consumers and end users of the goods that end up in the dragnet.  Higher import tariffs mean higher prices.  The argument that would be made is that it will stimulate domestic supply, but in many cases, such as stainless steel pipe and tubing, new production is capital intensive since you have to first build a steel mill.  It may certainly allow domestic production to rise a little, but my opinion is that there have been a lot of costs to be able to get to that point which would outweigh any benefits.

Executive Order 13786: Trade Deficits

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13786 is entitled "Omnibus report on significant trade deficits" and has 3 sections.  This EO was originally issued on March 31, 2017 and there have been several additional EO's regarding the topic of trade since then.  In the commentary I will do a bit of a review of the subsequent EO's and try to summarize and critique the theme that is being pursued by this administration.

Section 1

This section outlines the policy of the current administration.  They feel that the trade deficit needs to be eliminated.  Some of the perceived benefits of this include more domestic manufacturing and hence more well-paying jobs.  The causes of the deficits include perceived unfair trade practices by other countries.

Section 2

This Section mandates that a report is produced to determine the causes of the trade deficit and identify specific countries which may be using unfair trade practices that are exacerbating the trade deficit.  Also, the report needs to review the defense industry to assure that trade practices are not creating national security vulnerabilities.

Section 3

This section has the usual fine print to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My commentary

To start, I want to throw out a disclaimer.  I am not an economist, so I may well have some of this wrong, but I have tried to think it through to the best of my ability.
The stated $700 billion trade deficit represents about 3.5% of GDP.  To eliminate this, either imports have to drop or exports have to rise.  If you are going to reduce imports, that can be accomplished in one of two ways.  Either prices paid by consumers have to rise to a level such that domestic manufacturing of those items is profitable, or domestic manufacturing has to be subsidized or labor costs have to be reduced to the necessary extent so that it is price competitive with imports.  Raw material cost is assumed to be equal for both domestic and foreign manufacture because markets for materials are largely global and variances in costs are due to local taxes.  If you let prices rise, this is inflation and correspondingly, it will create pressure to raise wages...there is danger there that it could spiral out of control.  If you start to subsidize industries that are not competitive, this starts a trade war and is antithetical to the concept of a free market.  Subsidies have to be paid by taxes, so here you end up with a tax hike.  Trying to raise exports runs into similar problems, so there is no magic bullet in terms of policy that can shift the balance without suffering in some way.  Perhaps some measures for both sides can result in some shrinkage of the trade deficit, but any attempt to capture the full 3.5% in a short period will be an economic shock.  There is an article in the Economist Magazine of May 12th that discusses this at some length.
One of the knock-on effects of the trade deficit is that foreigners are trying to find a safe place to stash all the US dollars that they are earning.  This has resulted in foreign ownership of a large part of the bills and bonds by which the Federal government has financed the budget deficits over the past 20 years.  If this in-flow of money were to stop, interest rates paid on US Treasury bills and bonds would rise significantly leading to a budget crisis and potentially hyperinflation.
Innovation and productivity growth appear to be the best ways to address the labor cost imbalance between the US and other countries.  However, this is trending towards automation of manufacturing processes (for example using robots) and the net result of that is a loss of jobs.  Without government intervention, the trend will be towards a two-tier society of have's and have-not's.
This topic has been the subject of several other subsequent EO's and this was a theme of the election campaign for the current administration.  I've written about these here, here and here.  Creating jobs through the government's levers of action is difficult, short of just directly hiring more people, but the President also has to fight the headwinds of the conservative movement who want to stop government intervening in the economy.  Clearly the President's team has no real underlying policy plan nor even an underlying philosophy that would inform the generation of a policy plan.  The ideas that have been floated have come from across the spectrum of thought: leaving NAFTA, reducing taxes, infrastructure stimulus but using other people's money.  It is incoherent populism signifying nothing and now with the political turmoil paralyzing Congress, unlikely to achieve anything either.

Update on previous post

Update regarding EO 13800 on Cybersecurity: I received and email from the Social Security Administration (SSA) that they are adding a second method of 2 factor authentication for logging into the SSA website.  Now you can select either a cell phone text message or as of June 10, 2017, a code sent to your main email address.  Of course, using the email message method, people need to realize that they should use different passwords for pretty much every single account.  Keeping track of all the various passwords can become a hassle and there are various methods I have seen.  One is to have a notebook to write all this stuff down in.  Some browsers have add-in password managers.  One person I know has a password protected and encrypted XL sheet that they keep all their passwords in.  Nonetheless, this is a good step forward and if you have not done so, you should turn on two factor authentication.

Executive Order 13787:

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order 13787 is entitled "Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice" and has 4 sections.

Section 1

This section further defines the order of succession for the position of Attorney General and lists 3 specific US Attorneys who would be in the line of succession.  These are the US Attorneys for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eastern District of North Carolina and Northern District of Texas.

Section 2

This section lists three exceptions, one being that if a person is in an acting capacity, then they cannot become the acting attorney general.  The second being that the person also has to meet the requirements under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.

Section 3

This section revokes a previous EO (13775 to be specific).

Section 4

This section includes a legal caveat to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

This is the kind of thing that EO's are appropriate to.  Who these specific people are is a matter of Republican party internal politics.  I have included this in my blog for the sake of completeness.

Executive Order 13800: Cybersecurity

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order 13800 is entitled "Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure."  It has 5 sections and is unusually long, running 7 pages in the Federal Register.

Section 1

This section defines the policy which is described in the first subsection as risk management at both the agency and department level as well as at the overall executive branch level due to the interdependent nature of the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure.  The next subsection defines the rationale for needed action.  This consists of relatively vague criticisms of how poorly it has been done in the recent past.  Point (v) though is a good statement and this really should have been part of the policy statement.

1(b)(v) Effective risk management requires agency heads to lead integrated teams of senior executives with expertise in IT, security, budgeting, acquisition, law, privacy, and human resources.

IT exists at the nexus of technology, privacy and service delivery.  The listed aspects have all need to be balanced in a suitable way.  When something happens, it often generates scary headlines and there is a communications function to this EO to provide confidence to citizens that there is seriousness in government to assure that systems work and that they and the data they handle are secure.
The next subsection is entitled "Risk Management".  This provides some direction to heads of Agencies, first and foremost stressing that they are responsible for assessing risks and assuring that adequate resources are provided to be able to reduce the risks to acceptable levels.  There is a requirement for each Head to provide a risk management report within 90 days and then goes on to describe what is required to be in the report.  Upon receipt of the report, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the OMB shall review the report to see if the risk levels and mitigation plans are adequate.  A summary of the agency reports will be compiled into a report to the President.  This applies to classified systems as well as unclassified ones. 1(c)(vi)(A) implies that solutions need to be selected with the potential to deploy them across multiple agencies if possible.  1(c)(vi)(B) requests a second report to the President on whether we can just simply buy and deploy a new set of computers on a single huge network based on the assumption that newer is always better.
1(c)(vi)(C) gives "National Security Systems" an allowance for being exempt from the requirements of the EO if it can be justified in some way.

