Executive Order 13810:Additional Sanctions, North Korea

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order (EO) 13810 entitled "Imposing Additional Sanctions With Respect to North Korea" was issued on September 20th.  It has a preamble and 12 sections.  This EO was issued to strengthen sanctions against North Korea because of the launching of missiles.

Preamble

This section summarizes some of the reasons why North Korea continues to be a threat to the United States.

Section 1

This section declares that a lot of commercial activity with North Korea or its nationals is blocked.

Section 2

This section states that aircraft and vessels that have been in North Korea are blocked from coming to the USA for a period of 180 days after their departure from North Korea.

Section 3

This section declares that funds are frozen and that financial transfers with North Koreans are prohibited.

Section 4

This section directs the Secretary of the Treasury to impose sanctions on foreign financial institutions if they do business with North Korea.

Section 5

This section bars entry into the US of persons who are conducting business with North Korea as defined in section 1.

Section 6

This section prohibits trying to evade these requirements or forming a conspiracy to try to evade these requirements.

Section 7

This section exempts the Federal Government from the prohibitions in the Executive Order.

Section 8

This section provides definitions for "person", "entity", "United States person", "North Korean person", "foreign financial institution", and "knowingly."

Section 9

This section provides rationale for implementation of the prohibitions without any notice (such as is required in rulemaking normally).

Section 10

This section directs the Secretary of the Treasury to get on his horse and enforce all the provisions including creating rules and regulations.

Section 11

This section defines when the EO comes into effect.

Section 12

This section is legal fine print.

My Commentary

This is actually a good EO in my opinion.  While the rhetoric has been inflammatory and as a result of contradicting the Secretary of State, there is real confusion as to what the negotiating position of the USA is, at least this EO is clear as to the effects and takes a strong position to pressure North Korea and those who support it to stop launching missiles.  The EO includes references to and builds upon a number of previous EO's and various laws and regulations.  It has the hallmarks of being written by knowledgeable people within the administration who have done this kind of thing before.  The President only had to sign it.
Enforcement of such things, especially since a lot of the prohibited activities could perhaps be conducted in disguised ways and it will be difficult to prove motive in the way of many actions.  I also note that there has been a notice from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control which listed a number of persons and entities from which property and interests are blocked.

Book Review: Knots by Gunnhild Oyehaug

First, I have to apologize since I can't figure out how to get the special character so as to spell the author's last name correctly.  The book is called Knots and originally I had thought of knots in rope, however, there are some different kinds of knots involved in a few of the stories including knots in rope as well as wood.
I was surprised at just how much passion is invoked in the stories.  At times rawly sexual, the characters are variously mad, glad and sad with thoughts, concerns and action revolving around family, lovers, would-be lovers, old lovers and those never loved.  There are 23 short stories in this thin tome.  A few stories are related.  The draw is the simple authentic language, the vivid emotion with all of the turbulent internal dialogue such that the setting, the plot, everything but the characters fades in relation to the burning emotions and intense focus that the characters express as we learn a little about the dark cold winters in Bergen, Norway.
I've enjoyed the read and recommend it to anyone who is looking for something a bit different.  It certainly will not please those who are looking for a trashy romance novel or pulp sci-fi story.  There are some flaws such that one does have to allow for sparsely decorated sets and characters who are only defined by their love (or not) of their spouse.
Would that Ms. Oyehaug have one of her novels translated into English, that might be a tasty read, or, should some of these ambiguities that can be left alone in a short story not be addressed in the novel, dry and chewy, potentially repetitive in flavor across the entirety of the story.  But I would look forward to taking a bite to see how the dish has turned out.
Knots by Gunnhild Oyehaug is available from the Library.

Executive Order 13809: Arming Police to the Teeth

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13809 is entitled "Restoring State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement's Access to Life-Saving Equipment and Resources" and has 3 sections.  It was issued on August 28th, 2017 and revokes the rules established in EO 13688.

