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.