Section 2

This section discusses cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, for example the electrical grid and power stations.  This directs that it is considered how Government can support private industry and provide that in a report and update the report annually.  Subsection (c) calls for a review of policies and practices and the report could well suggest additional regulation.  The next subsection focus on Distributed Denial of Service attacks and a separate report on these is requested.  The next section specifically looks at vulnerabilities in the electrical distribution system and requests a report on that. The last subsection focuses on defense industries, their supply chain as well as military systems and yet another report is requested.

Section 3

This section starts with a policy statement that internet availability for all is good.  It then goes on to look at options for deterring adversaries, international cooperation and workforce development.  Various reports are generated on these topics.

Section 4

This section provides definitions for "appropriate stakeholders", "information technology", "IT architecture" and "network architecture".  It is not clear why this was not at the beginning of the EO and got stuck at the end.

Section 5

This section contains the usual legal fine print to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My commentary

Reading through this, it strikes me that there is no one that has a big picture view of where we are.  I feel that a lot of what is mandated for reporting is fact-finding, but the kind that is trying to substantiate hunches which might be the kernel of a different plan already hatched but realized to be sufficiently controversial such that justification needs to be generated.  In the press, there has been much discussion of exploited vulnerabilities, often situations where it was the users rather than some system flaw that was exploited to gain access, read files and wreak the ensuing havoc.
Having or creating an overarching IT strategy for the government and using the tools available to government, including regulation, to have sufficiently secure, reliable and usable IT systems is a laudable goal.  However, reaching that goal, and if we are to infer things from this EO and media headlines, is going to take money, people, time and enforcement of rules to a much greater extent than what one might believe from the messaging so far: "It will be great, we'll get it done quickly and you will never have to worry about it again."
While diversity can be an obstacle in some senses, it also has to be recognized as a part of defense in depth for IT systems.  Common-mode failures can affect the entirety of a homogenous system.  If the interfaces can be constructed adequately, having a granular network structure that has firewalls between segments which contain some amount of diversity, diversity could be an effective way to contain issues provided the overhead of implementation does not break the usability or maintainability of the systems involved.
It seems to me that consideration should be given to the establishment of a new department of the Executive branch with overarching responsibility for IT deployment and support.  There is mention in the EO promoting information sharing.  This could be made unnecessary through a central function.  Ultimately, if no such Department of IT is established, it should be a major agency within one of the existing departments but with a branch level mission and sufficient authority to guide and direct all IT activities in the Executive branch, if not all three branches.
Dialogue and cooperation with the private sector, whether that is critical infrastructure or defense industry does have some risks.  For example, does it create moral hazard in private companies getting free consulting from the government on IT systems design, deployment and maintenance?  Alternatively, close cooperation with a large software or hardware firm can lead to corruption and the appearance of bias or favoritism for procurement.  Hopefully the appropriate people assure that these concerns are addressed during the report writing stage when they look at recommendations for any proposed cooperation with the private sector.

Executive Order 13799: Election Integrity

What the Executive Order says

Exective Order (EO) 13799 is entitled "Establishment of Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity."  It has 7 sections.  This Executive Order establishes a commission to look at the election process "to promote fair and honest Federal elections".

Section 1

This section is simply a statement that the commission is established.

Section 2

This section defines the membership of the commission.  It is chaired by the Vice President.  up to an additional 15 members can be added to the commission by appointed of the President.  Essentially anyone whomsoever is deemed appropriate by the President can be appointed.

Section 3

This section defines the mission of the commission and there are three aspects relating to the areas of voter registration and the voting process for Federal elections.  The report to be submitted to the President is advisory and as such any and all recommendations made by the commission can be ignored without any justification.  The three aspects to be considered include what the rules are which "enhance the American people's confidence in the integrity of the voting process"; what rules undermine that confidence; and what vulnerabilities there are in the registration and voting systems that could lead to fraudulent registration and voting.

Section 4

This section defines 4 terms: improper voter registration; improper voting; fraudulent voter registration; and fraudulent voting.

Section 5

This states that the commission shall hold public meetings and will be staffed, although it does not state out of what budget, but likely it is to be inferred that it is the budget of the Executive Office of the President.

Section 6

This section states that the commission will be disbanded 30 days after the submission of the report.

Section 7

This section includes the usual legal fine print to ensure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

As many readers know, the whole idea of this commission was spawned from the debacle of some early morning tweeting about how 3-5 million fraudulent or improper votes were cast and this was the only reason the President lost the national popular vote in the November 2016 Presidential election despite willing a  majority of electoral college votes.  No known evidence has ever been put forward that would substantiate that such a large number of fraudulent or improper votes were cast.  There have been proven isolated cases, but to the best of my knowledge these total less than 100 votes across the nation.
Months ago, there had been discussion of the establishment of this kind of commission and in fact, the Vice President had been named as the chair some time ago.  This EO is only making the entire exercise official.  There have been sporadic press reports on the non-progress of the investigation.  It is assumed that there will now actually be some activity on the subject.
There is a balance that needs to be achieved between making voter identification sufficiently rigorous to prevent fraud and preventing citizens who are entitled to vote from doing so.  One option is to have adequate government records of people, especially poor and indigent people who often do not obtain or keep any kind of identification documents.  This tends towards intrusion when attempting to be as inclusive as possible.  The other option is a policy where if the voter does not possess certain kinds of official documents, they are unable to exercise their right to vote.  This can be crafted to target, in a political way, certain populations either for enhancement or for suppression.  Any form of ID that is acceptable also has to be evaluated for the possibility of fraud.
Each state administers their voting system differently and the votes for Federal elections are implemented by each state.  Changes to voter laws may be impossible to do at the Federal level.
An opportunity is presented to this commission which is to review the voting processes in each state and to gather best practices that best balance between verification and empowerment to vote.  Conversely, it can be cynically supposed that the commission will look for ways that successfully impede the ability to vote of certain demographics in the populations.  It will be determined by whether the focus is on the Republic or the Republicans.

