CHARLESTON – West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says he is concerned about the volume of executive orders signed by President Joe Biden during his first 100 days in office.
During his first 100 days as president, Biden issued 42 executive orders totaling 163 pages. For comparison, Donald Trump issued 33 orders totaling 103 pages in the same timeframe. Barack Obama issued 19 totaling 68 pages, George W. Bush issued 12 totaling 27 pages and Bill Clinton issued 13 totaling 25 pages.
“In his inaugural address, President Biden declared that ‘history, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity’ and that ‘without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,’” Morrisey says in his analysis of Biden’s presidency so far. “However, in the first 100 days of his administration, President Biden issued an unprecedented flurry of executive orders. …
Morrisey
“The unprecedented reliance on executive orders and the number of lawsuits filed by states and other key legal actions in the first 100 days stands in stark contrast to promises of ‘unity’ made by President Biden in his inaugural address and during his campaign. …
“The overuse of executive orders to make policy instead of working with Congress is an indication of a divisive agenda, and failure to even engage in notice and comment rulemaking before taking significant executive action reflects undue haste and an unfortunate closed-minded disregard for public input.”
Without congressional input or the bare minimum notice and comment procedures, Morrisey said Biden’s moves could lead to divisive mistakes, not unity.
“Biden’s actions represent the opposite of unity and a failure to deliver on his promise of bipartisanship,” Morrisey said. “As we said when he took office in the letter to President Biden from state attorneys general led by West Virginia, ‘We will not hesitate to step up to the plate when our states are harmed.’
“While President Biden has not lived up to his promise of moderation, we lived up to our promise that we will defend our states against presidential malfeasance.”
Morrisey says Biden’s higher use of executive orders also has meant more lawsuits. President Trump’s administration was sued just twice by states during his first 100 days, while Biden’s administration has been named in 18 state lawsuits. The filings are based on executive actions related to immigration, energy and efforts by the Treasury Department to unlawfully micromanage state budgets, as alleged by West Virginia and its 13-state coalition.
And after Biden issued a sweeping and radical commitment under the Paris Agreement that the United States will cut greenhouse gas emissions in half in just a few short years by 2030, Morrisey and officials from 18 other states filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court on a key legal issue that could cut off at the pass any attempt to impose Biden’s climate agenda by executive fiat.
Last month, Morrisey filed a petition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take action to stop an appeals court ruling that would give the Environmental Protection Agency what he calls “virtually unlimited authority to regulate wide swaths of everyday life.”
“The states urge the Supreme Court to take up and reverse a lower court decision that would give EPA virtually unlimited authority to ‘decarbonize’ the American economy,” Morrisey said. “The first 100 days of Biden’s administration has shown that the country cannot afford to give such expansive powers to the president. …
“Under the Constitution, states harmed by executive unilateralism can seek redress in federal court. As their state’s chief legal officers, Attorneys General will play a key role in providing a ‘check’ on the Biden Administration going forward, just as they have already in the first 100 days.”