New Trump executive orders will take aim at protected public lands, offshore drilling bans

President Trump signs an executive order
(Image credit: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

President Trump's White House is a flurry of activity as it pushes to chalk up tangible achievements before Trump hits 100 days in office on Saturday, and on Wednesday, Trump will sign executive orders on education and public lands. One of the orders will instigate an Interior Department review of all national monuments designated by his predecessors since 1996, with a perceived goal of opening more protected public lands to drilling, logging, and mining; the other will order Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to study how the federal government "has unlawfully overstepped state and local control," a White House official tells The Washington Post.

On Friday, Trump will sign yet another executive order, this one seeking to lift bans on offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans put in place by former President Barack Obama, The New York Times reports. It will order Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to study an Obama mandate to block offshore drilling in those waters through 2022, and call for a repeal of a permanent ban on drilling in Arctic and Atlantic areas Obama enacted in December 2016, using a provision of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. It isn't clear how much any of Trump's orders will accomplish.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.