On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed another 11 executive orders to coordinate a better federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was severely mishandled by the Trump administration and has already taken the toll of more than 400,000 Americans to date. He is also expected to sign another two orders Friday to provide some more economic relief to the millions of people affected by the pandemic.
With a new administration taking office, there has been a dramatic change in tone from the federal government regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas former President Trump’s administration largely ignored the effects of the pandemic, refused to ask people to wear masks, and generally took the pandemic as child play, the Biden administration has pledged to take the pandemic seriously, by coordinating an organized federal response and not leaving state and local governments out to dry.
To that end, on Thursday, just one day after taking office, Biden signed 11 executive orders to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is a brief summary of them.
- Accelerate the manufacturing and the delivery of supplies for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and personal protective equipment by invoking the Defense Production Act.
- Direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to create federally-funded and supported vaccination centers.
- Require mask-wearing on many forms of transportation and in airports, including flights, trains, ferries, and intercity buses, while travelers entering the U.S. must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test. (How this is to be enforced is still unclear.)
- Direct FEMA to reimburse states the cost for mobilization of the National Guard and for emergency supplies.
- Establish the Pandemic Testing Board to expand coronavirus testing capability.
- Enhance collection, production, sharing, and analysis of COVID-19 data.
- Establish a preclinical program to boost development of therapeutics to respond to pandemic threats.
- Create a COVID-19 health equity task force to ensure pandemic response and recovery is equitable.
- Direct the departments of Education and Health and Human Services to provide guidance to safely reopening schools and educational facilities.
- Call on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to release COVID-19 guidance, to enforce worker health and safety requirements, and to determine whether emergency standards are required.
- A presidential directive to restore America’s leadership, support the international virus response, promote resilience for future threats, and advance global health security.
(Source: CNN)
By issuing a directive for masks to be worn on transportation, it gives airlines and other agencies the ability to remove unruly passengers from airports and flights. Although no guidance has been issued as to how airlines are to deal with passengers refusing to wear masks (e.g., will such issues be handled by the Transportation Security Authority, local police, or will airlines have to handle these issues by themselves?), it gives airlines the teeth and the law to remove such passengers.
Also, the invocation of the Defense Production Act will allow federal money to be used to increase production of required supplies, allowing vaccinations to be ramped up and achieve the Biden administration’s goal of 100 million vaccination doses administered in 100 days.
On Friday, Biden is expected to sign at least two more orders: one which will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for federal government officials and contractors, and another to provide federal aid to struggling families.
A long-fought progressive policy goal to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour, where it has sat since 2009, to $15 will now finally start seeing some of it come into fruition. The order will require the federal government to pay a minimum of $15 an hour to all government contractors and workers. It will also rescind a Trump administration policy that made it more difficult for federal workers to unionize and bargain collectively for better pay and benefits, and will also remove a classification for certain federal employees, the Schedule F classification, which was enacted by Trump and was seen as a way to politicize government service and make it easier to terminate employees with different political views.
The other order would increase the value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which is the federal government’s food stamp program commonly known as SNAP. This would apply to about 12 million households who rely a lot on those benefits, and for a family of four, could see benefits increased by 15 to 20 percent. The maximum benefit of the food stamp program would also be extended through September.
Emergency benefits, which replaced the federal school lunch program, would be increased so that families who rely on school lunches to feed their children would get more benefits. This new expansion would give a family of three an extra $100 every two months.
The Thrifty Food Plan, the program used to determine food stamp benefits, is also being called to be revised to reflect the rising costs needed to sustain a healthy diet.
Workers will also now be able to obtain unemployment benefits should they have to quit a job which they believe will put their lives in danger of COVID-19 or are unsafe during the pandemic. Republicans have tried to stop expanding unemployment benefits, claiming that it would “encourage” people to go out of work. Such claims have been refuted by scientific investigations.
Finally, this order will direct the Treasury to find new ways to provide stimulus checks to those up to eight million eligible people who have not received them due to not regularly filing tax.