Executive Orders

The process of producing executive orders isn’t immediate and involves several federal agencies providing input and feedback. Those agencies themselves are often the proposers of executive orders. The process of vetting the orders can lead to huge modifications and even to an order not being issued at all.

From research data done by Andrew Rudalevige, author of  By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power

• About 45% of executive orders came directly from agencies, not from more centralized White House staff.
• 6 in 10 are mostly decentralized with the preponderant input in their substance comes from the agencies and departments.
• Only 1 in 5 (20%) are preponderantly the product of the executive office of the president.
• The medium order takes more than a month to issue from the time that it reaches the Office of Management and Budget. There is a lot of variance, the average time is more like 75 days. A quarter of them take more than 90 days.
• As many as 1 in 5 executive orders are not issued at all. The most common reason for that is intra-executive branch input and dissent

The take-away is: the Executive Branch is a “they”, not an “it”. We must take seriously the bureaucratic politics of policy making which is ever-present and crucial to the policy making process. The process for issuing executive orders is called “Central Clearance” usually administered by the Office of Management and Budget, is done on behalf of the president. Presidential management skills matter.

Book: Checks in the Balance: Legislative Capacity and the Dynamics of Executive Power by Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower

How access to resources and policymaking powers determines the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches

In the public’s mind there’s an idea that presidents can use executive orders completely unrestrained and that there’s a common perception that over time presidents have used more executive orders, especially to get around congresses that they don’t agree with. Empirical findings through political science show the opposite. Presidents have used fewer executive orders and if you look at the patterns and way that they’ve used them its been fewer over time.

The reason for this, congress’s ability to restrain the president’s unilateral power.

There have been over 12,000 executive orders. They are not law and pertain only to the Executive Department.

Here are a few important ones:

10990 – allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports

10995 – allows the government to seize and control the communication media

10997 – allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum fuels and minerals

10998 – allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways

10999 – allows the government to take over all food resources and farms

11000 – allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervisions

11001 – allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions

11002 – designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons

11003 – allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft

11004 – allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned and establish new locations for populations

11005 – allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities

11051 – specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis

11310 – grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President

11049 – assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen-year period

11921 – allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in the US financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the president, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

Other Powers:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA’s Civil Security Division, stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA’s role as a “new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups form gaining access to US opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis”. FEMA’s powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate the National Security Act of 1947 that allows for strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirement for manpower, resources and production facilities.

1950 Defense Production Act gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.

Act of August 29, 1916 authorizes the Security of the Army in times of war to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material or any other purposes related to the emergency.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.