Executive Order 13788: Hire American and Buy American

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13788 is entitled "Buy American and Hire American" and has 6 sections.

Section 1

This section provides definitions for "Buy American Laws", "Produced in the United States", "Petition beneficiaries", "Waivers" and "United States workers".

Section 2

This section defines the policy which has two parts, one is about directing government procurement to use domestically manufactured goods and services as much as possible.  The second part is to restrict immigration of workers so that citizens will have more opportunities to find a job.

Section 3

This section has 6 subsections.  The first two subsections directs the agencies and the heads of those agencies are to review their compliance with the Buy American laws and to take measures to minimize usage of waivers.  The next subsection calls for guidance to be written for the review and implementation by the agencies of the Buy American laws.  The next subsection mandates a written report by each agency on the finding pursuant to the review of practices that was stipulated.  The next subsection, which does not seem to make a lot of sense in the context, calls for a review of free trade agreements and the WTO agreement and how that impacts domestic procurement preferences.  This seems to be out of place here because it is asking a leading question.  The last subsection is asking for a report to be submitted to the President summarizing all of the other reports provided.

Section 4

This section gives some additional guidance for the use of waivers which result in procurement from non-domestic sources.  It adds complications and additional required justification for use of waivers.

Section 5

This section directs that new guidance is issued for the administration of the immigration system to further restrict immigrants from coming to work in the USA.  Specifically targeted is the H-1B visa program and there has been some backlash from the technology sector regarding this issue.

Section 6

This section contains the usual fine print to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

It is good policy that government procurement favors domestic sources for a variety of reasons.  I would be surprised if government procurement has not actively tried to support domestic manufacturing always.  There is a lot of reports and facts that need to be gathered, it will unlikely find any real big hitters with regards to inappropriately awarded foreign contracts.  Further, the reality of the current supply changes in the manufacturing industry is that they are global in nature already and there is little hope for and little real value in trying to put that genie back in the bottle.
The second prong of the offensive is simply a sign of the vitriolic xenophobia that this administration has expressed since day one.  I honestly feel that this is offensive and thankfully really significant changes would require Congress to pass legislation, although guidance and changes to regulations are probably going to have some effect although it will be mostly due to reputation rather than because of the effectiveness of the change in policy.  The end result here is that the best and brightest will not come to America and then go somewhere else.  This will hurt competitiveness in the long run.

Executive Order 13798: Religious Liberty

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13798 is entitled "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" and has 6 sections.  Unfortunately it does not concretely answer who's free speech and who's religious liberty.

Section 1

This section defines the policy of the administration with regards to religious freedom and the freedom of speech regarding religion.  This is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Section 2

There is a long standing agreement from the 1960's that churches should not involve themselves in partisan politics.  This section of the EO kind of hints that if they were to do so, then the IRS and other agencies who might be inclined to apply penalties should look the other way.

Section 3

This section specifically refers to the mandatory requirement for health plans to cover contraception and the fact that certain religious groups are opposed to the use of contraception.  Essentially this directs various agency heads to look at the issue and certainly does not mandate a hardline position.

Section 4

This section directs the Attorney General to issue guidance on the application of religious liberty protections to Federal Law.

Section 5

This section has a severability clause.  In many cases, this is assumed, but only where there is anticipation of any kind of legal challenge would one want to put this explicitly.  In fact, if you look at previous EO's, there have been a few which have had it included and many others that did not.  To some extent this clause could be an indication as to the origin of the EO but of course, better sleuths than me would be needed to confirm that.

Section 6

This section has the usual fine print to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

So where all of this starts to fall apart is the fact that in the Bill of Rights there is also mandated the separation of church and state.  It then further falls apart in that there is a pro-Christian undertone to all of this and in reality, every religion should be entitled to the same protections.  While some of the specifics such as Section 2 and 3 are issues that Christian groups specifically have lobbied for, the reality is that if further actions and documents that are issued do not adequately reflect the freedoms for all religions, then the administration opens themselves up to charges of religious based discrimination and hypocrisy.
The freedom of religious practice and freedom of religious belief are bound to conflict with the other rights and freedoms given in the constitution.  Religious beliefs, after all, are beliefs about what an ideally structured society should look like and how people should behave.  While any given church can mandate the structure within its organization, it can only try to affect the larger society through the political process.  And here, given the required separation of church and state in the constitution, there has to be clear limits to the extent of what political involvements a church can exercise lest it start to give an appearance of a preferred religion.
The behavior of members can to some extent be defined and even controlled, but with respect to non-members, do rights of conscience exist?  That is, if a member of a church (or religion) that holds a specific belief based on their faith have the right to intervene with non-members of the church or does that violate the rights of the non-members?  This question has been answered as "depends on how controversial the belief is".  If we go with "thou shalt not kill" as it might apply to the average person on the street, it is pretty much agreed that killing is wrong and punishable under the law and action on this belief is acceptable.  But take "thou shalt not kill" in the context of abortions or of capital punishment, you can start a bar fight in the right parts of the country and ultimately the justification of actions taken is unlikely to be considered defensible in a court of law.
This EO is much more of a political statement rather than anything change to law or regulation set in motion.  There are potential unintended consequences floating around in the background such as someone using this as a justification to promote Sharia law.  It should be reversed at the soonest opportunity.

Executive Order 13797: Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13797 is entitled "Establishment of Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy" and has 4 sections.

Section 1

This section establishes the Office with a Director and staff as determined by members of the Executive Office of the President.

Section 2

This section states that the basic mission of the Office is simply to advise the President on policy that will increase economic growth, decrease the trade deficit, and strengthen the manufacturing base and as a result help American workers.

Section 3

This section describes the Office's responsibilities.  This does not include any really specific on-going programmatic tasks.  It appears logical that the Office might be given tasks to implement actions from the previous EO on trade review (13796) and the text does explicitly reference EO 13788.

Section 4

This section includes the necessary fine print in every EO to assure its constitutionality.