Section 1

This section revokes EO 13688 entitled "Federal Support for Local Law Enforcement Equipment Acquisition" dated January 16, 2015.

Section 2

This section directs the Executive branch to unimplement the recommendations pursuant to EO 13688.  Including issuing new rulemaking to change any regulations that were issued as a result of that EO.

Section 3

This section includes the standard fine print to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

The original EO 13688 restricted the transfer of high powered military weapons and equipment to police forces.  For example, what police force really needs a 200 rounds per minute 50 caliber machine gun?  Under the revocation, police forces can now get these kinds of weapons when they are transferred to military surplus.  There have been documentaries created which discussed the militarization of police forces which contributed to an us vs. them attitude on the part of the members of the force as well as a reliance on resolving situations through force.
In my opinion, the safeguards in EO 13688 seemed to me to have been reasonable and I don't think this EO will contribute to the betterment of society.

Executive Order 13808: The situation in Venezuela

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13808 is entitled "Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to the Situation in Venezuela" and was issued on August 24th, 2017.  It provides some additional sanctions on individuals within as well as the entirety of the government of Venezuela and has 7 sections.  It builds on EO 13692, issued March 8th, 2015 and entitled "Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela."

Preamble

The preamble discusses the motivation for this EO as well as mentioning the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act as the basis for the actions detailed in the EO.  There has been a lot of description and analysis in major media outlets about what has happened and the problems faced by the Venezuelan people.  This EO is one of the clear actions that the administration (and for that matter, I think the US Government) has taken to try to influence future events in Venezuela.

Section 1

This section aims to cut off any US long term investments to the Government of Venezuela or the Nationally owned oil company PdVSA.  Note here that if you are a US manufacturer and sell products or services to PdVSA or the Venezuelan government, you are ok, provided the terms of payment are no longer the net 90 days.  Of course, you really do want to get your money up front if you do business there.

Section 2

This section, to me, is redundant.  I guess maybe it has to be spelled out for some people, but intentionally trying to bypass a prohibition is always illegal as far as I know whether or not it is spelled out specifically.  Here, I think that the point is using off-shore (non-US) banks as a conduit is one of the things they want people not to do.

Section 3

This section includes definitions for "person", "entity", "United States person" (which includes "any person in the United States") and "Government of Venezuela".

Section 4

This section directs the Secretary of the Treasury to implement this EO including promulgating rules in order to effectively implement it.

Section 5

This section, as with the preamble, provide the reasoning for issuing this EO.

Section 6

This section is legal fine print, often seen in other EO's.

Section 7

This section defines the exact time of effectiveness.

My commentary

So usually sanctions are taken by Congress.  It is not clear what is going on with the politics such that the President is issuing sanctions via Executive Order and it is not Congress passing measures to act against Venezuela.  Since, as is stated, financial transactions can be made so quickly around the world, going through the rule making process would allow anyone who wanted to do any of these prohibited activities the time to make all and any arrangements so as to nullify the effect of sanctions.
Overall, I think this EO shows signs of being hastily written as there could be some polish to the language and organization of the sections of the EO.  I agree that what is going on in Venezuela is terrible and that the government is corrupt.  I am glad that the tweet of military action was just apparently venting.  But even this situation and the US response to it drags into the discussion the questions of whether nation-building (of other nations) is part of the "mission" of the USA.  If there was a good track record (like the period after WWII), the benefits would be obvious and more support from the general populace.  However, recent attempts have significantly failed and so a great reluctance is created.  I think that the US does need to work at nation-building and spreading liberal, scientifically based democratic institutions around the work.  But we seem to have poor tools and overly grand ambitions.  That is not a problem I am smart enough to solve, but somehow as a nation it does have to be solved.

Executive Order 13807: Permitting Process

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13807 is entitled "Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects".  It was issued on August 15th, 2017 and has 7 sections.  It deals with streamlining the permitting process for the anticipated infrastructure spending that was a campaign promise last year.

Section 1

This section defines the aspirations of this EO which is to streamline Federal Government decision making so that decisions can be made quicker so as to expedite starting up construction activities.

