So what has President Obama done over the past month to get a few
last-minute liberal priorities in place before Donald Trump takes over?
Obama has moved forward on eight substantial executive actions so far:
- Enacted a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard.
- Refused to veto a UN resolution condemning Israel's settlements in the West Bank.
- Designated two new national monuments totalling more than 1.6 million acres: Bears Ears Buttes in southeastern Utah and Gold Butte in Nevada.
- Instructed the Department of Homeland Security to formally end the long-disused NSEERs database, which Trump could have revived as the backbone of a new Muslim registry.
- Instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to deny final permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline where it crosses the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
- Issued a final rule that bans the practice among some red states of withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other health clinics that provide abortions.
- Finalized rules to determine whether schools were succeeding or failing under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
- Began an investigation into charges of Russian hacking during the presidential campaign.