My Commentary

This is just a step and in itself, not good or bad.  It is entirely possible that the President's team could have made decisions during the transition to lead with these kinds of EO's right after inauguration.  It would be possible they could have garnered some goodwill.  Now with the non-specific nature of just restating a goal of making things better for American workers without being specific as to what is going to change, this appears to be at best, belated, and at worst, an attempt to distract from the news of the day.
There is a definite feeling that there was never any concrete policy behind the campaign promises.  In fact there is a paradox behind this issue that is not being addressed by the administration.  In a nutshell, it is this: the changes required to make American manufacturing competitive with that of the places such as China and India mostly come down to paying workers less or raising prices of goods; both choices reduce the purchasing power of American consumers.  There are some arguments about greater overheads and productivity levels, and I will go into that at some time in the future, not here and today.  Nonetheless, to the extent that government has effective tools to address prices of imported goods, trade agreements and tax law are just about the only ones.  It is not like you can mandate productivity increases.
Anyway, my conclusion on this EO is that it is just window dressing for the moment.  Maybe in a year this office will have churned out some substantive and actionable  recommendations and draft legislation and proposed rules, but only time will tell.

Executive Order 13796: Trade Agreements

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13796 is entitled "Addressing Trade Agreement Violations and Abuses" and has 5 sections.

Section 1

This section defines the administration's policy.  In keeping with the rhetoric from the campaign, it has been repeated over and over again that the trade deals which are currently in place are not equitable and that America has suffered because of these trade deals.  One of the sentences here references that trade deals should "contribute favorably to our balance of trade."  That's not how it works.  Trade deals should contribute to the amount of trade but should be neutral as to the balance of trade.  In an ideal world, every country imports as much as it exports.  For America, we are out of balance importing much more than we export, and this is a problem, however, it has been a problem for 30 or more years and this simple EO will not solve that problem.
There is a description of the "results" of trade policy as was implemented by previous administrations and this is a litany of complaints about the economic decline of the manufacturing industry in America.  It is simplistic to blame the entirety of decline on trade deals.  There are many additional factors involved.

Section 2

This section directs the US trade representative to review all trade agreements with other countries as well as the trade with countries for which no such deals exist and provide a report on how it is going.

Section 3

This section defines the parameters of the report of performance required in section 2, above.  These parameters include documented violations, unfair treatment by trade partners, and situations where the trade agreement has not fulfilled the expected positive economic impact for that trade agreement.    Finally, the report shall also include recommendations on how the issues can be remedied.  The reports are due in 180 days after the date of the EO.

Section 4

This section direct the US trade representative and others to take the recommended action from the reports of performance of the trade agreements.

Section 5

This section includes specific legal statements required to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

We have seen this kind of thinking from this administration time and time again in these EO's.  There is an ideological talking point which was distilled into a campaign slogan which was believed on faith.  These points were not debated or argued or examined because of the fact that they were accepted by the President and those with whom he had chosen to surround himself as articles of faith.  Now that the administration is asked as to how they are going to actualize these campaign promises, suddenly there is a need to actually study the question in the context of the regulations, laws, facts and such to see what can be done without actually just breaking the system and causing everyone to lose everything.
In a few cases, there are specific legislative or regulatory recommendations which are given by lobbyists mostly although in a few cases, there have been other policy experts actually inside government who simply had been waiting for the opportunity to advance a long standing project that simply had not been in vogue during the last Democratic administration.
This simply underscores the point that there is no coordinated plan or scheme, everything is reactive, everything was said in a cynical ploy to get votes.  There was never any serious thinking on how the promises could actually be implemented.  There was going to be an EO directing staff to start the process to exit NAFTA as had been promised during the campaign, until it was explained that this would cause an incredible amount of economic pain and result in large job losses.
This EO kicks the can down the road.  It will be interesting to see what the reports in 180 days recommend for action.  If they tell the truth, then good, but if they end up being an exercise in selecting and twisting facts to accommodate pre-conceived notions, then frankly we have to get rid of this administration by any legal means possible.

Executive Order 13795: Offshore energy

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13795 is entitled "Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy" and has 13 sections.

Section 1

This section provides the rationale for accelerating off-shore drilling.

Section 2

This section states the policy.  The focus is on expanding exploration for oil and gas, including off-shore resources.  It does state that this is to be done in ways that "any such activity is safe and environmentally responsible."  Clearly what is meant by "safe and environmentally responsible" is the topic of interest.

Section 3

This section outlines that the goal here is to explore off-shore regions for potential mining and/or drilling for gas or oil.  This means that the government needs to try and make the areas available for exploration and also provide the permits required to do this exploration in a way that does not overly burden industry with regulations.

Section 4

This section has several subsections.  There is first a prohibition against the expansion of any Marine Sanctuary.  Second, there is a review of existing Marine Sanctuaries and National Monuments.  Note that this review is somewhat different that that which was announced in a recent EO.  And finally, there is a revocation of a previous EO signed under the former President to reduce the regulatory requirements.

Section 5

This section re-defines previous memos to read something different.  I cannot really make out what the difference is because I am not able to look at the originals.

Section 6

This section directs the review of two different items, one being a notice so lessees, the other being BOEM's financial regulatory policy.  Again, all of this is to reduce the regulatory burden on oil and gas companies drilling offshore.

Section 7

This section directs the Secretary of the Interior to review with the intent to revise or withdraw a rule regarding safety systems to prevent wells from blowing out and spewing oil and stuff all over the place such as the large spill in the Gulf of Mexico many years ago.

Section 8

This section directs the Secretary of the Interior to review with the intent to revise or withdraw a rule regarding air quality of off-shore oil and gas operations.

Section 9

This section directs the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior to expedite certain kinds of requests that have to be controlled which deal with effects of human activity on the marine environment.  In other words, the EO is directing that the government agencies simply rubber stamp the requests.

Section 10

This section directs the Secretary of Commerce to review a technical report from NOAA.  This document defines limits on how loud human activities can be before becoming dangerous to the hearing of marine mammals such as whales.  The point of this EO is that if the cost of being able to have the large oil companies exploit off-shore oil fields is some deaf whales, then the administration is ok with that.

Section 11

This section directs the Secretary of the Interior to review and issue a notice with regards to changing a rule on drilling in the Arctic.

Section 12

This section includes a definition for "Planning Areas" which references a 2015 BOEM document which had been developed and approved under the previous President's term.

Section 13

This section has the usual legal clauses required to assure the constitutionality of the Executive Order.