Section 2

This section defines the policy.  Essentially this can be summarized as wanting to conduct environmental reviews through the various Federal agencies in a coordinated and efficient manner.

Section 3

This section contains definitions for "Authorization", "CAP Goals", "Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council", "Infrastructure Project", "Major Infrastructure Project" and "Permitting timetable".

Section 4

This section defines that the Federal Government will start creating agency and personnel performance goals to reduce the time to conduct environmental reviews to 2 years.  Further, information on whether these goals are being met will be published.  The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for the collection and publishing of the performance data.

Section 5

This section is about "process enhancements."  This includes the mechanism of establishing a "champion" for each infrastructure project which is winding its way through the review process and having that "champion" be responsible for shepherding the decision to a conclusion as quickly as possible.  Essentially, it is customer service.

Section 6

This section revokes EO 13690 entitled "Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and Considering Stakeholder Input" which had been issued by the previous President in 2015.  It also modifies some of the process defined in EO 13766 entitled "Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals for High Priority Infrastructure Projects".

Section 7

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

My Commentary

With respect to section 6, the roll back of the Federal Flood standards, it is ironic due to the intervening events with Hurricane Harvey and the damage due to flooding along the Texas coastline and elsewhere.  Clearly, this EO has not yet had any impact, but in the long run, this will result in more homes and businesses being built in flood hazard areas.  Further, as always with the current President, he is obsessed with trying to undo the actions that had been taken by the previous administration.
On that, it is always much easier to tear down than to build, just ask anyone who has done even a small home renovation project.  In the past 7 months since the inauguration, a fair amount has been undone, especially in the Justice department, but little has been achieved.  Even those things which looked like easy wins have turned out badly.  And even this revocation is actually flawed since EO 13690 is actually a modification to a previous EO.  And therefore, it does not actually eliminate Flood Risk Management, but reverts it back to older processes as defined in EO 11988 which had been issued under President Carter.
It needs to be noted that in section 2(b), previous administrations would have emphasized that decisions on environmental impacts need to be made based on information gathered in a scientific way.  Here, the decisions need only be "informed" although it does not state what information should be considered.  I have to admit there are some worthwhile goals expressed in the policy section.  To the extent that Federal agencies are jointly responsible for conducting environmental impact reviews, there should be obtainable efficiencies by reducing duplication and ensuring co-ordination across the various agencies, but this being an EO, it cannot actually change the Rules (i.e. the Code of Federal Regulations).  This is good since the last parts of Section 5 do seem to direct agencies such as the FPISC and CEQ to be responsible to push through environmental reviews with people who are political appointments making decisions.
In reading this, one thing I had been suspicious about is whether this streamlined permitting process could be used for private enterprise to build a manufacturing plant.  It does not seem likely.  However, nuclear power plants (despite how unlikely it is that someone would want to try to build a new one) fall into what can be considered by this EO.
This is in some ways a well thought out comprehensive document that seems to have been written by some knowledgeable policy wonks and ends up being relatively unpartisan in comparison to a lot of the EO's that have been issued by the current administration.  It should be noted that this EO is essentially version 2 of EO 13766 which actually details out some of how things can be made faster and better, but also it is based on a previous model "Synchronizing Environmental Reviews for Transportation and Other Infrastructure Projects" dating from 2015 (See Section 5(b)(iv)(A)).
It is not easy to judge just what are the long-run implications of this EO.  Faster decisions by governments on environmental approvals would be welcome, provided these approvals (or rejections) are fact-based and scientifically sound.  But the Federal government is only one piece, as is mentioned within the EO, state, local and tribal governments get involved as well.

Executive Order 13806: Manufacturing base

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order 13806 is entitled "Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States".  It has 3 sections.

Section 1

This section defines policy.  It posits that the manufacturing capacity and defense industrial base has been weakened by the loss of factories and jobs.  This has consequences for national security.  Therefore policies should be crafted to enhance manufacturing capacity and the defense industrial base.

