![]() The executive order also declares a national emergency to deal with the threat to a peaceful reconstruction of Iraq, which Bush has renewed every year since, most recently in May 2008. Bush’s directive, justified as a means of protecting Iraqi oil profits, nullifies any sort of judicial proceedings relating to either Iraqi petroleum or the newly created Development Fund for Iraq. What the order says: Issued two months after the invasion of Iraq, this order offers broad legal protection for U.S. 5: Free Rein in Iraq Executive Order 13303 (PDF) May 28, 2003 ![]() This order should go no matter who is elected. While some supporters of embryonic-stem-cell research have questioned McCain’s resolve, his campaign says his position is unchanged. Both McCain and Obama supported the legislation that would have loosened Bush’s research restrictions when it came before the Senate in 20. In the meantime, Bush’s order is diverting funds even from research that could eventually sidestep his ethical concerns scientists have successfully harvested bone fide stem cells without harming the nascent embryo. But this is a tricky process that involves inserting new genes, and it’s not yet a sufficient alternative to embryonic stem cells. Researchers have found ways to turn back the clock on adult skin cells, reprogramming them as embryonic cells. There is certainly hope that the debate over whether to destroy human embryos to collect these valuable one-size-fits-all cells will eventually be moot. Why it should go: Supporting alternative means of creating stem cells is a fine idea-just not at the expense of supporting the more immediately available source of stem cells, which are among the most promising lines of medical research today. If either president says no, you have to sue to get the records. After stonewalling for months over access to documents from the Reagan era, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales drafted an order that gives a sitting president, or the president whose records are being requested, the power to review a documents request, with no time limit. But the Bush order essentially threw out the law’s bid for transparency altogether. The 1978 law itself was a compromise in favor of privacy in some respects: Presidential records aren’t disclosed for up to 12 years after an administration leaves office, and requests for them are subject to the limits imposed by the Freedom of Information Act, which means that classified documents stay secret. What the order says: With Executive Order 13233, the Bush administration tried to gut the Presidential Records Act, passed in 1978 to make sure that the internal documents of the executive branch are public and generally will become part of the historical record. 1: Gutting the Presidential Records Act Executive Order 13233 (PDF) Nov. So did the administration’s decisions to open up new swaths of public land to logging and mining and to raise the allowable level of mercury emissions. The recent bid to force family-planning clinics to certify that their employees won’t have to assist with any procedure they find objectionable, for example, took the form of a federal rule. ![]() We also realize that some of the Bush moments we rue didn’t come in the form of an executive order. ![]() What, then, is the worst of the damage President Bush has caused all on his own? In putting together a top (or bottom) 10 list from the Bush administration’s 262 EOs, we sifted through some familiar targets, such as his faith-based initiative and diversion of funds from stem-cell research. He’s the executive, and it’s his executive branch. Without negotiating with Congress to pass a law, or even going through the notice-and-comment period that precedes a new federal rule, the president can change the music that federal agencies dance to. The presidency comes with a superpowered pen for signing executive orders. ![]()
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