My Commentary

I disagree with the direction that this EO is attempting to take the country.  This EO smacks of a returned favor to the Oil industry who have supported Republicans for a long time.  There is a need for oil and gas in the economy.  From a national security perspective, it would be good to be independent from foreign oil, especially that which comes from Canada, so that these foreign countries cannot use energy supplies as leverage such as what happened in the 1970's at the time of OPEC's establishment.  However, because of the fragility of the environment, the scale of potential impacts in the case of a single accident, and the non-transparency of the administration, the safeguards are in place for very good reasons.  They are in place such that responsibility is taken to assure that all phases of resource extraction are done with a minimal amount of impact to the environment, especially when this environment is pristine such as off the west coast, especially near Alaska.
One thing that strikes me is that some of the directives made in this EO seem to be saying effectively "just pretend that document doesn't exist".  Fundamentally, we are trusting that the civil servants who should be subject matter experts in these fields are able to look at the science around a specific requirement and come to a conclusion as to whether the science is valid or not.  Wishing reports and/or evidence away does not change facts.  I trust that regardless, the civil servants will work with facts to the best of their ability.

Executive order 13794: American Technology Council

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order 13794 is entitled "Establishment of the American Technology Council".

Section 1

This states that the policy of the government is the efficient, secure and economical use of Information Technology in the execution of providing services to citizens.  These three principles are competing against each other and a real issue is to find an adequate balance between them.  Given the recent news of cyber attacks and the constant stream of announcements regarding data breaches and compromises, one would think that security would be paramount.  However, the extra infrastructure and apparent hassle to implement two factor authentication for all citizen logins into government web services would not be economical or efficient.

Section 2

This section is a single sentence which announces the establishment of the American Technology Council (ATC).

Section 3

This section defines the 18 different permanent members of the ATC.  Usually there is a caveat in these kinds of initiatives that the head of the agency can appoint a permanent delegate of one of their senior officers.  This seems to be missing, so unless there are regular cabinet meetings at which this ATC will append their meetings, it would be difficult to get a quorum of members of out such a high level group.

Section 4

This section allows that anyone can be invited to attend meetings from time to time.

Section 5

This section defines that the president, vice-president or the director of the ATC shall preside over meetings of the ATC.

Section 6

This section defines the functions of the ATC and has 3 subsections.  The first lays out the main functions of this newly established body.  It is intended to be a forum in which co-ordination and co-operation across departments.  The body is expected, where appropriate to make recommendations to the President regarding policy such as laws and regulations.  Finally, it is also intended to have a certain amount of oversight function regarding the implementation of Information Technology.
The next 2 subsections limit the scope of the ATC such that it is not to get involved in systems related to national security (where this is defined in 44 USC 3552(b)(6) ) nor impede the existing directives to the OMB..

Section 7

This section has 4 subsections which deal with certain administrative matters.  One thing that is defined is that the Director of the ATC is within the Office of the President in the organizational chart.  There are also 2 specific subgroups defined which are a senior interagency forum and a deputies committee.

Section 8

This section is a sunset clause set to expire at the end of the term of the current President.

Section 9

This section includes the necessary legal caveats to assure the constitutionality of the Executive Order.

My commentary

Cybersecurity is an important topic these days not only for government, but also for businesses and individuals.  Balancing against that is the continued focus to deliver government services over the internet through various means such as web pages, apps, and email with the ensuing savings and convenience.  I would be rather surprised to learn that there was no interagency forum in the executive branch that dealt with Information Technology and the broad aims.  It is possible that the intention of the authors of this EO was to capture some of the existing groups under this EO, but often that would mean a change to laws and regulations from where these groups were established.
Fundamentally, the success or failure of this kind of group is a function of leadership and resources.  If the correct leader is appointed, the group can become productive, but only if there are resources to sustain it.  This EO establishing the ATC only briefly mentions that the Director is a member of the Executive Office of the President.  However, there is no funding statement for staff and related expenses.  There needs to be a budget line item also.
Finally, I would say that there is no specific vision expressed beyond a vague idea to make things better.  Clearly, security is the biggest concern but implementing good security will come at a cost in hardware, software and administration as well as a reduction in usability of the services delivered in a virtual manner.  One question is whether or not there could be more US government apps created or perhaps a "mother" app which then has modules for the different agencies.  There are clear questions as to whether this EO will make things better, cynicism suggests no, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Executive Order 13793: Dept of Veterans Affairs

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13793 is entitled "Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection at the Department of Veterans Affairs".  This EO establishes within the Department of Veterans Affairs an Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.

Section 1

This section outlines the purpose of the EO.  It is to improve accountability and to better protect whistleblowers at the Department of Veterans Affairs.  There is a history of veterans not being able to get adequate care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The populist view has been that this is due to government employees behaving badly and being inefficient.  To improve the care for Veterans, this Executive Order will encourage the employees to report wrongdoings to the newly established office since obviously the management of the department is not able to affect changes to improve care.

Section 2

This section has 3 subsections.  The first subsection sets a deadline to implement this EO within 45 days.  It is not obvious why it states "and to the extent permitted by law" is included as a condition to the establishment of the office.  Does this suggest that there are laws and/or regulations which prevent such an action?  The funding for the office will come from the VA, subject to the availability of appropriations.  It is entirely possible that despite this EO, the office could have no funding and as a result be neutered.
The second subsection defines the role of the Special Assistant, or Executive Director of the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.  This lists the following duties: help discipline and/or fire non-performing employees or managers; propose changes to legislation that would make it easier to discipline or fire non-performing employees or managers; act as an ombudsman for veterans' complaints; investigate and correct wrongdoing in the department; and protect whistleblowers.
The third subsection directs that if some of these functions overlap with currently in place organizational structure, the new office should not duplicate the effort but rather integrate this new office with any existing offices or departments.

Section 3

This section includes the necessary legal caveats to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

On the basis of inclusion of 2(c), this seems like a giveaway that there are already some parts of the organization that do many if not all of the functions defined in 2(b).  This suggests that there is very much more optics involved than substance.  Additionally, when looking at the functions in 2(b), it frankly gives the appearance that the Special Assistant is really effectively the same as the "political officer" on Soviet and WWII German submarines, who are there to assure loyalty and that the official propaganda is maintained while out of contact with headquarters.  While the ombudsman function on behalf of veterans is laudable, the rest of this seems to encourage that employees and managers can report others for ulterior motives which would make the work environment even more toxic than what it is.
The issues at the VA are serious, complex and disgraceful.  They do need to be fixed.  This EO is not a serious effort to address the problems, some of which are questions of adequate funding and others which comes from already poisoned work environment.  I would love to have my cynicism proven wrong here, but addressing the problems involves a lot of detailed analysis of current systems and service levels and corrective action will be gradual and require real leadership; leadership of the kind not often seen in this administration.

Executive Order 13791: Education

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13791 is entitled "Enforcing Statutory Prohibitions on Federal Control of Education".  This EO is largely window-dressing.  This EO directs that the Department of Education review all of the guidance documentation and regulations and remove, rescind or modify any such documents that attempt to standardized at a Federal level primary and secondary education.