Section 2

This section mandates that a report is created.  It does have a number of subsections which define the aspects of the report.  These include identification of stuff that is essential to national security, what domestic manufacturing capability exists, what internal and external shocks might precipitate a crisis and what we should do to prevent that.  This report is due in 270 days.

Section 3

This section contains the necessary legal fine print to assure that the Executive order is constitutional.

My Commentary

This is tricky.  There is a real national security weakness when the USA relies on weapons manufactured outside of the country.  Further, it is true that some weapons which are assembled in the USA rely on components and raw materials that come from outside the country.  Any of these components or raw materials could be made into point of leverage, be it batteries, memory chips or high strength magnets.  All of these three mentioned parts rely on metals which are often rare and not necessarily found in the USA.  Batteries require lithium.  Chips are made with gallium and arsenide.  Magnets are made with neodymium.  What are the options to obtain these minerals when faces with some kind of external shock.
The problem is that these Executive Orders have been, under this President, often tools of simple political posturing, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.  Also, anyone that knows anything about this topic knows that there are no simple solutions.  Partly this is because the pace of industrial innovation and technological development is such that in order to aim to catch up with someone, you end up trying to come up with the next round of evolution (or revolution) in a technology before them.  If you just try to match where they currently are, by the time you get there, you are behind again.
The last point I want to make is that short of the government procuring goods and services from private industry, there are few if any direct tools to create manufacturing jobs or build factories.  As such, the probability is that the suggestions will amount to re-invigorating the military-industrial complex of the 1970's and 1980's.  The government has much more power to influence conditions that are conducive to job growth and expansion of the manufacturing base.  These would include: low interest rates, low tax rates, less regulation, the availability of highly skilled workers who will work at low rates of pay. All of these disadvantage or harm workers.  Fundamentally, manufacturing is not coming back and we will have to deal with the national security implications of that.

Executive Order 13805: Infrastructure Council

It's been some time since I have posted here.  I've been busy at work and also trying to enjoy the summer.  Much craziness seems to be on-going, but still need to catch up on some of the Executive orders that have been issued even though they have been overtaken by events.  Long-term, we shall see if this blog continues or maybe I will change focus again to something else.  But, now to continue with Executive Orders...

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13805 is entitled "Establishing a Presidential Advisor Council on Infrastructure" and was originally signed on 7/19/17.  It has 8 sections.

Section 1

This section defines policy on infrastructure projects.

Section 2

This section simply establishes the council.

Section 3

This section defines the membership of the council to be 15 and that there are 2 co-chairs.  The members are solely appointed by the President at his discretion.

Section 4

This section defines the mission of the council.  Basically it is to come up with a list of things to be done and then make recommendations on how to get things done faster and using less public money.

Section 5

This section indicates that the council is to be run and supported by the Department of Commerce and the Secretary of Commerce.  The Secretary will set the course via determining the questions that the council should investigate for the report that they will submit.

Section 6

This section states that the council will create a report and submit it to the President.

Section 7

This section defines when the council is terminated.  This is December 31, 2018 at the latest, but could be sooner depending on when the report is submitted.

Section 8

This section contains the usual general provisions to assure that the Executive Order is legal.

My commentary

So this Executive Order has been affected by subsequent events in Charlottesville.  After the statements made by the President  which appear to endorse racist views, potential participants on the Council have backed off and now it has been basically cancelled.  However, there is some interesting bits of cognitive dissonance in section 1.  Even though the policy intends to "create high-quality jobs", the council is asked to find ways to cut costs in projects which would reduce both the number of jobs created in the US as well as the number of high-quality costs.  The policy states that there is a desire to "improve quality of life" and to "protect the environment", but yet the council is asked to find ways to expedite the approval process so that answering these questions is a rubber stamp rather than a true determination.
The membership is so vague that the council can be packed with partisans or through nepotism so clearly it is a political instrument.  This infers that the value of the output is likely going to be pretty small and therefore it is not a big loss that it has ended before it began in the first place.