Section 1

This section lays out the policy direction of the administration which is to allow as much as possible control to State and Local government to define the requirements for primary and secondary education within the current law.

Section 2

This section directs the Secretary of Education to review all Department of Education regulations and guidance documents to assure that they are not overly prescriptive with regards to curriculum, administration and teaching resources that might violate current law.  This includes broad categories of documents, essentially anything that the Federal Government has published that could be used in the classroom.  Finally this section states that the Secretary of Education should take these measures within 300 days.

Section 3

This section provides a definition for guidance document that is broad and encompasses pretty much anything that the Department of Education has published and can be used in the classroom.

Section 4

This section provides boilerplate caveats necessary to ensure constitutionality of the EO.

My Comments

The intention here is to pull back the Federal Government from Education.  There is longstanding concerns as Education has always been considered within the States' jurisdiction and not as a Federal concern.  While acknowledging the constitutional issue, this is nonetheless a dangerous position to take.  Education, and specifically primary and secondary education are key in a number of ways: to assure a common understanding of the current culture; to provide for basic literacy, numeracy and critical thinking in the next generation of workers; to assure a safe space for social growth of students regardless of background.
I worry about having creationism taught as an alternative to evolution.  I worry about an emphasis on rote learning of facts with no aim at a deep critical comprehension of the context in which those facts exist.  I worry about schools and teachers modeling exclusion of the other rather than inclusion and acceptance of all.  Now more than ever, because of the huge challenges we face, not only in America, but around the world, education systems cannot mass-produce conformist consumers of every thing and every media who passively accept whatever comes their way.  We need critical thinkers, but graduates must also have some common knowledge of recent history rather than partisan talking points which may not be untrue, but are designed to mislead.  Given the vast quantities of text and data available at the touch of one's fingers, evaluation of a given assertion, assumption or conclusion is a necessary skill.  Critical thinkers can rationally consider, evaluate and verify the arguments of the other side, not just reject them using pre-planned formulae.
The policy challenges are daunting.  The current gridlock is driven by the marketing of simple solutions that can be summarized in a slogan and repeated over and over again in lieu of constructive argument and debate.  You cannot solve complex problems with simple solutions.  We need the education system to produce citizens who appreciate the complex solutions and are willing to invest the time in their citizenship to critically consider what direction the country should go in.  To achieve these goals, 50 states pushing in different directions will not work.  The Federal Government needs to exercise its power or else the differences across the country will multiply and end up dividing us rather than just adding local flavor to the universal theme which exists at the root of the country.
But on the bright side, this EO is largely window dressing.  It directs the Secretary of Education to push in the direction of disengagement and is merely an announcement of intentions.  For once, it does not even call for a report!  But having announced their intentions, the rest of the country will now have to be alert to resist where possible Federal disengagement from an area where otherwise they could have great positive influence in keeping the country together and bringing us all forward to meet the future.

Executive Order 13792: Review of National Monuments

What the Executive Order says

This Executive Order (EO) is entitled "Review of Designations under the Antiquities Act".  The EO argues that in a number of cases, areas have been designated as National Monuments under the Antiquities Act both as an act of overreach as well as in face of significant and valid objections of local citizens and governments.  It concludes that a number of National Monuments are hindrances to the desired land use by locals and therefore should be reduced in size or abolished entirely.

Section 1

This section of the EO defines what the policy of the administration is with regards to National Monuments.  This references 54 USC 320301 to 320303 and asserts that some of the recent National Monument designations that have been made did not meet the correct balance between the protection of landmarks, objects and structures vs. land use of designated lands and adjacent private land.  Looking at the text of 54 USC 320301, it would actually seem that designation of areas as National Monuments on the basis of the argument that they are unique and therefore protectable ecologies is incorrect.  Let me be clear: I am not saying it would be morally incorrect to save unique ecological areas, but that using 54 USC 320301 to do it is legally indefensible.  In 320303, it states that there are Regulations to be issued that govern the implementations of the chapter of the USC, I have not looked these up.

Section 2

This section has multiple subsections.  In Subsection (a), it sets forth criteria for a review to be made of designations by Presidents under 54 USC 320301.  These reference the law and also add in some general criteria of a partisan nature which is sufficiently vague such that any designation can get included where desired.
Subsection (b) call for the Secretary of the Interior to co-ordinate with other departments of the Federal Government while Subsection (c) calls for consultation with local, state and tribal governments.
In Subsection (d), it requires that the Secretary of the Interior provides an interim report to the President within 45 days.  In recent days, there have been new stories suggesting impending rule-making  to decertify or modify the boundaries of 27 different National Monuments which includes one in Oregon.  This story notes that the regulations website which accepts comments on proposed rules will open May 12th, 2017 for comments about this topic.  Clearly, it is too soon for an interim report as required by this subsection, but someone at the Department of the Interior has been thinking about this for months even before the EO was issued.
The last subsection calls for a final report of recommended actions which are consistent with the policy of the administration as expressed in section 1 to be issued within 120 days of the EO.  It is to include Presidential actions, rulemaking and legislative recommendations.  Stepping back to gain some perspective, I don't really understand why all of this kind of thinking had not been done during the transition period and why it seems that this President and his team are only now starting to think about how to turn some vaguely enunciated policy into an implementation of laws and regulations.

Section 3

This section is boilerplate caveats that are required to assure the constitutionality of the Executive Orders.

My comments

There is a continuum on humankind's relationship with the biosphere: humans should exploit it to the fullest extent being at one end and that humans should preserve it to the fullest extent being at the other end.  Intermediate positions rest on some informed notion or definition of what would be considered fair and responsible use of environmental resources.  I doubt very much that most people do not realize that humans have an impact on the environment and that either the environment can absorb that impact or it cannot.  The most egregious domestic example of the inability to absorb the impact is Love Canal.  To some extent accurate predictions can be made ahead of time to determine whether an ecosystem can absorb the impact of some specific human activity.  But the imperfection of the predictions gives rise to two schools of thought:  those that think that if there are large margins of error, exploitation should be started and adjusted after damage starts to appear; and those that think where this is some chance of damage, activity should be curtailed as any damage is undesirable.
Clearly the current administration is staking out positions on the exploitation end of the continuum.  This does have some risk.  Clearly the chances that another environmental disaster along the lines of Love Canal have risen in the past 100 days due to the actions taken by this administration.  The failure at the Federal level can be mitigated by State, local and tribal protections.  However, these additional burdens to local governments exacerbate their fiscal positions with so many other issues involving transfers to States being on the table already.  But, as citizens, all we can do is start at the local levels and voice our informed notions of where to draw the line on reasonable exploitation of natural resources.

Executive Order 13790: Rural Prosperity

Summary of the Executive Order

The President's Executive Order (EO) 13790 is entitled "Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America".  Just off the top, the "in America" is gratuitous and unnecessary but that's the President for you. The thrust of this EO seems to be twofold, to promote growth of economic activity in rural areas as well as reducing the burden of regulations as it affects rural areas.  This is to be done by a Task Force which replaces a previous Rural Council.

Section 1

This section outlines the policy.  This policy foresees that rural areas will be primarily focused on producing food, fiber, forestry products and renewable fuels.  The last is a nod to the corn-based ethanol industry.  What is not mentioned is any kind of promotion of manufacturing, it seems that manufacturing is viewed by those in power to only be done in urban areas.
This section also lists as aim for regulations such that they do not: encumber agricultural production, harm rural communities, constrain economic growth, hamper job creation, or increase the cost of food for Americans.  Removal of regulations would seemingly do all of the above except preventing harm for rural communities.  So again, we end up with competing priorities as the basis for action and therefore the decisions shall reflect judgment calls of the cabinet members involved in the execution of this EO.

Section 2

This section announces the formation of the "Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity."  This Task Force will be funded by the Department of Agriculture.

Section 3

This section lists the members of the Task Force.  The chair is the Secretary of Agriculture.  In subsection (b), it is noted that the secretaries of departments can designate senior staff to attend on their behalf.

Section 4

This section defines what the Task Force is to do.  Basically this Task Force is to sit down and think what the government can do to make life in rural America better.  The EO provides only a few hints as to what might be done and these include: providing for better educational opportunities including post-secondary studies in agricultural education (see 4(a)(iii)); respecting the unique circumstances of rural businesses and their unique business structures which to me sounds like endorsing the use of illegal immigrants as laborers (see 4(a)(v) and (vii)); eliminate taxes, specifically estate taxes (see 4(a)(viii)); and encouraging people to eat more (see 4(a)(xi)).
A couple of times there is mention that decisions need to be based on the best available science.  I guess the implication is that in the past the Department has relied on only the second-best available science.  Also there is discussion of what was brought up during the Occupation in Oregon with regards to access to water and grazing resources on Federal lands.  The EO does seem to buttress that farmers and ranchers should be able to access Federal lands and frankly I don't necessarily disagree, it is just a question of the terms of that access that are the sticking point.  Free access without responsibilities is simply the equivalent of a handout of the kind the Republicans often complain.
Subsection (b) provides for the input from local, state and tribal governments as well as other stakeholders to have input to the Task Force.
Subsection (c) directs the Task Force to address and co-ordinate their efforts to comply with several other EO's including the ones for Regulation Reduction, Curtailing EPA oversight, and Energy Independence.

Section 5

This section requires the writing of a report within 180 days.  The report is a to define a set of priorities.  I assume that if there are Rulemaking actions that can be initiated without any additional deliberation, these would simply be done, so the report will likely focus more on changes to law and larger Regulatory issues.  The question is whether this report will be made public once written.  A number of reports required by EO's have not shown up as publicly available documents already.  As such, it would have been nice to have this published in the Federal Register when issued.

Section 6

This section revokes an earlier Council which had been set up by the former President.

Section 7

This section has boilerplate statements required in all EO's.

The Effects

This EO really does not do anything.  Perhaps it changes the focus of the group that had been meeting to review rural issues, but that would have changed nonetheless simply due to the change in administration.  The report should be interesting reading and should give some indication as to how twisted the logic is that will be needed to justify changes that will benefit traditional Republican supporters and still appear to benefit poor rural Americans.

Executive Order 13789: Identifying and Reducing Tax Regulatory Burdens

What the Executive Order is

In the Federal Register, Executive Order (EO) 13789 "Identifying and Reducing Tax Regulatory Burdens" was published.   This EO has 3 sections.  The first section is a preamble, providing the rationale, the second section is the meat and the third section has some standard legal language required for constitutionality.

Section 1

In this section, it starts out positing an ideal situation in that the tax system should be simple, fair, efficient and pro-growth as well as talking about how regulations should be in an ideal world: to bring clarity and guidance to taxpayers.  So let's parse all these words.  by "simple", one believes that there should not be complex language, involved calculations, etc. involved in determine what someone or some corporation has to pay in taxes.  Insofar as this goes, I think everyone would agree.  By "fair", it is not clear what is meant as this word is quite loaded.  One way to implement fairness is that everyone pays the same.  But the same what? Amount? Rate? Proportion to income? Proportion to something else?  By "efficient", well, again here, I think most people agree that there should be as little government cost in the processing as possible.  By "pro-growth", we run into another loaded term.  I assume that this is intended to be growth of the economy.  I am not really sure how tax policy gets designed to be pro-growth.  One can make the argument that low levels of taxation promote growth.  Combining these things, you end up with competing priorities.  If you want to use tax policy to target social and economic objectives, it is difficult to do while maintaining simplicity and efficiency.  The tax code has at least partially arrived at the state it is in from the propensity of Congress to use it to promote specific kinds of activities (both economic as well as social activities) by providing for deductions or tax credits.  Further weighing against simplicity and efficiency is the question of fairness.
Fundamentally, fairness comes down to the question that for a given income level, what is an appropriate contribution to running the government?  What other circumstances should be considered other than gross income?  The more circumstances that are considered, the less simple and efficient the tax system will be.  The selection of what are appropriate circumstances to consider is partly a moral question and a question of the philosophy of life espoused by the respondent.  Often, people suggest a simple flat tax: regardless of the circumstances of one's life, a specific percentage of your earnings is paid in tax.  I would argue that this is a fundamentally immoral proposition because it fails to consider what circumstances which are beyond the control of a taxpayer such that the prescribed burden would in fact significantly harm that person.  By the same argument, I would suggest that a marginal rate of 80% for taxable income above $500,000 would be moral since it is very unlikely to cause significant harm to the taxpayer.  They won't like it no doubt, but given notice, the taxpayer can arrange their affairs to assure they will not be harmed by such a tax rate.
Depending on how one might define pro-growth, it certainly would conflict with the goals of simplicity, efficiency and fairness for any definition stated.  As such, this section is a mess of contradictions and just goes to show how the authors and the President do not have any fundamental philosophy or ideology that underpins the actions taken.

Section 2

In subsection (a) it calls for a report to be written and provided to the President within 60 days.  In this report, significant tax regulations issued since Jan 1, 2016 are to be reviewed.  Interestingly, while "significant" has been defined previously in an Executive Order, the section specifically says that this definition is not to be used.  However it fails to define significant and as such it is left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.  Basically, the report will outline what regulations the Secretary of the Treasury would like to change and clearly will be a product of ideology and the lobbying efforts of special interests.  The section does identify that the regulations that should be targeted include those that: (i) impose an undue financial burden on United States taxpayers; (ii) add undue complexity to Federal tax laws; or (iii) exceed the statutory authority of the IRS.
Since there is no basis given as to what might constitute an undue financial burden, this is going to be an arbitrary choice for the writers of the report.  Further it should be noted that taxpayers are both individuals as well as corporations.  The conclusions seem obvious.
The second point is a bit of a contradiction in that a review of regulations is required, but as regulations are subservient to laws, how can a regulation add complexity to a law?  Simply eliminating a regulation does not re-write the law although it may then allow the law to be simplified later by Congress.  I am not against the idea that reducing the number of special cases that need to be considered can result in simplicity and efficiency without affecting the fairness and morality of the tax laws and regulations, however, it is an incredibly difficult job to sort out what is what here because the tax code is so complex.
Finally, I doubt that any existing regulations truly exceed the statutory authority of the IRS.  These kinds of things are rooted out by certain groups and challenged in court pretty much immediately.  So unless there is going to be a significant change in the interpretation of the what the statutory authority of the IRS is, I don't see this as a useful criterion.
In subsection (b) it calls for a final report to be written and published in the Federal Register within 150 days.  I applaud the requirement for publishing it in the Federal Register as this promotes transparency and accountability in government.  I would encourage those who write these EO's for the President to sign to include such a requirement for all non-classified subjects.
In subsection (c) it calls for consideration of expanding the scope of "significant regulations".  Currently, any "significant" regulations are defined in EO 12866 and its successors and these require additional steps to be taken prior to implementation.  Expanding the scope of these steps will slow down government which seems to be what the goal is as a step to reduce the impact of government on day to day life.  Ultimately, if the scope is changed, this will need to be done by a successor EO to effect the change.  In subsection (d), other documents will be revised to implement the change.

Section 3

This section is boilerplate caveats present in nearly all Executive Orders.

OSU application for license of blackberry patent

This notice in the Federal Register advises that Oregon State University is has requested an exclusive license for a variety of Blackberry from the US Patent office.  This is an interesting development.  Essentially here it seems to be that under the law, life can be patented.  The notice references 35 USC 209 and 37 CFR 404.7.  These regulations have existed for some time, but I was not aware of them until reading this notice.
The above references sections of law and regulations deals with the granting of a license to develop and manufacture products based on a patent owned by the US Government.  The language in both sections is relatively general and has a few specific items listed in it.  The main concern I have with this is that the provision for granting a patent is that it is based on a specific "invention".  A new variety of plant, in my opinion, does not fit well with the concept of an invention.  While I am sure I am not the first person to put forth these arguments, I think it is worthwhile considering them as an exercise in critical thinking.
A traditional view of an invention is some man-made device used to perform some specific task.  To draw upon automotive history, a car and many of its subsystems are specific devices that perform specific functions through a specific implementation of principles.  A variety of plant does not fit into this view very well.  The differences include the fact that a variety of plant is defined by specific genotypes as opposed to a physical configuration of parts; plants are able to re-produce and are not subject to a manufacturing process; and that a given set of genotypes would be possible to arise naturally rather than being invented by humans.
Species and varieties of plants have been catalogs since Ancient Greece.  The basis for distinguishing plant species and varieties was originally careful observation of characteristics of the plants such as shape, size and number of leaves and whether it would reproduce with other kinds of plants or not.  When the DNA molecule was discovered by Watson and Crick, the understanding that the expression of characteristics arose out of the specific sequence of amino acids coded in the DNA came to be.  Essentially granting a patent on a variety of plant is effectively a patent on specific sequences amino acids in a genome.  There is a rule for patents that you cannot patent an idea, you have to patent an invention which is a specific (non-trivial) implementation of an idea.  My opinion is that a specific sequence of amino acids in the DNA molecule is much more of an idea rather than an implementation because given the state of biotechnological capabilities, the implementation is relatively non-trivial.
Because life is able to reproduce, control of "manufacturing" is not yet effectively possible.  I would grant that for a patentable life form, if the mechanism for reproduction was suppressed, it would nullify this objection.  Already there are issues with regards to GMO vs. non-GMO foods where if you have two farmers with adjacent fields and one farmer plants a GMO crop and the other a non-GMO crop, due to the possibility of cross-fertilization, the purity of both crops becomes impossible to guarantee.  Traditionally, patents were granted for mechanical devices where, in order to violate the patent, a specific verifiable action had to be taken.  With patenting and licensing of species and varieties of plants, violations can occur through simply negligence of someone using the patented or licensed plant.  This kind of situation is absurd and calls into question whether life can be patented.
Finally, even the argument that in some cases, genes from completely different plants are being combined to create a new variety or species is suspect.  While in the short term, I agree that a gene from an Amazonian bush is highly unlikely to appear in a strain of berry that grows in North America, the reality is that evolution operates on much longer time scales than the human life span.  Just because we cannot observe it to happen does not mean that it is not possible and therefore despite there being interventions made to modify genomes, it is not logically possible to argue that these kinds of mutations might not actually not occur given enough time.  The human brilliance is in making these changes occur quickly rather than making them occur at all.
Finally, given anything that can be done with plants, these actions can be applied to animals and even humans.  To take a pop culture example, in Guardians of the Galaxy, there is a character, Rocket, who is a raccoon upon which bio-engineering and cybernetics have been applied to create a sentient creature.  By the rules of the patent office, he could be patentable.  An actual example is what has been described in the book "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks".  Ultimately, the logical thing to do is to try and copyright or patent one's own genome.  Who knows what specific mutations, immunities or characteristics in your DNA may become marketable.  Since these amino acids sequences are really "you", you should have the right to their use.
The Federal Register notice does allow for comments, but these are limited specifically to issues regarding the applicability of the law and regulation on granting a license of a government owned patent to a third party.  The bigger picture as to whether characteristics that are due to a specific arrangement of amino acids would really need to be addressed by a change to patent law and regulation.